KennyCleod Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 I've been working on a track for quite a long time, can't seems to find the problem and all, I've a well treated acoustic room and KS Digital monitor speakers, I've done everything I can on my mix, I've all instruments, vocals and etc stereo widen. I mix them all in 44.1/16bit WAVs, everything is properly mixed down and sounds good on my monitor speakers. I rendered a mp3 and burned it to cd. I've listened to my mix in the car, it sounds good on the front seat, but really bad on the back seat, what could be the problem? is it because the mp3 I rendered in 48,000/320kbps is the problem? (been thinking that actually) I'm very frustrated, stressed out and can't get it out of my mind, i can't find solutions, I need advices from you guys, I'm very sorry cuz I'm new in this kind of stuff, thank you and hope y'all can help me out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moseph Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 Does other music that you didn't make sound okay in the back seat? Do you have a sub in the trunk? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ad.mixx Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 It's not going to be the rendering most likely. It's probably the mixing itself, just because everything sounds good one on studio setup doesn't mean it's going to sound good on everything - you gotta try and mix on various things to get the "perfect" sound. Advice, listen to the song on different things. Mix on your monitors first, then mix it on headphones (which really, you should ALWAYS mix on a good pair of headphones, regardless of if you have monitors or not. Mixing on both is the best way to get a solid mix), then try listening to it in your car, and mix it to your car. Then you can take it even further and listen to the song on a crappy pair of earbuds from a dollar store, and mix it a bit on there. If this is confusing at all, the whole point of this is to basically to get one good mix through listening on all these things. Mixing on just monitors alone doesn't mean it's going to sound good on everything else. Hope that's not confusing. edit: also the subwoofer thing like moseph said. always good to consider that. oh yeah also i should mention because i don't think it's that obvious, you're not going to get one "perfect" mix that sounds totally awesome on every single pair of speakers ever, you're just going for solid. if you have to make decisions to sacrafice quality on those earbuds, then i'd do that before anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KennyCleod Posted July 21, 2012 Author Share Posted July 21, 2012 I haven't check my other mixes yet, cuz I'm too lazy to do so.. but as for this one Im doing right, its very important to me so i gotta do everything i can to make it sound as good as possible.. also I did listened to alot of commercial cd's. they sound really good in all 4 speakers in the car. my mix is totally bad. normally what sample rate and bitrate do you set before you burn in a cd and test it in the car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KennyCleod Posted July 21, 2012 Author Share Posted July 21, 2012 It's not going to be the rendering most likely.It's probably the mixing itself, just because everything sounds good one on studio setup doesn't mean it's going to sound good on everything - you gotta try and mix on various things to get the "perfect" sound. Advice, listen to the song on different things. Mix on your monitors first, then mix it on headphones (which really, you should ALWAYS mix on a good pair of headphones, regardless of if you have monitors or not. Mixing on both is the best way to get a solid mix), then try listening to it in your car, and mix it to your car. Then you can take it even further and listen to the song on a crappy pair of earbuds from a dollar store, and mix it a bit on there. If this is confusing at all, the whole point of this is to basically to get one good mix through listening on all these things. Mixing on just monitors alone doesn't mean it's going to sound good on everything else. Hope that's not confusing. edit: also the subwoofer thing like moseph said. always good to consider that. oh yeah also i should mention because i don't think it's that obvious, you're not going to get one "perfect" mix that sounds totally awesome on every single pair of speakers ever, you're just going for solid. if you have to make decisions to sacrafice quality on those earbuds, then i'd do that before anything else. you're totally right. I think i should hook up my old speakers and everything else as my refrence. eh.. don't really have a sub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KennyCleod Posted July 21, 2012 Author Share Posted July 21, 2012 Does other music that you didn't make sound okay in the back seat? Do you have a sub in the trunk? sorry wasnt replying properly just now, no sub at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mordi Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 You should post your mix here, or at least parts of it. It's hard to say what your problem is in this case. It could just be that your mix has some nasty overtones that need slight EQing. Maybe some instruments just need a touch of compression. Who knows? You haven't described the problem specifically, other than "it sounds bad". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guifrog Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 If commercial music sounds fine on the car, your mix might have some production issues. It happens to me at times, too Sometimes the low/high frequencies are too hot, some instruments sound too loud/too quiet, etc; I just think of the car as a useful bad production detector. Also, some nice headphones n' stuff. If you wanna, you may post your mix so we can have a try helping you figure what the problem is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garpocalypse Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I'd like to hear the mix in question so i could have at least some chance of providing useful information. However i'll say that when i'm comparing my own mixes in my car i noticed a significant jump in quality once I started becoming more fluent with a multiband compressor on the master. The problem could also be panning. When you are mixing the speakers are setup perfectly on both sides of your head. In a car you're off to the side a bit, maybe your noticing something that you didn't notice before. I've been playing around with hard panning. The instruments are either 100 L 100R or dead center. Most people in the car aren't going to be thinking "nice, that pan flute is panned 20% R and I think it really complements this mix well!" So try that as another weapon in your mix arsenal. I'd also recommend EQ'ing in mono after you set your faders. That should bring a nice boost in clarity and give you a quick assessment of what's clashing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I mix them all in 44.1/16bit WAVs, everything is properly mixed down and sounds good on my monitor speakers.I rendered a mp3 and burned it to cd. what could be the problem? is it because the mp3 I rendered in 48,000/320kbps is the problem? (been thinking that actually) why on earth are you taking a 44.1khz WAV, resampling it to 48khz in a LOSSY format, then resampling it AGAIN, BACK to 44.1khz lossless? that's just... it's... silly, man. it's a silly thing to do. just burn the WAV to CD. there is NO REASON to encode it to mp3 before burning the disc! let alone resample it twice and downconvert it along the way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Any mp3 encoding above 128kbps is tolerable on most car speakers, and most ppl don't hear anything wrong with a 128kbps mp3 anyway. Either the speakers in the back of your car are crap - in which case everything sounds crap on them, or there's something wrong with your mix. We don't have access to your mix nor your car, so we can only guess. Show us the mix or test how other tracks sound in the back seat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 i never even mentioned bitrate, Rozovian. i'm not freaking talking about bitrate. i'm talking about samplerate. resampling non-divisible sample rates is destructive. and he's doing it twice. once when he resamples 44.1khz wav to 48khz mp3, again when he resamples 48khz mp3 to 44.1khz redbook. this is a) destructive, and pointless since he started at 44.1khz to begin with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozovian Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Unless he was using a really low mp3 encoding (<128kbps) in addition to the resampling, I wouldn't expect the quality to drop that much. Car stereos aren't exactly studio monitors, either. Are you saying the repeated resampling alone is a sufficient cause for the discrepancy in perceived quality between front seat and back set listening experiences? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KennyCleod Posted July 22, 2012 Author Share Posted July 22, 2012 I'll post a Sample. soon. thanks everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 If professionally mixed music sounds good but your track sounds bad, there's something wrong with your track. That's why car speakers and headphones are indispensable parts of mixing. They instantly tell you if something is way wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anorax Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 If professionally mixed music sounds good but your track sounds bad, there's something wrong with your track. That's why car speakers and headphones are indispensable parts of mixing. They instantly tell you if something is way wrong. the hard part is figuring out what that way wrong something is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 I've been working on a track for quite a long time,can't seems to find the problem and all, I've a well treated acoustic room and KS Digital monitor speakers, I've done everything I can on my mix, I've all instruments, vocals and etc stereo widen. I mix them all in 44.1/16bit WAVs, everything is properly mixed down and sounds good on my monitor speakers. I rendered a mp3 and burned it to cd. I've listened to my mix in the car, it sounds good on the front seat, but really bad on the back seat, what could be the problem? is it because the mp3 I rendered in 48,000/320kbps is the problem? (been thinking that actually) I'm very frustrated, stressed out and can't get it out of my mind, i can't find solutions, I need advices from you guys, I'm very sorry cuz I'm new in this kind of stuff, thank you and hope y'all can help me out. During the mix process, do you switch over to mono and address issues? A mix can sound great in stereo, then you switch to mono and you want to cry. But you have to gird your loins and confront your instruments all piled up on top of each other, like they tend to get in the car. What I do guarantee is it has absolutely nothing to do with your rendering. Most likely it's a case of your mix sounding good in the "sweet spot", and bad elsewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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