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Frequency balance


Rozovian
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Been playing my music for friends in their cars, and noticed the frequency balance is terrible. I know I'm supposed to mix pretty flat and even and whatever, but the question is how flat and even that is.

The solutions I have are to listen and mix on all kinds of speaker setups and headphones, and to compare professionally mixed stuff to my stuff. There's still something I'm missing, and I dunno what.

Ideas or suggestions, anyone?

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I used to have this problem a lot and still have it a little bit, but you need to basically mix with 70Hz or so being right at the max limit of loudness and then decrease the dB level by 3 every octave so it tapers off the higher you go. However, every song and genre has its own mixing standards so do what you can to find a happy medium.

Look on KVRaudio for a frequency analyzer. They are EXTREMELY helpful for making sure your levels are in check.

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IMO using analyzers isn't worth it - your mileage may vary, but simply looking at a spectrum is more useful in seeing frequencies in the subs that shouldn't be there than actually determining if your balance is 'good'. You simply need to listen to more (and better) reference music, and get better headphones/monitors, and/or tune your room better.

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Using a song as a reference is def the best way to go as long as your listening environment/tools are up to snuff.

IMO spectrum analyzers are good to use in a relative sense. In general to see if certain frequency ranges match up alright.

Also reading up on what frequencies different types of speakers boost and/or cut will help give you a good reference when EQ'ing to make sure the track sounds good in any environment. Just another small thing to be aware of and take into consideration.

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Is the EQ in the car setup any specific way or is it flat too?

Also car speakers don't necessarily have the same Freq Range as your home speakers. The more boom in the monitor the harder the highs are to reproduce, so most systems cheap out by using a sub-woofer, thus taking acoustic pressure off the monitor to reproduce the frequency range more accurately. If you got a sub you got a response hole so that can affect reproduction.

What I've started to notice I was missing in my mixx (besides talent :-P) was better Dynamic Compression with a more aggressive ARC setting.

You could also try mixing quieter, that way, when you squeeze (Master) later you have a LOT of dynamic range to work with... makes your mixx explode.

I guess Rozovian, I'd have to know your production procedure to see where you could do something different that might make it better.

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