Whats the best way to tell

just when I think I have a good mixdown of my songs on my yamaha aw4416 I burn them to a cd! The funny thing is when I play it in my car the kick drum sounds to loud in the mix but when I play it in my home stereo it sounds fine, why is that?........ Which one is right, the car stereo or the home stereo!?.........

What are you mixing on in your studio? If it sounds good on a decent set of monitors, it should sound good in the car/club/house as well.
I always mix down and listen to it on a lot of stuff, ghettoblaster, hifi and car.

Always A/B your stuff with pro CD's/music u got to check levels etc

I got m-audio studio phile monitors.........the kick sounds okay on my monitors but it sounds over powered in my car.........

krush groove wrote:just when I think I have a good mixdown of my songs on my yamaha aw4416 I burn them to a cd! The funny thing is when I play it in my car the kick drum sounds to loud in the mix but when I play it in my home stereo it sounds fine, why is that?........ Which one is right, the car stereo or the home stereo!?.........

I think the problem is the room you mix down in is not acoustically set correctly meaning you are probly over compensating you're mix in the deep end to sound good on you're monitors,so when you play them in the car the bass is too loud. its the only thing I can think of right now.

Would you suggest trying to get a good mixdown on a good set of headphones? Just to elaborate on what you said BB...That might be the case because on the monitor mix I adjust the kick drum down so low you can barely here it on my monitors but in the car is sounds okay........but with that I use various kick drums so its hard for me to adjust every kick drum on my mixdown to the proper level!...........

I dont advise to use head phones to mixdown because that would make things worse. the best thing to do is to get your favorite commercial cd and listen to it as a reference. this way you can get an Idea of how the bass or kick should sound on your set of monitors(you get a more or less Idea). I have learned that you really have to KNOW your monitors well to get the sound you want from them.

Sounds like a plan..............Do you have any suggestions as to what the settings should be on the monitors
1. Acoustic Space{ 0,-2, or-4db}
2. High freq{-2, 0,or +2db}
3. Mid boost{in or out}
4. low cutoff{56, 80, or 100 hz}

Krush - do those m-audio monitors have a frequency switch on the back? I seem to remember checking out a pair of M audio monitors and they did, and the general response was not particularly flat - I had to experiment with the freq. switch to get what sounded good to me. You could try setting them while referencing a known pro cd to get the right balance on a pro recording, then, as advised, use pro cds as references when mixing.

Thats top advice too - know your monitors (and room)

Yeah they got a freq switch on the back............I guess I better listen to some dre or timbaland to get a feel of the kick...I know one thing for sure the den In my apartment I have my studio set up in is very small, hopefully when we move into our house things will change but for now I gotta make do, I have a lot of mc's depending on me back home and they can't wait, they need the product!.......

I recently bought a pair of Fostex pm2 monitors, and for the first two months my mixes were s***e, it's just through listening and comparing that you get to know what your monitors put out.

I guess I would set everything flat re. freq. to begin with - definately don't cut the bass, cos you will then end up over compensating and adding even more in your mix.

use your db meters on your mixer to see where the bass drum is peaking....make sure your bass drum peaks at the same violume and then mix the levels to that...provided its all balanced you should have a nice and hot signal....

greg

you should take the time...despite having loads of different kicks they all need to fit so you should spend time getting them right....

i sometimes put a limiter on my kicks so they always peak at a certain volume....may couple this with a ducking side chain so every time my bass drums hit the abss gets compressed....

use headphones but only after you've mixed outside...ive mixed purely on headphones before and it sounded shite outside but did it the other way and the mix worked both outside and in the headphones....

also if you look at dre's kicks they are like square waves....extract the aduio into sound forge and see how they take up the whole volume spectrum and clip at the top...this is hard limiting...means your kicks always punch through but wont get louder then a certain volume...

greg

Say dub, what are you talking about "mix outside"

Haven't responded on these forums for a while, but just thought i'd let u know.... I have the same speakers, and the studiophiles emphazise the highs, so when ur mixing down, turn the speakers down low... don't have them real loud, because ur highs are gonna stand out more than the lows..... so turn it down low, and mix from there and it should be a little bit better...