Mixing for a variety of play back media.

[witm8]

Hi Guys.

I was wondering if there was a general tip that anyone would care to share with regards to mixing a song(s) to be played played on various platforms. I've been messing around with my latest song over the weekend:

The Sun Will Shine Tommorow by Random-Tangent | Random Tangent | Free Listening on SoundCloud

It's mixed on my studio speakers - Granted they're not super expensive but that's all I could afford at the time - it sounded pretty much ok IMO. I then upload to SoundCloud so that I can listen on my various media. I play it through my SONOS Play:1's and it sounds ok (vox could be slightly more out front), I play again through my SONOS Play:3 and it's completely drowned in bass. Via headphones (yeah cheapish ones) it sounds super tinney and goes super loud at the end where I do a frequency sweep, the car stereo sounds really muddy, and my iPhone just sounds as expected.

What I've done is play the song through all media - and make tiny tweaks here-and-there to try and find the median values so that's it's listenable on most. Is that the generally correct, or should I choose a media and try and mix towards the sound on that?

Many thanks

 

[WooolfSounds]

First of all, congrats on writing a really nice song!

When you say 'completely drowned in bass', what bass are you talking about? Is it the kick drum? I hear no bass guitar, and the guitar has some bass content, but only/mostly on the Gm chord. Do you have a narrow peak E.Q. on the acoustic guitar? You could add a bass guitar, or try getting a smoother EQ curve on the acoustic guitar. If the resonance on the G note is in the recording, try attenuating that note with a narrow E.Q. band and then adding a wider E.Q. band in the low frequency area to lift up the other bass notes.
(Also your drums seem to 'duck' a lot when a crash cymbal is played)

You're on the right track when it comes to listening on different media and adjusting where needed.
But when in doubt: trust the media you know best. What speakers/headphones do you use to listen to music most of the time?
Listen to your favourite music on the headphones/speakers you're using to mix.
Regularly compare your mix to (a) reference track(s) with a similar sound that you're trying to approach.

Even cheap(ish) headphones can give a reasonably balanced frequency response. (Very content with the fq response of my 100$ Sennheiser HD cans)

In a standard (bed)room, you will naturally have big peaks and valleys in the frequency response, no matter the quality of the monitors you have. Using headphones eliminates the influence of the room, but be careful of other issues, like a different panning perception for instance.
Switch between headphones and monitors during mixing, and regularly check on other media, like you're doing now. But know the strengths and weaknesses of your monitoring system(s), and know which you can trust most.

Good luck and keep up the good work!