Mixing and Mastering Beats!

[WPBEATS]

Hi ive been a member of this site for a few months . i had to change my screen name becuz i forgot my password but neways.
Im havin a problem mixing and mastering my music i make in reason 3.0.
Is there any techniques i should be using, whenever i got to listen to the finished song in my car the 808 is always pounding too hard and the synths are too loud. im mixing through a set of Headphones (akg) .
What i try to do is listen to a cd of a Professional artist threw my head phones and try to match it. It sounds very good in the headphones but opnce i get to the car it sounds horrible. Ima newbie to all of this but i can catch on quickly.
any help is appreciated.
Wes

 

[Ford Van]

It is a pretty good bet that the artist that you are comparing your production to did NOT mix with headphones!

They also generally have top level recording/mixing/mastering engineers with years of experience working on their stuff. They also have very high end gear available.

There is no easy answer to your somewhat vast question.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

im mixing through a set of Headphones (akg) .
What i try to do is listen to a cd of a Professional artist threw my head phones and try to match it.

You're trying to drive both ways down a one way street...well...sort of. A well-produced mix will sound good in headphones, but a mix made in headphones will not necessarily sound good elsewhere, even if you're trying to match them up in the same headphones. It doesn't work in reverse.

That may not make sense at first blush, but there's a few reasons for that. Not the least of those reasons is that most headphones are not giving you the whole story of what's really happening in the music. When you only hear half of the story, that half will sound good, but you need to hear the whole thing for the whole thing to wind up sounding good.

You're comparing yourself to a professional production. Be fair. You might as well ask yourself why you keep losing when you go pickup against the L.A. Lakers. The answer is the same; it's an unfair match up; you're outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed on every level.

Start by saving up for a quality monitoring chain and acoustic treatment (bass traps, diffusers) for your mixing room and hang up those headphones. In the meantime, extensive ear training is in order. From a mix engineering perspective, those headphones combined with the awful acoustics on your car probably have your ears all messed up. Only then, once you have good ears and a good mix monitoring system wto listen to with those ears, can you even start to practice for playing in the big leagues.

G.