As a DIY recording artist, you may be working in a room with less than desirable monitoring. Here’s a few reasons why checking your mixes outside the studio can benefit the sound of your production;
Mixing in Rooms with No Acoustic Treatment:
- The Reality of Home Studios: DIY recording artists often work in home studios, which aren’t acoustically treated. This means your room can introduce unintended sound colourations, such as reflections, echoes & most certainly, an un-even frequency response.
- Listening in the Wild: By testing your mixes in different places, you simulate how your music will sound on various playback systems. When you take your mixes to different rooms, you’ll uncover issues that might have been missed in your home studio.
- The Limitations of Budget Speakers Many DIY artists work with budget-friendly speakers, which may not offer the most accurate representation of your music. These speakers often have their own unique sound characteristics or colourations. Here’s one way to help understand what your room and speakers are telling you. Listen to a handful of well produced tracks, on systems you like to listen to music on. This could be the car, the soundbar in the living room etc. Typically these would be chart topping songs or songs that simply blow you away every time you hear them. Take these same songs back to your studio and give them a critical listen. Does the track that had a healthy bass response on other systems, suddenly feel weak in your studio? Does the bass fall away and do some bass notes actually disappear? This is an indication that your mix set up is not producing an accurate bass response. Most likely a combination of your speakers & acoustic environment. You need to bear this in mind when mixing your bass levels. Your mixes may need to be a little ‘shy’ in the bass area when mixing or else you may end up producing ‘bass’ heavy mixes. Checking your final mixes in other environments can really help in this particular situation and reduce the chances of your mix falling short on other systems.
3. The Importance of a Fresh Perspective:
- Ears Get Used to Environments: Our ears quickly adapt to our environment. If you’ve been working in the same room with the same speakers for hours, your perception can become biased. Listening in various places can reset your perspective and help you catch issues you might have overlooked.
- Understanding Your Music’s Versatility: DIY artists often create music with a wide audience in mind. Listening in different places helps you understand how versatile your music truly is. It ensures that your songs sound great in a bedroom, a car, or on headphones.
- Preparing for the Mastering Stage: Before handing your music over for mastering, you want to be sure that your mix sounds the best it can be. Listening in multiple environments is a crucial step in this preparation process.
In conclusion, as a DIY recording artist, embracing the practice of listening everywhere before submitting your mixes for mastering can make a world of difference. It empowers you to overcome the limitations of your recording environment and gain a fresh perspective on your music. Ultimately, it helps you create mixes that translate well on a variety of playback systems, ensuring that your music resonates with a wider audience.
For more tips, be sure to check out all our tips here; https://crystalmastering.com.au/music-mastering/prepare-mixes-mastering/
Written by Joe Carra`
With over 30 years of experience in the mastering field, Joe is the sole director & chief mastering engineer at Crystal Mastering. A Grammy nominated audio engineer, Joe is also a founding member of MPEG (Music Producer & Engineer’s Guild of Australia). Over the years, Joe has had the privilege of mastering numerous ARIA award-winning albums, and his work has amassed over 3.5 billion streams. Aside from his regular mastering duties, Joe can also be found giving guest lectures at various audio colleges in his area.