Thoughts on this.

[boomtap]

I always do a car check with my music before I call a mix complete. Anybody have any good suggestions of mixing setups that allow you to get a simulated auto sound without draging a disk out to the car.

 

[guido #2]

Got a crappy old ghetto blaster?
Buy or build a pair of Auratones.
Put some 6x9 bakasonic car speakers in your studio.

As engineers, we always strive for excellence, so it feels a bit awkward to strive for crap

 

[Joel Hamilton]

I have a sony boom box wired to a patch point on my 'bay.

I use that all the time for translation proof to the client. I can tell on my monitor choices what will work or not, but maybe the client cant, so I prove it with a little crappy sony boom box. I like listening on that thing. Makes me feel like it has already "come out" and I can listen with almost a "retrospective" ear right there!

Amazing how you miss certain things with your head right up in it, and ANY trick to "pull out" can really make a huge difference in your mixes.

Auratones are good as well, so are the little optimus cubes sold at radio shack, powered by ANY old receiver.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Hit a surplus store or garage sale and get yourself a pair of old Jensen 6x9 coaxial car speakers stick them in some sheap boxes and drive them with a small (5W-20W) amp from either the same garage sale or from Radidlio Shack.

G.

 

[maestro_dmc]

I stick a cable into my headphone amp, and run it over to my stereo tv and plug it into the line in on the front of the set. Gets me an idea of how it'll sound on crappy speakers real quick.

 

[gordone]

Get an MP3 player that plays WAV files. Then hook that up to your car (I use a cassette adapter and a Creative Zen xTra 40GB). That way you don't have to waste coasters (errr, I mean CD-Rs)

A nice side effect of this is you now have a nice mp3 player! I have over 300 CDs stored on mine (including some of my stuff).

 

[boomtap]

I thought about hooking up some 6x9's to a box, but I didn't know if it would be the same without the windws.

The only reason I mix to cars is because that is the place that most people listen. I mix to the audience. I aim for a mix that sounds great in the monitors, but also translates to the guitar which isn't always the easiest thing to achieve.

 

[XLR]

I always include car listening in my mixing process for serious projects. I think the car environment is unique with its high noise floor and odd speaker placement. Don't know if that's re-creatable in the studio. I can't help thinking too that my SUV would be a great recording environment for guitar in an isolation chamber kind of way... no parallel surfaces, lots of diffusion. I'm gonna try it.

Tim

 

[noisewreck]

Speaking of cars... has anyone thought of using cars as distortion devices? Some of them actually do wonders for Drum and Bass type subby basses

Sorry, off topic Move along please.

 

[Dani Pace]

Listen to a "store bought" CD in your car, remember what it sounds like, then play it through your monitors and set them to sound as much like the car stereo as possible. It wont be exact but you should be able to get cloce to a good mix/balance. I don't know about where you live but around here most people tend to really crank the bass up in their cars. 3000 watts cranked to 11 and the bass EQed to the maximum sounds like crap in a car (to me anyway) but a lot of people seem to think that is how music should be played.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

I always do a car check with my music before I call a mix complete. Anybody have any good suggestions of mixing setups that allow you to get a simulated auto sound without draging a disk out to the car.

Yeah dude, get the Line6 KarStereo 1.0 modeling plugin. It's totally rad how you can mix and match stereos with automobiles, including putting a TURNTABLE in a sports coupe!

It has physical models of some of the classic cars and stereos such as:

*Blaupunkt 6 CD Player
*Nakamichi
*Sony Cassette Deck
*Sharp CD Player
*Phillips 8 Track Deck
*Technics 1200 Turntable

Plus you get models of the following listening environments:

*1988 Yugo
*1971 Corvette Stingray (Tweeze determines amount sunroof is open)
*1980 Toyota Civic Two Door
*1995 Ford Escort Station Wagon
*1933 Ford Model A
*1989 Opal
*1984 Mercedes Benz SE Sports Coupe
*Line6 Formula Won (based on Jeff Gordon's NASCAR)
*Line6 Sedan (based on '72 Lincoln Mercury and 1995 Ford Escort)
*Line6 British (based on '68 Jaguar XJ)
*Line6 German (based on '84 SE and 89 Opal models)

 

[Adam P]

Don't forget "Sony Discman plugged into cassette tape adaptor".

Man, JKM, you might want to get the rights to that one. Its too ridiculous to stay a joke forever.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Listen to a "store bought" CD in your car, remember what it sounds like, then play it through your monitors and set them to sound as much like the car stereo as possible. It wont be exact but you should be able to get cloce to a good mix/balance. I don't know about where you live but around here most people tend to really crank the bass up in their cars. 3000 watts cranked to 11 and the bass EQed to the maximum sounds like crap in a car (to me anyway) but a lot of people seem to think that is how music should be played.

It sounds even worse 3 blocks away. . You don't want to mix for that crap anyway. You get a mix that sounds good on that and it's going to sound like crap on everything else. Play it back on a sane person's system and the bass and the vocals will sound absolutely horrible.

The rationale here is that one is looking to mix so that the music sounds decent outside of the studio. This means that you're looking for a mix that will stand up to a less-than-idyllic playback environment. That's all. It doesn't mean that your looking to make a mix that sounds like crap in the studio just so it will sound good on Mr. GatorShoes' toaster-oven-with-speakers on wheels. His system will sound like crap no matter what the engineer does.

Just make sure the mix sounds good in the studio but doesn fall apart outsde the studio. But if it sounds actually bad in the studio, you're going the wrong way.

G.

 

[bigbubba]

All of my recordings sound just great and full of bazzazz and electrifying on the computer with the home theater system. In the car it sounds like some dude is holding the music hostage under a tin can. So I also do a car check and waste tons of CDs in the process.

On a side note, I really bugs me to have to listen to other people's music when they're next to me at a traffic light. But when I'm enjoying a tune, I want it loud enough so even people in Canada can hear it. Weird, huh? Anyhoo, I've been trying to be more observant and turn the stereo down around traffic lights, 'coz not everyone is to keen on listening to britney sp... to Rage Against The Machine!

 

[reshp1]

I don't think there's anything special about the car listening enviroment, and it's not like their's a standard "car setup." I do it because that's where I listen to music 90% of the time, so I'm extremely familiar with it, and know what commercial CD sound like through the system.

 

[grn]

you guys are going about it all wrong. the reason some of the "pros" do it is because of the acoustic environment provided by a cars interior. you can't just set up car speakers in a room to see how it will sound. and I don't recommend trying to make it sound best in your car... use good neutral monitors, but it *should* translate well to a car. =\

 

[Pinachi]

i dont think you can simulate the sound of a car with just car speakers and a cheap amp,because then, you'll be ignoring the placements of the speakers,those windshield reflections,and the cheap door panels.Plus the back of the speaker excapes outside,yet the the back of the rear speaker excapes to the trunk,unless its a hatch.Hmmm ...i'm lost

Ahh its too complicated!!!!!!!!!!

 

[dwillis45]

I plan to stop testing mixes in the car as soon as the cost of mixing rises permanently above $3.00 per gallon.

 

[scrubs]

I've permanently moved an old BMW into my studio and I do all my mixing inside of it.

 

[Hubbawho]

One thing I've always noticed wrong with my mixes is how they sound in the car environment. Right away, the guitars get high end gainy and muddy, and the drums get thin. The answer? Two things: (and if anyone's planning on listening to my samples, do'nt, cuz I have yet to upload any of my new mixes. but trust me, this DOES improve your mix)

1. everybody knows you need to have decent monitors. But to an ametuer, like me, that was interpreted the wrong way. At first, I was listening through a large pa system, blasting the mixes towards me. But those monitors were MADE to sound GOOD no matter what. Furthermore, because of a mix of different crappy wires connecting the montiros, pa, and outputs, certain frequencies were getting CANCELLED OUT. that's right, cancelled. I didn't know that was possible, but it obviously is, cuz I've heard the mistakes now. So lesson learned, don't get monitors that are made to sound the best. Get the monitors that are most accurate. Now I have a pair of Dynaudios that cost me over a grand. WELL WORTH IT.

2. Next was my main problem with guitars. The tone would turn to crap in some stereo systems even tho the guitars sounded great from my (distant) pa monitors or my headphones. Reason being, you guessed it, frequencies were canceling out. ( or at least they were combining in a disgusting way) See I never knew you SHOULD mix in mono to find these things. So I would find a decent tone for 1 guitarist, record, then find a decent tone for the seceond guitaris, record, and later on in mix down I'd pan their tracks left and right. Well sure when you can hear then individually they sounded fine. (like in headphones for example) But the second I listened to my mixes in "MONO", BAM, they sounded almost exactly as horrible as they did in my car. Who knows, I don't even know for sure. I'm just saying from personal experience, now that I've remixed some of my old stuff in mono, to make sure that the COMBINATION of both guitar tracks still sounded decent, my mixes are improving a lot. And for some reason, mixing in mono actually made the music sound like I was listening from my car.

Sorry about the rant - i don't know much, but i figured this much out for sure. MIX IN MONO ON ACCURATE MONITORS.