Sounded OK in the car

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:26 pm

How do you get your mix and levels to work on small speakers.

When I mixed this pictular song, levels sound ok in the car but are lacking when put up on myspace or are dumbed down to mp3.

I understand the loss with mp3 but other engineers seem to still get a reasonably good sound even on mp3 within small computer speakers.

If you would please take a listen and see maybe I am expecting to much from the musicians as well. Can't pin point my problem.
http://www.myspace.com/abbeyvilleroad
Thanks for your insight,

.

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:59 pm

Your right, it is weak in the rhythm section...sort of. It is overpowered by the bass guitar.

Typical to take the bass guitar and the drums and get those matched up in level overall. You could bring all the percussive instruments around that, then the rhythm guitar.

Establish the full instrumentation first, get that to sound balanced. Then have a crack at the vocals.

Right now it's all over the place.

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 2:36 am

Very very bright sound, almost too much; crispy & thin. (Good vocal sound, though. Nice tune, too.)

Can't hear any low end or bass on my laptop speakers (which is where you want it to sound better for MP3s and such, yes?)

I'd look for more mids & lows in the mix, go for less top end overall, and see what you come up with. Keep the vocal in mind though, I'd keep that and fix everything around it.

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 7:22 pm

I agree SPACE, rhythm section needs to come up and guitars brought up a bit as well, like a whole in the middle. Sounds pretty good on Imac G5 built-in speakers and those are very tiny.....That is a nice song.....

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:21 pm

mp3 vocals are wayy loud.

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 11:14 am

Those mp3 vocals are THE hardest to level!!!

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:33 pm

Space wrote:

Those mp3 vocals are THE hardest to level!!!

No way Space...don't you know, MP3 is a compression format - therefore, it compresses (levels) all of that for you...
Wink

Seriously though, ditch the idea of using the car as a frame of reference. I can't listen to the clip at the moment, but I trust others' judgement here. There is absolutely no substitute for good monitors in a good room. Everytime I make an upgrade to one or both of these, I go back and remix my "favorite" mixes and get them sounding so much better. Don't just learn to hear music on your monitoring chain but learn how to determine its weaknesses.

Cheers-
J

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:31 pm

Cucco has got it! I made the upgrade to better monitors after my friend came to my house and pointed out how lame my speakers were. As the saying goes, "You've got to start somewhere."

2db,
I really like the song. I have the same problem mixing my tunes.

http://www.myspace.com/bretnorman

I know I have some work to do to learn how to mix better too.

After reading a previous post someone had mentioned about mastering with ozone 3 I was interested in learning more about it.
I found their free 10 day trial of izotope's ozone 3. looks like some seriously nice software for mastering. I am waiting to install till I have time to really work with it and see what I can get this thing to do.

Check it out here:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/download.asp

Best wishes 2u
Bret

Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:44 am

i know what you mean, myspace does that to my songs too, but when i put them on stereofame.com they sound original, i think its myspace man, try a different site

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:39 am

Does Ozone 3 work with Logic pro 8? It doesn't mention that DAW on its site.

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