sound is decieving

[jesushimself]

well, heres the thing...i just mixed down a song as a trial run. im using cubase 2.0 sx. now, my song mixes down and sounds great here in the studio. but as soon as i burned a test copy and put it in my car, all the highs are mysteriously gone and it sounds a bit muffled. ive played plenty of regular cd's thru both the studio and the car and they all sound fine. it seems to be missing a certain crispness thats found thru the studio monitors.ive recorded in 16 bit 44.1. around 3db.
what does anyone think the problem is?

[chessrock]

When you say you're mixes sound great "here in the studio," what kind of studio are you refering to?

You need a better monitoring setup; better monitors, and a more ideal accoustic environment in which to monitor. Right now, you're not hearing things properly in order to make accurate judgements and mixing decisions.

And if it's your own music, you might also be lacking the necessary objectivity.

[Cloneboy Studio]

The monitors you mixed on must accentuate highs, or something in the way the room is shaped does.

[jesushimself]

"here in the studio" refers to my modest studio here in my bedrroom, im running alesis mk1 monitors, which are pretty decent in the way of home recording, my room is acousticly treated . how do i begin to get a flat response so my sound really is what im hearing?

[glynb]

You can either get 'perfect' monitors as suggested.

of you can use trial and error until the sound sounds good elsewhere not jusrt in your home studio. So if your studio tends to accentuate the highs then make more mix sound like it has too much high end in the studio then go and play it in the car and see if it sounds just right?

Similarly if your studio over emphasises the bass, but when you play it elsewhere there's not enough bass, you have to learn to allow for that and put more bass on in the studio than sounds right, knowing that it will be OK elsewhere.

After a lot of trial and error you get to work with the limitations of your own setup.

Or, you can get proper flat response monitoring system in your studio and make the investment. Even then, what you hear in the srtudio may not be what you hear on a boom box or in-car system, you may still have to return to the studio to tweak.

[chessrock]

Originally Posted by jesushimself

how do i begin to get a flat response so my sound really is what im hearing?

Probably not a very realistic goal in a bedroom. You can improve your situation by the use of bass traps or simply moving your speakers around the room -- it's likely you're mixing in the middle of a node where the bass response is understated. My knowlege on the subject is limited -- you might try the Studio Building Forum.

[Cloneboy Studio]

While it is good to get as flat a monitoring situation as you can going on, to get it "perfect" is usually cost prohibitive in any but the most serious of recording areas--i.e. professional studios that generate income.

However, by getting some reasonably flat mid-priced monitors (whatever you like, I tend to dig Tannoy Reveals) and LISTENING to your favorite material on them until you are familiar with how they sound in that area, as well as A/Bing the material you are mixing with commerical CD's from similar artists, you can get some great mixes going on.

A few years ago I mixed an album on crummy computer speakers, and by using the A/B method it turned out pretty good. A mastering engineer in Cleveland considered it one of the tighter mixes he had heard in a long time because he had to do so little to it. Granted, it was a LENGTHY process, but the speakers really were pretty terrible.

[Alanfc]

Adaptation, experimentation, frustration, elation.

With my bedroom setup I know what sounds like this-or-that on the monitors will sound like such&such in the car.
So a lo-teck answer from me here. Sounds like we have similar situations.

[jesushimself]

yeah its a pain in the ass using the a/b situation , i did that on my last project and it was just a time consuming headache.
heres another question to throw out there..
what excatly is the purpose of the eq in the monitoring situation?
since the sound is not true, the sound is really only true or "what it really sounds like" when im plugged directly into my sound card. so what excatly is the main purpose of post eq? if its just altering the sound and what you hear is not what you will hear elsewhere or is it just to tune the room and not boost any frequencies?