Mixing to a pink noise reference

[Zoltan]

Oh great minds... Can someone explain mixing to a pink noise reference in layman terms and hopefully with only a short sentence? Why and would there be any real benefit?

The reason i'm wondering this is because Direct Approach plugins are now free and there's a plugin that does so called SpecTrend.

https://www.directap.com/

Here's a Sound on Sound article about the idea:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mixing-pink-noise-reference

Which i tried to read, but it only made me hungry. So i'm now going for a sandwitch Cu later!

(I could understand it better if it read "mixing to a punk noise").

[T.C. Elliott]

Without reading the articles I can tell you what I (usually) do in a couple of sentences.

I record on a BR-900 but I mix in Reaper on the computer. After importing all my tracks, I set the MDA Tone plugin to generate pink noise at about -6db (or -10 db depending) and then automute all the tracks. I solo the pink noise then solo each additional track one at a time lowering the gain until I can barely hear it (just about disappears into the noise.) After that's done I then remute the pink noise and start unmuting the tracks one at a time and begin mixing.

The idea is it gives you a base level for your tracks so that it's easier to get a balanced mix. I definitely feel it helps me get better results.

[Ted]

I never even heard of it before, but this video is dumbed down enough for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qyl1_UC6y0

And this guy tries it for the first time using GarageBand (like me), and he is happy with the results:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udESKNlmVG0

I'll probably give it a try. I can already imagine how I might use it in the Micro BR (just need to have two spare virtual tracks).

Here is the pink noise file linked to in the first video.

[Zoltan]

Thanks for the comments! I guess it's worth a try. That plugin might be worth checking out if one works with a DAW. It looks like it saves a few steps and makes things faster. And one doesn't have to listen to the pink noise at all.

[T.C. Elliott]

I just grabbed the free plugins but I probably won't have time to try them out for a quite a while. I have mixed feelings about spectrend but I think I would want to try it out and see if the results are what I would want. I can honestly say I'm still struggling with balance, especially in the low mids and lows.