master sounds great at home but awful in car stereos
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > master sounds great at home but awful in car stereos
Posted on Sep 01, 2003 01:00 am
otemrellik
Member Since: Sep 01, 2003
I?ve recently finished mixing down some songs using sonar 2.0. I then applied UltraMaximize and Magneto on them like the mastering tips page suggests. The result sounds great on my home speakers but when I bring it into car stereos the highs are super loud and ear piercing. This happens on all the tracks and with a variety of instruments and some vocals. How can I fix this?
[ Back to Top ]
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Sep 01, 2003 01:37 am Others will probably have some additional suggestions, but here are mine:
If your going to mix something down using a regular home stereo this is what I do since I don't yet have a set of monitors. I set all the eq controls to flat (ie neither boosting or reducing freq), as well as the eq controls for your soundcard. I usually listen to a few commercial songs to get an idea of how it my mix should sound. Then I do the mixing so it sounds good, but not overly bassey. Then I test it with a variety of eq presets such as Rock, Jazz, etc. to make sure it doesn't sound bad, but especially paying attention to the genre I'm working on which is usually Rock in my case. I then listen to it in headphones (actually my first mix is usually with headphones as well) and on my other home stereo and then on my car stereo.
If your using a stereo with a sub-woofer it's very easy for your mix to end up with to much high frequency when played on systems that don't have a subwoofer, such as many car systems you just have to take that into account and thats where listening to some of your commercial cd's come into play. The above works for me pretty well your mileage may vary :)
Dan
Sep 01, 2003 08:33 am The problem here is that you're losing lots of the midrange in your eq. I had this problem for a long time-- and even with studio monitors I still am not totally trained. The reason for this is because when we're mixing we think that scooping out the mids sounds good-- On everything! What we often fail to recognize is that if you listen to a commercial mix on a flat response speaker system, you'll soon realize that pro engineers do not do this. They usually scoop mids in the drums (especially bass drum), and some in the bass, however, mostly the guitars, and partially the vocals, have to fill in the gap. You need those mid frequencies for the mix to sound full. Modern stereos scoop out the mids because it makes the mix sound "slicker." So when we try and mix as if our mixes sounded like they are on a "slicked-up" stereo, and then you actually play it back on one of those stereos, the mix sounds like trash. Way too much bass and treble! My advice: Cut less mids when eq'ing the tracks and, if you have a mastering eq plug-in, compare a commercial cd's actual frequecy curve to your own song's and tweak it to match somewhat if necessary.
Sep 01, 2003 11:44 am I have the same problem,Im gonna have to have a big party with all the new coasters I been making (bad cds)Im thinking there might be some software to help with this.I just got har/bal.as soon as I make another track (and learn how to use it ) perhaps this will help
news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2003/Har-Bal.html
Sep 01, 2003 06:47 pm Thanks everyone but I'm still struggling with this. I don't think the problem is that I'm losing mids because the bass sounds fine in the car. I also tried a gentle boost on the mids and had the same problem. The only thing I can think of it to pull down the hi's a ton. When I do this though it sounds pretty bad on my home speakers, and I haven't tried it in my car yet. I've also wasted plenty of cds.
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Sep 01, 2003 07:08 pm Otemrellik - this may sound really dumb, but do comercial cds sound too "toppy" on your car speakers as well?
Have you got a high quality (192kbps+) mp3 that we can listen to and give advice on?
jues.
Sep 01, 2003 07:41 pm commercial cds sound fine in my car speakers. I have a high quality mp3 but how can get it to you?
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Sep 01, 2003 07:50 pm email (jues...at...uk2...dot...net) or post it up on the web and link to it.
Failing that, sign up for HRC Pro and get FREE Webspace right here at HRC!
jues.
Sep 01, 2003 08:33 pm ok i emailed you a track.
Sep 01, 2003 09:22 pm otem, sounds to me like the room you record in is terribly out of tune, or your reference monitors are not very good, so your tracks wind up very out of sonic balance.
Sep 01, 2003 09:40 pm My room is most likly out of tune as its just my bedroom. I can't really do much about my room right now and my monitors are just my home speakers. I don't really have a budget to record so is there any possible eqing i could do to fix this.
Sep 02, 2003 07:01 am Well, the combination of your room and the home stereo speakers is probably a good part of your problem. In the Do-It-Yourself section of recording tips is a 3-part article about setting up a room and tuning it. Maybe you should read through those, some of it you won't be able to do, but some of it you can. Pay particular atention to the "ringing out a room" section.
glynbMember
Since: Dec 16, 2002
Sep 02, 2003 07:19 am Try this. Mix through a variety of speakers. Get yourself a speaker switch (I have a 4 way speaker switch). Attache different types of speakers to the switch. I have a set of hifi speakers, a cheepo set of hifi speakers, a set of computer speakers and a set of speakers piped through to a neighbouring room.
When you do a mix listen to the 'final' mix on all four sets of speakers and check for bass and trebble levels. Should help.
Sep 02, 2003 07:33 am In theory (and so far I have found it to be true) The new app, "Har-Bal", which I advertise on the front page eliminates much of that need to listen to all those different speakers and rooms. It's a harmonic balancer that takes care of evening out the inconsistancies that produce those kinds of results.
I have been playing with Har-Bal a bit recently, it's pretty impressive.
www.har-bal.com/ for more infos.
That said, I have 3 different sets of speakers at my disposal as well...
glynbMember
Since: Dec 16, 2002
Sep 03, 2003 07:12 am DB I'm suprised at you. I had you down as one of the 'No substitute for using your ears buddy' old school types!!! Now we hear you have a new app which takes the guess work out of it! (Tut tut).
(Only teasing)
Seriously though, if you are using Har-Bal through your hifi speakers and those speakers have a bias I don't see how the app could get round that unless you can teach it?
Sep 03, 2003 07:27 am From my playing with Har-Bal, the speakers you use really have no affect. In theory, you could harmonically balance your music with no speakers at all. It analyzes the frequencies of the audio itself, without regard to playback environment. And actually, if you have a bad environment, it may sound worse, but if you move it around from room to room and stereo, to car stereo, to boom box, etc, you, in theory find it to be balanced much better.
Of course, I am still old school enough to feel that there is no replacement for your ears, but having a very sensitive application analyze your frequency spectrum at 8192 different points is great validation that your ears were right (or wrong).
glynbMember
Since: Dec 16, 2002
Sep 04, 2003 04:04 am I'm sure you're right. But to do that you have to know which frequencies should and shouldn't be there in the first place, so it doesn't sound like this is a tool for the beginner! Hmmmm, what if some of the frequencies it 'thinks' are wrong you actualy want in the mix for some reason? Sounds like a 'one size fits all' solution but I suppose I'm missing the point somewhere.
Anyway, I'll stick to my four sets of speakers, a bit of luck, and a following wind!
Sep 04, 2003 09:46 am It's not really which should and shouldn't be there, it's eliminating the spikes and dips in the spectrum. The app analyzes and shows you the spectrum for you to even out. Download the demo and check it out. The demo is only 8-bit, but it'll show you what I mean.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 04, 2003 11:05 pm For myself it was a learning process. I had to mix for the home stereo, then play it in the car and make another mix for the car, then make a mixes that I hoped would work for both. I am finally tuning my ears to my studio system and getting pretty good mixes for all arould purposes right up front. My latest endevor was a 10 minute music on hold piece. Now there is a small bandwith to work with to get a good sound over the telephone! The EQ on that piece looked awfull! Sounded awfull over monitors too. Sounds great over the phone. I still make mixes just for my own listening on my home stereo. I hate production mixes for my personal home use as they are squashed down to sound good on most anything. And yup...I have a lot of coasters too!
MinkusMazBane of All ExistenceMember
Since: Mar 27, 2003
Sep 04, 2003 11:42 pm how did you test it over the phone? did you actually hook up a handset as a monitor, did you run the output into a phone line, or did you just drop the quality to telephone level?
Sep 05, 2003 12:59 am Thanks everyone. I'm so glad this forum exists. Anyway I've been experimenting a little and I also hooked up some old computer speakers to test the mixes through. Hey Jues have you had time to master that segment? If you haven't had time I understand but I'm checking my mail every time I get online in anticipation. Thanks again to everyone.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Sep 05, 2003 08:51 am Minkus,
No, I actually did it more "shot in the dark" method. Mixed down the music and pre-mastered it regular like type. Did the voice over with all of the wonderfull "we love you, buy from us" garbage, then pre-mastered the whole mess with Ozone using the parametric EQ and Loudness mazimizer based on the frequency response of the telephone (which I knew from working in the industry some time back). Then did a little balancing act with that little band and some lower harmonics to make it sound a little less munchen-esk.
