Acoustic treatment for the perfect mix space is an uphill battle of treating reflections, diffusion, room modes and more.
Here at Mixdown we often discuss mixing, the rooms we do it in and how to treat those room acoustically. But what if we do away with the problems that a room introduces? Sound reflects off walls and ceilings, while low end bounces around, arriving back at our ears in phase in some frequencies and out of phase in others, ultimately summing to something that’s not overly accurate. World-renowned mixer, Jesse Ray Ernster, has decided to do away with all of that while his new mix room is being built and is mixing outside.
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A few months ago, Jesse Ray Ernster shared a photo to his Instagram and the onslaught of comments began. Yes his Strauss monitors, available for an eye-watering price, would get dusty and dirty, as would the Apogee Ensemble interface and Whitestone Audio gear, but the outdoor space does another thing: it removes reflections. There’s no low end bouncing back to Jesse’s ears as it fizzles out before it hits the back fence, diffused by the children’s play equipment. There’s a boundary fence between him and his neighbours, but it’s metres away from the listening position and covered in greenery until the fence stops and the sound can bounce off into the ether. Ultimately, all that’s arriving at Jesse’s ears is the pure sound from his monitors.
Producer extraordinaire Eric Valentine had a similar experience when setting up a temporary mixing space, comparing outside to an anechoic chamber, in that sound comes out of the speakers and never really comes back to your ears. With this in mind, her did some frequency measurements of a pair of Adam T7V monitors that he ultimately ended up using for his little space.
Keep up with Eric Valentine and his audio adventures here.
