studio monitors vs car stereo

I made a track it sounded fine on my studio monitors, sampled a little over three minutes of it from record:main out, transfered wav file to pc and burnt it to audio cd, but when i bumped it in my truck the mix was totally different than on monitors, the 808 kick was way to heavy, the clap was to loud, the lead synth sample was way to quiet, played w/ the bass treble on my car stereo but still could not get it to sound the way it sounded on monitors, how can i make sure the mix will sound good anywhere i play it?

This message is in the wrong place... but anyway, what kind of monitors are you using?

dont mix loud, mix low, use compression where needed
also you are going to have get used to your monitors, it takes time to get a good mix.

what works for me is when i'm mixing on a new pair of monitors i play a professionally mastered cd out of them until i have that type of mix in my head levels and all. so when im mixing my own stuff i know how a professionally mixed song sound coming out of my speakers.

this happened because the song wasn't mixed. how do u mix a song? well that is another discussion all together.

Penfold wrote:dont mix loud, mix low, use compression where needed
also you are going to have get used to your monitors, it takes time to get a good mix.

Yep, that's the bidness. I usually get everything how I want it, then bring the master fader down from 0Db to between -2 to -5Db to mixdown with. Then, in wavelab, I run it through the compressors and get it right. If you mix too loud initially, you leave yourself no room to master (in the digital realm, anywayz).

boaty wrote:I made a track it sounded fine on my studio monitors how can i make sure the mix will sound good anywhere i play it?

Ok firstly your question is in the wrong section.

You have to take into consideration your room or the space where you are creating your mix has a lot to do with how you will mix it! remember sound is all around you!

Some Options to overcome this try :

*playing your mix in many different places on as many different sound systems as you can find.
*moving your monitors to a different part of your room.
*checkyour monitor settings (if they are active)
*use a different pair of monitors
*put up bass traps in the room (sound to me like you are compensating for a lack of bass in your mix when you are creating)
*try and get into a recording/mixing studio whilst someone is engineering ( witnessing an experienced engineer behinde a console is a valuable thing)
*sign up for a sound engineering course

PS. the best and cheapest place to test it is probably your car!

thanks for the advice, i'll post this type of stuff in the production techniques forum next time.

Was in a band once that recorded at a great studio with huge, superb monitors. Everything came through very warm and accurate. When tunes were cut and played on a smaller stereo, they had a tendency to sound... slightly toilet. Fact is, most people don't hear tunes on huge, superb warm and accurate monitors!

Get a small portable stereo in your studio. Listen to your outputs on that and compare it to what's in the shops / your hero's sound.

im still gettin used to my tr5's, so when im unsure, i use some cheap headphones to check levels, and see if anythings to high or to low, this always works, and when i burn to cd and check how it sounds on diffrent systems im allways very happy

i think everything everyone has said so far is good. i have some to add -

if you sit too close to your monitors, the midrange instruments will tend to be pushed too far to the back of the mix. and yeah, sometimes stuff like 808's bass drums will get too loud on ya, even on big bassy speakers

make sure you check the mix from different parts of the room, on top of hearing it on a lot of different speakers

Skagarax wrote:Was in a band once that recorded at a great studio with huge, superb monitors. Everything came through very warm and accurate. When tunes were cut and played on a smaller stereo, they had a tendency to sound... slightly toilet. Fact is, most people don't hear tunes on huge, superb warm and accurate monitors!

Get a small portable stereo in your studio. Listen to your outputs on that and compare it to what's in the shops / your hero's sound.

going along wit what YOU are saying, DOES it not make sense then that when you do a mix to do it on the sh*ttiest speakers available because once you have it decent on thos sh*tty speakers, it should sound "good" on all other systems? or am i talkin from TOYLAND as that sasquatch Lord Cookamanga(taremango or taranaga) would say?

let me know

peace

oNe