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It makes my life miserable. I love writing music but mixing is just a boring, unsexy grind. And it's a skill that takes way too much time to develop - you can't

It makes my life miserable. I love writing music but mixing is just a boring, unsexy grind. And it's a skill that takes way too much time to develop - you can't "hack it". I've produced tracks that sound incredible to me on my 6" Yamaha monitors. Then I send them over to friends who listen to them on their tinny laptop speakers and wonder what the big deal is.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Your 6" Yamahas are not a neutral reference. Studios deliberately use bad speakers (NS10s, Auratones) to check for this. In the business it's called "translation" - a good mix sounds good on everything from earbuds to a car stereo to $$$$$$ hifi. It's almost impossible to make a mix that translates without spending a lot of money on neutral monitors and acoustic treatment. But there are tricks you can use to make a mix translate better. E.g. You can cut the lowest octave or two in the bass, because no one (outside of a club) can hear it anyway, and use bass sounds with plenty of mids, so you can hear the line even when the low bass isn't there.
- puranjay 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm learning this along the way. Mixing is just a completely different skill set than production or composition. I've realized that it's better to let professionals handle it than learning it - it requires too much investment in equipment and far too much time in training to do it by yourself.
- meko 8y ago
  Auratones are not bad speakers though. They're single driver and non-ported. That has implications, namely better low end response, and uniformity in the waveform: ie. no notching from cutoffs; sound comes from one place instead of two (better spatial representation), and also a lot of consumer audio is on single driver setups (earbuds, laptop speaker, p much anything that doesn't have a dedicated tweeter or subwoofer).
- justtopost 8y ago
  Every mixer I ever met did 2 things. 1. Played the mix on a cheap cellphone (this used to be a boombox or 80s wire loop headphones), and a bad car stereo or 2. Listened on Car stereos, as they have whack eqs and soundstage, and will bring out any hint of ugly. Tiny speakers will distort readily, and pop music must sitll sound decent when abused, because omg ppl abuse it. For a club track, you optimise differently, but err on the side of sounding good on crappy radio speakers always otherwise.
meko 8y ago
ouch. too real.
peapicker 8y ago
When mastering, after I'm happy on my high-end near-field monitors and acoustic room, I haul my studio laptop into every other system and environment I have and tweak accordingly. (i.e. Bose Companion 3, an older JVC shelf stereo, my car stereos, various headphones including ATH-M30, cheap iPod, and Beats, etc etc etc) for this very reason... almost nobody is listening on a nice set of nearly-neutral near-field monitors except other musicians. When done, I make sure I'm still happy on the main rig. Someday I hope to be experienced enough to just know what to do though, without all the extra work. I haven't found a systematic answer yet.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

Your 6" Yamahas are not a neutral reference. Studios deliberately use bad speakers (NS10s, Auratones) to check for this. In the business it's called "translation" - a good mix sounds good on everything from earbuds to a car stereo to $$$$$$ hifi. It's almost impossible to make a mix that translates without spending a lot of money on neutral monitors and acoustic treatment. But there are tricks you can use to make a mix translate better. E.g. You can cut the lowest octave or two in the bass, because no one (outside of a club) can hear it anyway, and use bass sounds with plenty of mids, so you can hear the line even when the low bass isn't there.

puranjay 8y ago
Yeah, I'm learning this along the way. Mixing is just a completely different skill set than production or composition. I've realized that it's better to let professionals handle it than learning it - it requires too much investment in equipment and far too much time in training to do it by yourself.
meko 8y ago
Auratones are not bad speakers though. They're single driver and non-ported. That has implications, namely better low end response, and uniformity in the waveform: ie. no notching from cutoffs; sound comes from one place instead of two (better spatial representation), and also a lot of consumer audio is on single driver setups (earbuds, laptop speaker, p much anything that doesn't have a dedicated tweeter or subwoofer).
justtopost 8y ago
Every mixer I ever met did 2 things. 1. Played the mix on a cheap cellphone (this used to be a boombox or 80s wire loop headphones), and a bad car stereo or 2. Listened on Car stereos, as they have whack eqs and soundstage, and will bring out any hint of ugly. Tiny speakers will distort readily, and pop music must sitll sound decent when abused, because omg ppl abuse it. For a club track, you optimise differently, but err on the side of sounding good on crappy radio speakers always otherwise.

meko 8y ago

ouch. too real.

peapicker 8y ago

When mastering, after I'm happy on my high-end near-field monitors and acoustic room, I haul my studio laptop into every other system and environment I have and tweak accordingly. (i.e. Bose Companion 3, an older JVC shelf stereo, my car stereos, various headphones including ATH-M30, cheap iPod, and Beats, etc etc etc) for this very reason... almost nobody is listening on a nice set of nearly-neutral near-field monitors except other musicians. When done, I make sure I'm still happy on the main rig. Someday I hope to be experienced enough to just know what to do though, without all the extra work. I haven't found a systematic answer yet.