8 ms·

Wait a second this guy is an icon/ui designer .... Which means he works on computer design so to be realistic most of his customers do not have "millions of col

by buugs 17y ago

Wait a second this guy is an icon/ui designer .... Which means he works on computer design so to be realistic most of his customers do not have "millions of colors". He has a 30 inch cinema display that he can now use for designing and checking colors with the replacement cable but he still would rather rant and rave and call support hours on end rather than just replace the laptop.

SwellJoe 17y ago
Professionals in any creative industry need to be able to see or hear exactly what they are actually creating. This is why audio monitors for recording studios cost a lot, and don't "sound as good" to the untrained ear. Accuracy is what you are paying for. If it is inaccurate in any one direction, the potential for problems during reproduction on client machines (which could be inaccurate in the other direction; doubling the magnitude of the problem) is much higher. Cheap monitors are bad in many different ways. One cannot predict exactly how it will diverge from what it ought to look like. So, if your source has been designed on a device that is accurate and balanced, you have a dramatically higher chance of it looking or sounding good on the majority of devices. I think it's a valid criticism of Apple. It is information that is valuable to consumers who work in the design field, and it's information that I would expect to find on the "Tech Specs" section of their site. The fact that they don't provide that information, for quite pricey machines intended for "professional" users, makes me very much less likely to buy their products. But, then again, I'm generally surprised that anyone puts up with the abuse that Apple inflicts on their customers.
- jimboyoungblood 17y ago
  I don't buy the accuracy argument for a second. By working only on the most expensive, rarified equipment, the only thing you're ensuring is that your own experience will be drastically different from 99.9% of end users. Imagine if the guy responsible for developing new recipes for McDonalds insists that his "creative work" only be done with organic Niman ranch beef.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    I don't buy the accuracy argument for a second. Seriously? I hope you're not a designer, videographer, photographer, or recording engineer. Imagine if the guy responsible for developing new recipes for McDonalds insists that his "creative work" only be done with organic Niman ranch beef. The point. You missed it. You're not even close. It's way over there. The monitor is the measuring cups, not the ingredients.
    - Retric 17y ago
      It's generally a poor assumption that averaging a huge number of inaccurate devices is going to end up with the same sound as one high quality set. I would support finding out what the "average" home equipment sounds like, but suggest "perfection" is the best approximation is laughable. For example, the average single cone speaker is going to be setup to handle mid range sounds ok, but it's going to miss highs and lows. I think the real advantage is people get used to how their system adjusts music. So by following the convention it's going to sound "normal" to them.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Yes, your experience will be different from that of most end users. But it will be minimally biased - you won't be baking in the settings that sound good on one set of cheap speakers but which would sound like total ass on other ones where cost has been saved in other ways. For example, many hifi and computer speakers come with some kind of bass boost. If I edit something using speakers like that there will be little or no bass on speakers which don't have that 'feature'. Or if I go in the other direction and finish on speakers that sound rather thin, the result will be an unmerciful honking noise on anything with a bass boost. Using a pair of (moderately) expensive speakers means I can split the difference, and know that while it will never sound as good as I'd like on consumer speakers, it will never sound too awful either. If you still don't think it matters, watch some short films or videos on YouTube. Then take even a modest Hollywood movie and notice how vastly, enormously better it sounds. Obsessing over sound and color seems trivial to those who don't have to work on content, but the very fact that most people take these things for granted is what fuels that obsession: because people are so sensitive they notice very quickly if the quality is off, even if they can't articulate why.
- derefr 17y ago
  > This is why audio monitors ... don't "sound as good" to the untrained ear. I've never understood this, myself. If it was mixed on monitors, and made to sound good on monitors, then shouldn't it sound best when replayed on monitors?
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    The point is that you can't know what it sounds like unless they are accurate. Every consumer speaker sounds different in different ways. So, if I bought a pair of mid-range car speakers to mix on, assuming most of my target audience would hear it on their car stereo, and I made it sound good on those speakers...even if everybody only listened on car speakers, odds are good it would still be too hyped or too bassy or too tinny on about half of all speakers. The degree of variance is the problem. If I mix on a set of accurate studio monitors (and assuming a reasonable level of skill in the area), the sound will be pretty well balanced across any number of speakers. Some will be hyped (smiley curve EQ), some will be bassy, and some will be bright. But a balanced mix will be pretty well-balanced on any set of speakers of reasonable quality. If I mix on speakers that lead me to boost or lower a specific set of frequencies, the speakers that do the opposite will be twice as far off as if I had mixed to a balanced set of speakers. Everybody here is probably pretty mathematical, so think of a single sine wave at a specific frequency. Say I'm aiming for an amplitude of 1 (units irrelevant). My mixing speaker boosts it by .5, because it's a speaker aimed at guys who like their cars to rattle. So, now I've mixed this sine wave at an amplitude of .66. If someone who likes bright sounding music (and with speakers that drop the bass by .5) listens, my mix now has the bass at .33 (ignoring all the dB math, and the crazy physics of ears/distance/frequencies etc. for the sake of simplicity). If, on the other hand, I mixed on a speaker that accurately gave me a 1 when I wanted a 1, it'll play at 1.5 on the bass-heavy speakers, and at .5 on the treble-heavy speakers. Smaller differences are better. Note also that professional studios also tend to include a few sets of speakers. You mix on the "mains" which are usually high quality near-field monitors, and you test on the small and big speakers and possibly a specific set of speakers that matches your target audience. Good engineers also usually live and breathe their projects, and so they'll also listen in the car on the way home and to work in the morning. The main work of mixing, however, always happens on a good, accurate set of monitors. If it doesn't, odds are very good it'll sound like crap on a good portion of speakers. And to answer this questions specifically: then shouldn't it sound best when replayed on monitors? Sure, but how many people have $1000+ speaker/amp combos in their car, iPod, home, etc.? The problem is merely one of making the best mix for the most people. If you know exactly what speakers your customer is using, and those are the only speakers that will be used for playback of your recording, then you would obviously tune your mix for that exact set of speakers. But, that's pretty much never the case. We do the best we can with a complex set of variables.

by buugs 17y ago

SwellJoe 17y ago

Professionals in any creative industry need to be able to see or hear exactly what they are actually creating. This is why audio monitors for recording studios cost a lot, and don't "sound as good" to the untrained ear. Accuracy is what you are paying for. If it is inaccurate in any one direction, the potential for problems during reproduction on client machines (which could be inaccurate in the other direction; doubling the magnitude of the problem) is much higher. Cheap monitors are bad in many different ways. One cannot predict exactly how it will diverge from what it ought to look like. So, if your source has been designed on a device that is accurate and balanced, you have a dramatically higher chance of it looking or sounding good on the majority of devices. I think it's a valid criticism of Apple. It is information that is valuable to consumers who work in the design field, and it's information that I would expect to find on the "Tech Specs" section of their site. The fact that they don't provide that information, for quite pricey machines intended for "professional" users, makes me very much less likely to buy their products. But, then again, I'm generally surprised that anyone puts up with the abuse that Apple inflicts on their customers.

jimboyoungblood 17y ago
I don't buy the accuracy argument for a second. By working only on the most expensive, rarified equipment, the only thing you're ensuring is that your own experience will be drastically different from 99.9% of end users. Imagine if the guy responsible for developing new recipes for McDonalds insists that his "creative work" only be done with organic Niman ranch beef.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  I don't buy the accuracy argument for a second. Seriously? I hope you're not a designer, videographer, photographer, or recording engineer. Imagine if the guy responsible for developing new recipes for McDonalds insists that his "creative work" only be done with organic Niman ranch beef. The point. You missed it. You're not even close. It's way over there. The monitor is the measuring cups, not the ingredients.
  - Retric 17y ago
    It's generally a poor assumption that averaging a huge number of inaccurate devices is going to end up with the same sound as one high quality set. I would support finding out what the "average" home equipment sounds like, but suggest "perfection" is the best approximation is laughable. For example, the average single cone speaker is going to be setup to handle mid range sounds ok, but it's going to miss highs and lows. I think the real advantage is people get used to how their system adjusts music. So by following the convention it's going to sound "normal" to them.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Yes, your experience will be different from that of most end users. But it will be minimally biased - you won't be baking in the settings that sound good on one set of cheap speakers but which would sound like total ass on other ones where cost has been saved in other ways. For example, many hifi and computer speakers come with some kind of bass boost. If I edit something using speakers like that there will be little or no bass on speakers which don't have that 'feature'. Or if I go in the other direction and finish on speakers that sound rather thin, the result will be an unmerciful honking noise on anything with a bass boost. Using a pair of (moderately) expensive speakers means I can split the difference, and know that while it will never sound as good as I'd like on consumer speakers, it will never sound too awful either. If you still don't think it matters, watch some short films or videos on YouTube. Then take even a modest Hollywood movie and notice how vastly, enormously better it sounds. Obsessing over sound and color seems trivial to those who don't have to work on content, but the very fact that most people take these things for granted is what fuels that obsession: because people are so sensitive they notice very quickly if the quality is off, even if they can't articulate why.
derefr 17y ago
> This is why audio monitors ... don't "sound as good" to the untrained ear. I've never understood this, myself. If it was mixed on monitors, and made to sound good on monitors, then shouldn't it sound best when replayed on monitors?
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  The point is that you can't know what it sounds like unless they are accurate. Every consumer speaker sounds different in different ways. So, if I bought a pair of mid-range car speakers to mix on, assuming most of my target audience would hear it on their car stereo, and I made it sound good on those speakers...even if everybody only listened on car speakers, odds are good it would still be too hyped or too bassy or too tinny on about half of all speakers. The degree of variance is the problem. If I mix on a set of accurate studio monitors (and assuming a reasonable level of skill in the area), the sound will be pretty well balanced across any number of speakers. Some will be hyped (smiley curve EQ), some will be bassy, and some will be bright. But a balanced mix will be pretty well-balanced on any set of speakers of reasonable quality. If I mix on speakers that lead me to boost or lower a specific set of frequencies, the speakers that do the opposite will be twice as far off as if I had mixed to a balanced set of speakers. Everybody here is probably pretty mathematical, so think of a single sine wave at a specific frequency. Say I'm aiming for an amplitude of 1 (units irrelevant). My mixing speaker boosts it by .5, because it's a speaker aimed at guys who like their cars to rattle. So, now I've mixed this sine wave at an amplitude of .66. If someone who likes bright sounding music (and with speakers that drop the bass by .5) listens, my mix now has the bass at .33 (ignoring all the dB math, and the crazy physics of ears/distance/frequencies etc. for the sake of simplicity). If, on the other hand, I mixed on a speaker that accurately gave me a 1 when I wanted a 1, it'll play at 1.5 on the bass-heavy speakers, and at .5 on the treble-heavy speakers. Smaller differences are better. Note also that professional studios also tend to include a few sets of speakers. You mix on the "mains" which are usually high quality near-field monitors, and you test on the small and big speakers and possibly a specific set of speakers that matches your target audience. Good engineers also usually live and breathe their projects, and so they'll also listen in the car on the way home and to work in the morning. The main work of mixing, however, always happens on a good, accurate set of monitors. If it doesn't, odds are very good it'll sound like crap on a good portion of speakers. And to answer this questions specifically: then shouldn't it sound best when replayed on monitors? Sure, but how many people have $1000+ speaker/amp combos in their car, iPod, home, etc.? The problem is merely one of making the best mix for the most people. If you know exactly what speakers your customer is using, and those are the only speakers that will be used for playback of your recording, then you would obviously tune your mix for that exact set of speakers. But, that's pretty much never the case. We do the best we can with a complex set of variables.