Mixing For Car Stereos:

R

Robert Herndon

New member
Hey everyone...

I am finishing up a blues CD and I mixed everything down on my PC using Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (yeah, but it works great) and played it through a Logitech 5.1 Surround Sound system. The songs sound great on my PC, people's i-phones, etc., but tend to sound a bit muddy on the average car stereo.

Any ideas????

Thanks....Robert
 
Sounds great on an iPhone? PC's? Lol. So you basically made a mix that sounds good on the shittiest speakers imaginable, but it sounds bad in a car. I think you got your priorities backwards, homeslice.

Like miro said, you need to mix through better speakers in a better room. Preferably some kind of "studio" monitors that don't color the sound. You want flat response. You don't have a good mix until it translates everywhere, and that's easier said than done. Checking it on different systems is a good idea, but you're obviously not finished if it sounds bad in the car.
 
Greg,

Thanks for the explanation. I have all the individual tracks saved, so it won't be a problem to go back on remix them. So, what speakers would you recommend that I mix these tracks on??????
 
Depends upon how much money/time you have...

The general advice when people start wanting to buy gear to do home recording is that monitors are top of the list, ahead of mics, preamps etc....

Jump into the Newbies forum and you'll find heaps of threads recommending particular monitors - all budgets catered for...
 
Robert Herndon said:
Greg,

Thanks for the explanation. I have all the individual tracks saved, so it won't be a problem to go back on remix them. So, what speakers would you recommend that I mix these tracks on??????
Click to expand...

That depends on your budget. The thing is, the better gear you get, the more the small things matter. But as those details get ironed out, your mixes get exponentially better. It's like, who cares that your room is acoustically sucky when you're mixing on laptop speakers, right? But once you get actual monitors, your room's acoustics come into play big time. They're a team. They work together. Monitors and room. That's what affects what you and your listeners hear. If either your speakers or room or both lies to you, you're gonna do things to the mix that it doesn't need.
 
+1 most of the above.

Particularly though, the importance of the room cannot be overstated. It is pointless to put multi-hundred $$$ monitors in a bad room, and any room without at least some acoustic treatment will be bad. As with the monitors, there are gobs of threads here and elsewhere on acoustic room treatment.

The single most important component of room treatment is corner bass traps. The corners are where most of the ill effects originate. You can easily make your own bass traps from fiberglass panels for under $20. This will be the best money you ever spent on improving your sound environment.
 
Thanks for all the detailed responses. What you say about the room and the monitors makes a lot of sense.

the last time I was in the studio was in 1988, and at that time, I was laying down guitar tracks on a blues album at Buck Owen's Studios in bakersfield, california. The engineer, Jim Shaw, had a pair of 6" x9" speakers in a small box laying ontop the mixing console. I was very cusrious about this "okie looking" setup and asked for an explanation.

The engineer told me that if it sounded good and well balanced on a pair of automotive audio speakers, it would sound great on a home entertainment system.

The song "Streets of Bakersfield" as performed by Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam, was mixed at this same console using the same method.

However, while I am very good at getting a good mix, as far as all the instruments appropriately layered in the overall spectrum of sound, I am not so good at getting a good 'Radio Ready' EQ....Robert
 
Robert - why don't you post up some of your work in the MP3 forum - that way you can get practical advice from experienced people as to what you might need to change... even without monitors that might lead you to a suitable mix for now...
 
Robert Herndon said:
the last time I was in the studio was in 1988, and at that time, I was laying down guitar tracks on a blues album at Buck Owen's Studios in bakersfield, california. The engineer, Jim Shaw, had a pair of 6" x9" speakers in a small box laying ontop the mixing console. I was very cusrious about this "okie looking" setup and asked for an explanation.

The engineer told me that if it sounded good and well balanced on a pair of automotive audio speakers, it would sound great on a home entertainment system.

The song "Streets of Bakersfield" as performed by Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam, was mixed at this same console using the same method.

However, while I am very good at getting a good mix, as far as all the instruments appropriately layered in the overall spectrum of sound, I am not so good at getting a good 'Radio Ready' EQ....Robert
Click to expand...

Avantone Mix Cubes are an attempt at recreating the Auratone speakers. These things won't replace a good monitor setup in a good room. A lot of people won't even get them in pairs. The enclosure is something like a 5 inch box with a single full range driver in it. They sound horrible.

The idea isn't to rely on doing a full mix with them. If your setup is capable of some kind of monitor switching they're useful as a reality check in a couple of ways. Checking in mono will show you phase cancellation if it's happening. The Auratones are an approximation of what old televisions, AM radio, clock radios and other "challenged" systems will sound like. Also because there's only one driver involved, there's no crossover. Crossovers in 2 or 3 way speaker systems will have a tendency to hide things happening near the crossover point. It's not an issue on Auratones. If you're doing a busy stereo mix and maybe using some stupid phase tricks for effect, doing something like this can lead to questions like "Where did the lead vocal (or insert other instrument here) go?" or "Why does the midrange sound like THAT??!?"

Very revealing midrange going on with these.
 
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