So i’ve been working on a lil diddy and I’ve noticed that when I listen to the mix in my headphones the pitch of the mix sounds flat however it’s perfectly tuned when tracking through my monitors. Any idea as to why this happens?
I have the beyerdynamic dt770’s and KRK Rokit6’s if that helps.
You have to give your ears a rest after about 3-4 minutes of work, especially when the bass has a more melodic approach. By this I mean that your bass has relatively small intervals that move quickly as opposed to a bass line that has one pitch over a rhythmic ostinato, or contains larger intervals.
I say rest your ears because the same phenomenon happened to me a while ago. I arranged a bass line with a repetitive melodic pattern that outlined an e-minor chord down around e-2 to b-2. Now over the course of a few minutes, the fifth of that chord, ‘B’ started to “sound” flat, making the chord clearly diminshed in quality. I knew what I was hearing, but couldn’t explain why it was happening. I think it is due to the fact that your ear will tire very quickly to close intervals used in the bass over a long period. I also discovered that the amount of detuning you use helps the process along, which may become a problem to the listener after all has been mixed and mastered.
Of course, it always helps to make sure you don’t have a mistaken pitch bend automation set up somewhere. Hah!
Hope this helps.
[quote]JamieinNC (26/04/2011)[hr]You have to give your ears a rest after about 3-4 minutes of work, especially when the bass has a more melodic approach. By this I mean that your bass has relatively small intervals that move quickly as opposed to a bass line that has one pitch over a rhythmic ostinato, or contains larger intervals.
I say rest your ears because the same phenomenon happened to me a while ago. I arranged a bass line with a repetitive melodic pattern that outlined an e-minor chord down around e-2 to b-2. Now over the course of a few minutes, the fifth of that chord, ‘B’ started to “sound” flat, making the chord clearly diminshed in quality. I knew what I was hearing, but couldn’t explain why it was happening. I think it is due to the fact that your ear will tire very quickly to close intervals used in the bass over a long period. I also discovered that the amount of detuning you use helps the process along, which may become a problem to the listener after all has been mixed and mastered.
Of course, it always helps to make sure you don’t have a mistaken pitch bend automation set up somewhere. Hah!
Hope this helps.[/quote]
Thanks for the tip mate, I have a problem with giving my ears a rest… I also think there might be an issue with my headphones as well so I’m going to try a few pairs to see if that might be the issue too
Great! Let us know what you find when switching out headsets…I’d be interested in hearing your results.
J
[quote]
Thanks for the tip mate, I have a problem with giving my ears a rest… I also think there might be an issue with my headphones as well so I’m going to try a few pairs to see if that might be the issue too
[/quote]
So after a few weeks of observation, I’ve realized that it indeed is my ears that are tiring out. However, I would say that when programming bass sounds and monitoring in my headphones, they seem to sound pretty “farty”… I was wondering if someone could listen to this little clip and let me know if we are hearing the same thing in the low end.
Just to be known this is a foundation of another track. big ups to yotamlifz and his youtube tutorials.
For Yotamlifz N’ Giggles Riff by J.HiZ
Sounds good to me!
J