Klavay Mix Monitor
Frequency and Stereo Field Isolation
In today’s modern production culture, most of the glam goes to fancy synth tricks, kick drum processing secrets, and out of this world FX units. It’s hard not to get excited about these types of processes as these are the building blocks for a great sounding mix and an overall captivating track. However, all music must have a solid foundation, a foundation that gives us a reference point for which we can make confident and accurate mixing decisions. I’m talking of course, of monitoring.
Monitoring is the process by which we listen to our music during the process of recording or tracking. Now while some professionals may argue with my definition, they certainly won’t argue with that fact that monitoring is important. Having a neutral and accurate monitoring environment is crucial to making confident mix decisions. Since most of us work in less than perfectly treated acoustic rooms, we need to rely on reference tracks to gauge how our room responds to these imperfections and also how our music stacks up against professionally mixed music.
Reference tracks are exactly as they are described; tracks which we have selected for reference, whether that be because we know how the track should sound in an acoustically treated room or simply we want our music to sound like our reference track. Using reference tracks can illuminate errors in the treatment of your room, errors in the mixing process of your own track, or lead to the discovery of a brilliant mixing technique. Reference tracks build better mixing understanding, period.
This is where my Mix Monitor rack comes in. When using reference tracks, its often beneficial to listen to the whole spectrum, but also specific ranges of the frequency spectrum, as well as positions of the stereo field. Mix Monitor allows you to quickly dial in EQ settings so you can isolate the Sub, Bass, Mids, High Mids, and High frequency ranges of your track. It also allows you to listen to the Middle (Mono or Sum) and Sides (Difference) of your music’s stereo field as well as an adjustable Sweep function so you can listen to any area of the frequency spectrum.
How Does It Work
Mix Monitor is built with native Ableton Live plug-ins using multiple instances of EQ8 set up as low pass, band pass, and high pass filters. To separate the middle of the stereo field from the sides of the stereo field, Utility plug-ins are used so that you can hear how the stereo field or your track not only separates from the middle, but also folds to mono, as is important for playback on clubs systems and other devices. The Sweep function is set up so that at both polar opposites of the macro knob (0 and 127), the device is disabled. Once the knob is engaged, you can sweep the frequency range from as low as 30 Hz to as high as 22 kHz. All other macro knobs engage when MIDI signal is greater than 0.
How To Use Mix Monitor
Mix Monitor can be placed on your master track, your stereo bus, grouped tracks, or individual tracks. To use the device hands free, assign each macro knob using the Key Map Mode (Cmd + K) to a series of keys on your keyboard (i.e. 1 for Sub, 2 for Bass, 3 for Mids, etc.) You could even assign these functions to a separate MIDI controller using the MIDI map mode (Cmd + M). Once assigned, Mix Monitor can be used to analyze your reference tracks, your own tracks, drum loops, or synth patches so that you can isolate specific frequency ranges and parts of the stereo field. The uses of Mix Monitor go far beyond just monitoring, but I can’t express enough how important a good understanding of how your monitoring environment affects the overall mix of your track.
TECHNICAL STUFF
REQUIREMENTS
You'll need Ableton Live Standard or Suite 9.7+ to use this device.
WHAT'S IN THE DOWNLOAD
You’ll get a Klavay Mix Monitor.adg file which can be dragged and dropped directly into Live from your computers file browser. You can also add it to your User Library or a custom folder in Live's browser to easily load Klavay Mix Monitor from within Live.
Good luck and have fun!