Making a mix sound good on multiple speaker types

[wadewalbrun]

Who knew this could get so complicated?

Okay, I don't have studio speakers, so mixing is like a circus for me. I have been mostly using the laptop speakers for mixing to get a sense of how things will sound under "normal" conditions, but when I put the headphones on its like a horse of a different color. Heavy on the bass and crazily mixed compared to what I hear on the laptop. Help!! What are people using to mix to? I know I should get some studio speakers, but I am going to have to wait a bit for that purchase. Of the other options, what has worked best? Seeing how things sound in the car? On regular stereo speakers, or mono? I need the best second rate method to hold me over. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Plus, some acceptable studio speaker suggestions that won't break the bank would be cool too. Many thanks!!!

[jb]

What you hear in your headphones includes things that your laptop speakers are physically incapable of reproducing.

So you have to mix using BOTH sets of speakers:

1. Mix on one set until it sounds good
2. Switch to the other set and mix again until that sounds good.
3. Switch back to see if you wrecked the first sound, and repair or adjust what sounds bad.
4. Switch again to verify that you didn't screw up the other.

You'll always have some element of this if you take mixing seriously. How a mix sounds from one listening environment to another is called "translation".

Ideally you would have a set of mixing speakers that have a "response profile" which translates well to many other listening environments-- mix it once and it sounds good everywhere. But that's a holy grail and none of us are likely to achieve it within our budgets.

If you listen to my entry this week, it was mixed on three sets of speakers-- my Sony 7506 headphones, my bedside Tannoy speakers that I play via Apple AirPlay, and my laptop speakers. I fiddled and fiddled until I thought it sounded as good as I could get it on all three sets. All told, I probably fiddled for an hour or two after everything was all recorded.

Oh, and I let it sit for a day, then went back and listened again with fresh ears. I never, ever get as good a mix with one session as I do with two separated by a day. If you listen to some of my recordings, I think those that suck can often be explained, fundamentally if not in the details, because I skipped one or more of the suggestions above.

Hope this helps,

JB

[jb]

(I do have a set of near field monitors. I have just not been able to get my ass to set them up and use them. Hence the speaker-juggling mixing technique.)

[JonPorobil]

Also try plugging in to other sources, if at all possible. For instance, when I have time to a "full" mix, part of my process involves putting the mp3 file on my phone, taking it out to my car, and plugging into the auxiliary jack there, to make sure that THAT doesn't muck up the sound.

Also, for every source you test at, try it at multiple volume levels. I generally like to have my monitors playing back at a normal-to-loud volume when I'm mixing, but when I'm listening to my mix, I like to run at least one pass at a barely-audible volume to see which elements show through, and one really loud. The volume of playback can affect the timbre of the production.

In short, the more sources you can compare to, the more confidence you will have in your mix when it's done.

[wadewalbrun]

Okay, this is really great info!! I appreciate the feedback. Unfortunately, based on your comments I now think my latest song offering is f -ed up, because it sounded great on the laptop, but terribly unbalanced with the headphones. Really, it looks like (as you say) I need to go back and find an appropriate mix that will satisfy both outputs. Oy!

Many thanks jb and Jon!

[Lunkhead]

Also you don't necessarily need to go running around listening to your mix on everything you can just because. Classes of listening devices/environments will also have known effects on how a song sounds. For example, headphones will exaggerate the bass frequencies and also whatever stereo panning you're doing, resulting in things that are panned hard seeming louder on headphones than on most speaker setups (where the stereo separation is often not really significant). Computer/laptop speakers will produce virtually no bass, usually, due to their small size and low power. Another thing to keep in mind in general is that music actually physiologically sounds better when it's louder, so, don't mix with your volume up too high or you'll get an unrealistically positive sense of how it sounds. Personally I don't bother to check my mixed on a bunch of different sources, usually just my studio headphones and my near-field monitors. That's good enough for Song Fight! for me. Also I think keeping the above mentioned things in mind helps me calibrate my ears and expectations when comparing the mix in my headphones to my speakers.

[wadewalbrun]

Lunkhead - many thanks for the feedback! So the headphones are not necessarily a good thing to judge the mix by? In your opinion, is this balance of outputs as jb and Jon mention my best bet at this point? My current options of headphones and laptop speakers seem like terribly flawed options, if I read into your response correctly. Hmmmmmm. This is not getting any easier. I haven't really figured out the idiosyncrasies of either enough to mix with any real confidence yet.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

[Lunkhead]

Headphones are fine, just keep in mind that if there seems to be a bit too much bass, on headphones, that it's probably OK. Or if you're really cranking the bass to make it sound big on your speakers it might be too much on headphones. And that the high-pitched buzzing instrument you panned all the way to the right that didn't sound too loud on your speakers may sound like a drill in the head on headphones, etc. Just watch the extremes, as some environments will exaggerate them and make the intolerable.

[big crouton]

Something something reference mixes.

But seriously, reference mixes are a great way to get a feel for whether what you're doing is way off base or not. Find some songs that have a similar vibe to what you're doing and compare your mix to theirs on a variety of categories. Find a mix that is as bright as it can get but still sounds good, and find a mix that's as warm/dark as it can get but still sounds good. Find one with the vocals way out in front that still sounds good and find one with buried vocals that still sounds good, etc, etc.

If you don't have a monitoring system that you can really trust (and even if you do) reference mixes can be a massive help to at least keep you from making big mistakes when mixing/mastering.

Don't get me wrong, creativity is wonderful and all, and the world of recorded music is a blank canvas that can be painted any way a given artist chooses, but there is something of an acceptable range for most mixing choices you can make if you want your song to seem listenable to most folks.

Also, I've just skimmed this thread, so there's probably good advice elsewhere, but jb's point about letting a mix sit for a day or two and coming back to tweak it is really good advice. It's so easy to get caught up in what you're doing in the first mix and think that you've found the ultimate mix for your song, but often times when you hear it back after a day or two apart from the song you come to understand just how subjective human hearing really is.

[JonPorobil]

A bit off-topic, but I wanted to mention this...

Wade, I appreciate that you're generating a lot of discussion with the large number of threads in this subforum you've created recently. I hope you're never ashamed to ask a "newbie" question, because asking questions and getting good answers is how we improve.

However, I'd like to point your attention to the first guideline in the "Help and How To Forum Guidelines" thread:

1. Make all the new threads you want, but whenever possible use the <b>most specific subject that you can think of</b>. If you don't know what the subject should be, just indicate that in your first post and a moderator will come up with one after the discussion is under way.

To that end, I would ask that you try to be a bit less clever when thinking up thread titles in this subforum. It's a nitpicky request, I know, but it's really helpful for navigating the "Help and How To" subforum. Specific and concrete subject lines will prove especially useful if, years down the line, someone else asks about mixes that sound different from different audio sources, and we remember, "Oh yeah, that guy Wade asked about that back in 2014!" Then we have to scan through the subject lines and remember that "Two Different Songs!" is the one in which you asked about that issue.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I think Jon has thread title envy.

As far as your question, you may be surprised to find out that it's somewhat inexpensive to get DAW monitors and good headphones for mixing.
I can relate because I remember being in your shoes at one point and finally finding my workflow that works for me.

One of my issues is my pain in the ass wife. She's basically a huge **** when it comes to me and my music. With that said, I need to do my initial mix on headphones. Mainly the repetitive stuff where I'm looping a measure ten thousand times to get it right, adding, removing, fx, etc. You know what I mean. It can be very annoying to those of the asshole variety. The white knight that I am, I just can't bring myself to kill her, so I do the next best thing and compromise. That's when my quest for good studio phones began. I read and watched a lot of tutorials and found that there are quite a few engineers that use phones as their primary listening choice. The more I read, the more I understood why. Yes, your final mix should be tweaked in an open speaker acoustic atmosphere, but some say that's not even necessary once you know your tools. What tools do they mean?

The tools:
1. Open back headphones. This one surprised me at first. I have very good $250 closed back BD DT-770 headphones that now are only used as an additional testing source for details I'm working into a mix, but very rarely used at all and I could get by without them now. At first when I tried open back phones, they sounded odd trying to mix, because you don't feel like you're closed up in a sound proof room anymore. But the magic is in the room acoustics that are entering the mix and the non perfections that come from that added ambiance. Very much like monitors on your desk. New generation professional engineers highly recommend this method. Older gen engineers are all about multiple monitors on your desk. But both older and new gen engineers agree that most music is now listened to on laptops, ear buds and in vehicles. Both gens recommend phones and speakers and multiple testing environments.

2. Laptops, ear buds and vehicle test listening. As mentioned, engineers of all ages and I bet most of us here at the mighty Song Fight agree as to how ears are consuming music these days and we should keep that in mind. Yes, it can become a lot of work "at first" going through all of this trouble. But isn't your song worth it? Like anything you do repeatedly, it will become part of your workflow and almost second nature. So no need to cut corners. Just do things and find what works. You'll always find a way to streamline it later.

3. Open speaker monitor simulators for headphones. This is recommended by some mixologists, so I should mention them. I'm not sure if I just tried inferior ones, but I didn't like what they did. They made very false gains in certain frequencies. But some love them. So that's all I've got to say about that. ....yes, I know, life is like a box of chocolates.

4. ? There's something else I wanted to say originally, but I have to pee real bad and it's stealing my thoughts. Edit: Evacuated and I remembered. I just wanted to agree with Big Crouton. We mentioned comparative listening on a different thread, but it really will improve your mix.
The way I do it:
1. Find a major label song in your genre.
2. Toss it on your DAW along with your stereo track of your song.
3. mute yours and start listening to the pro track.
4. Pick one thing at a time to pay attention to and write it down.
4a. Their snare. snappy, no lows, centered, mild reverb, up front, etc etc.
4b. My snare. muddy, deep in the mix, a lot of reverb, etc etc.
Do this to every single thing, from symbols to back up vocals. Also note any background sound. That was an eye opener for me. There are a lot of song I've heard a hundred times and never realized there was a non descriptive sound in the background.(pad?) After I realized this, I started doing it to songs where I really needed a certain moodiness translated. I don't have a keyboard of any kind, so I use my guitar or a vocal, then use extreme EQ and reverb to create a "sound" low in the far back that pretty much can never be figured out by anyone, lol.

People have asked if I'm using a synth or what the hell I'm using in the background. I've thought about putting the un-effected track I use and then the one with fx to show how I did it. Because I'm proud of my accomplishment and love having my ego stroked, amongst other things.

[JonPorobil]

4. ? There's something else I wanted to say originally, but I have to pee real bad and it's stealing my thoughts. Edit: Evacuated and I remembered. I just wanted to agree with Big Crouton. We mentioned comparative listening on a different thread, but it really will improve your mix.
The way I do it:
1. Find a major label song in your genre.
2. Toss it on your DAW along with your stereo track of your song.
3. mute yours and start listening to the pro track.
4. Pick one thing at a time to pay attention to and write it down.
4a. Their snare. snappy, no lows, centered, mild reverb, up front, etc etc.
4b. My snare. muddy, deep in the mix, a lot of reverb, etc etc.
Do this to every single thing, from symbols to back up vocals. Also note any background sound. That was an eye opener for me. There are a lot of song I've heard a hundred times and never realized there was a non descriptive sound in the background.(pad?) After I realized this, I started doing it to songs where I really needed a certain moodiness translated. I don't have a keyboard of any kind, so I use my guitar or a vocal, then use extreme EQ and reverb to create a "sound" low in the far back that pretty much can never be figured out by anyone, lol.

The one pitfall is that a lot of major label songs are mastered at unadvisably loud levels. I actually recommend a Song Fight track you like that's similar to the vibe you're going for, if you can find one. Some of the people in this community are mind-boggling great at mixing and mastering.

[Billy's Little Trip]

The one pitfall is that a lot of major label songs are mastered at unadvisably loud levels. I actually recommend a Song Fight track you like that's similar to the vibe you're going for, if you can find one. Some of the people in this community are mind-boggling great at mixing and mastering.

I respectfully disagree. First of all, it's hard to "copy" a major label's engineering and production. You are simply using them as reference. That would be like me listening to and learning to play like Hendrix. I can learn his songs, but he's a lefty, I'm a righty and he has a unique style that I'll never match. But I can learn his groove, try to reproduce guitar tone, etc.

Also, using a Song Fight song as a reference track is a not a good idea because you can pick up bad habits. I do agree, there are some great mixologists here on Song Fight. I also think a lot have more intelligence than ability. But it's a rare Song Fight song that has been worked on to perfection.
That's not saying all major label songs are perfect. But when a label is investing millions to produce a gem using the best in the business so they can make a big profit, they pretty much did the leg work for you. Why reinvent the wheel? Too learn from a master and only become half as good is better than learning from a novice and becoming just as good.

I would never want someone to use my SF submissions for a reference track. Although I think my later submissions show my improvement, they are full of imperfections because I don't have the time to perfect them AND look at porn all day. Sometimes you have to choose your battles.

[wadewalbrun]

BLT - Many thanks!! Good advice and useful info!!. I think I need to look into getting some of those open back headphones. It looks like a good compromise, as my wife wouldn't be too enthusiastic about me playing my song 40 times while I'm mixing on studio monitors. I'm pressing my luck with her now with the laptop speakers. If I can simply resort to final tweaking on the laptop or out in the car but do the bulk of the mixing on the open back headphones that would work (and be quieter too).

Jon - Thanks! A good idea about using a SongFight track to compare with. Based on some good earlier advice in my Loudness forum, I have been shunning more recent era song for some of my favs from the less loud driven early 1990s era. Still plenty loud, but not crazy, and heck, its always great to go back and revisit a Wallflowers tune, or Counting Crows, or Third Eye Blind.


Later addition: BLT - hehehehehe! You make a good point.

[jb]

BLT-- what open back headphones do you have? Or is your point that you don't have them but think you might want to?

[Billy's Little Trip]

No, I made the switch to open backs about two years ago. I have two different models right now. I stuck with the Beyerdynamic phones because my DT-770 closed back phones have been solid. So I got their DT-990 open backs. I paid around $150 for them. Not sure of the regular price. I get my stuff through my drummer buddy's son that works at guitar center.
My second set of phone, don't laugh, are Koss UR-40 open backs from radio shack. I paid around $15 or $20. They are one of my test listening tools and are pretty damn good for mixing, even though hey are full range, as well as good for regular music listening. I should mention, I got the UR-40 phones because they were recommended in an article I read from a pro engineer about having a finished mix for ear bud and laptop listening as a test listen tool. Then I was at a studio and noticed the same Koss open back phones and he said all good engineers have a set of cheap speakers and cheap phones to deliver a mix for today's listening on shit cellphone speakers and MP3 docks, lol. True that.

The one problem with open backs is recording. You will get bleed through to a condenser mic. So my DT770 closed back phones are used for recording.

[JonPorobil]

But when a label is investing millions to produce a gem using the best in the business so they can make a big profit, they pretty much did the leg work for you. Why reinvent the wheel? Too learn from a master and only become half as good is better than learning from a novice and becoming just as good.

Your assumption of good faith on the part of those record executives is touching. The fact of the matter is, mastering and engineering decisions are often made by executives who have no no knowledge of how audio works, and simply wanted the finished product to be louder at the expense of things like audio fidelity and dynamic range. Not the kind of example you'd do well to emulate.

If you can happen to find a song from the vinyl era that would serve as a good comparison (preferably a recording that hasn't been "digitally remastered"), that would probably be ideal.

Point is, be careful picking which sources to emulate.

[fluffy]

One point against using headphones: as Jast (I think) pointed out in some other thread, you can run into all sorts of interesting phase cancellation issues that will always happen on speakers and never happen on headphones.

Also, laptop speakers are pretty much worthless for everything. If you're mixing on laptop speakers, it will only sound good on laptop speakers. Sure, listen to your mix on laptop speakers so that you know what's broken for those poor schmucks who listen to music on their laptop speakers for whatever reason, but definitely do not use it for your reference mix.

I'm fond of my Fostex studio monitors. They were reasonably-priced, they have great sound (and so far everything that sounds good on them sounds good everywhere), and they're built like a tank. My previous M-Audio monitors were okay until one of them up and stopped working a year later (continuing my run of bad luck with M-Audio products). Before that I used a pair of bookshelf speakers and a 'T-class' amp. It was adequate for just starting out, but I wouldn't go back to them.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Your assumption of good faith on the part of those record executives is touching. The fact of the matter is, mastering and engineering decisions are often made by executives who have no no knowledge of how audio works, and simply wanted the finished product to be louder at the expense of things like audio fidelity and dynamic range. Not the kind of example you'd do well to emulate.

If you can happen to find a song from the vinyl era that would serve as a good comparison (preferably a recording that hasn't been "digitally remastered"), that would probably be ideal.

Point is, be careful picking which sources to emulate.

It wasn't meant to be touching, it was meant to be educational for those looking to improve as an engineer.

There is often a tiff between the musicians and the production of their music. It's the exact opposite of what you just mentioned. Engineers are inherently trying to create the best possible dynamic mix and it's the musician in the end mastering process that wants it to be the loudest. It's up to the pros to educate the musicians and sell them on putting out a great album. But the trend of band mixed and produced albums is the new way. It can be good and bad. Garbage with Butch Vig at the board, great! The Chili Peppers with Flea at the board, not great at all. Their last CD was a rectangle block on the meter. Awful. But anyone with discerning ears would not listen to the last Chili Peppers and say, "oh, I want my music to sound like that!" Maybe a kid learning to play bass, but not someone trying to hone his studio skills.

In the past an engineer will work tirelessly to create the best mix he can, spend hours on the perfect kick through the soft and loud parts, panning and running the faders like an orchestra conductor. Then it's passed to the mastering engineer to put the mixed down stereo tracks into the parameters required for the final media. Normalizing the song volume levels, keeping the songs EQ levels in the same ballpark, spacing between song, etc etc. And yes, increasing the volume of the overall set of songs to their max levels for TV, radio, CD, etc. This often can piss off and engineer because pushing the songs and normalizing them can kill the dynamics if the mastering engineer sucks, because it will undo everything thing he worked hard to create.

But I go back to my original statement. A good mastering engineer is not going to destroy musics dynamics in the name of volume. If they are told to and paid to, a "good" mastering engineer doesn't want his name attached and will refuse or walk. Unfortunately money talks and there will be lifeless music out there.

So let's look at it like this. Let's say there is a person that isn't Jon Eric. This person has a different opinion of what sounds good to his non-Jon ears. (i just made that up, teehee). He really loves everything about the latest Daft Punk album's sound. It makes his non-Jon ears have eargasms. He just loves everything about it and would love to be able to mix and "produce" his own music as good or try to.
Now Jon Eric goes up to non-Jon and says, "hey, stop using that Daft Punk CD as your reference source for improving your skills. It doesn't matter that you love how it was mixed and produced. Don't you know it's a major label production and it's everything I hate? Go find some reference recording from some guy that makes music in his his bedroom using garage band and a bunch of pre-sets on his plug-ins. Otherwise you'll become "one of them".....a "profession engineer".....YUCKY!.......Mom, I need a juice box, pronto! BLT is being mean! Can you have him killed for me, please?"

No hate, just love, Jon. It's the coffee. It makes me type too many alphabet numbers.

[jb]

Always consider the source. I'm pleased with the way my latest song came out, mix-wise, and it was produced using the suggestions that I have posted in this thread. (http://www.songfight.org/music/all_i_ev ... d_aien.mp3)

There are some recordings I've made that I wouldn't put forward as an example that I'm proud of, so my whole catalog isn't specifically a reference. I encourage the others giving advice in this thread to put forward a recording that they've made using their suggestions in this thread. That will allow future readers to understand and evaluate the merit of our advice based on how well we are able to execute it. If you're not executing on your own advice, then you're really just summarizing the opinions of other people.

YMMV, and always consider the source of the information you're receiving.


JB

[Billy's Little Trip]

Bravo jb! You've proven a point I've made in the past that you CAN make guy and guitar songs interesting to grab the lister and simplistic at the same time. It's all in the production in this one.

Things I loved:
1. The panned right and left double played rhythm guitar. It gives width, depth and richness.
2. The centered guitar mic'd on the hole and the left/right pick to string ratio. Again, gives width whether or not you stereo widen.
3. Matching vocal and guitar ambiance putting everything on the same stage. A lot of people seem to have a hard time with this because it requires that you trust your ears to dial it.
4. The panning method of the backing and lead vocals. When you watch a two guys on stage playing guitar and singing, the lead is centered and his backup can only be to the side of him. (even though there are 3 voices here, the logic is still there) I noticed your backup voxs were primarily in my left ear and the high voice above the lead vocals, the right side is pulled down to image the rooms ambiance/reverb. Not sure if you planned that, but kudos if you did. That's how I imagine placement when I mix.
5. Diggin' the almost dobro sounding lead guitar part. Some kind of rotary horn/fast flanger FX? Sounds cool.

[JonPorobil]

I wrote a super long post, but it appears not to have made it through. Or maybe a moderator deleted it. Point is: don't confuse mixing with mastering, and read up on any source song you're going to use as a reference. For instance, the songs on Metallica's last album were widely perceived by the mixing and mastering community to have been "overmastered," meaning it was too loud and had poor dynamic range, and was therefore painful to listen to. I wouldn't recommend using that track as a reference. As JB said, consider the course.