Re: AW: Powered Subs...on to mastering

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

Since we're talking mixing and mastering, here's a follow-up 
regarding reference monitoring:

When you guys are checking out your mixes on other systems (we're 
talking car stereos, home stereos, boomboxes, etc.), do you normally 
test with that system's tone controls set flat, or turned to the 
typical user's settings?

I recently ended up with one mix that sounded pretty good when I 
checked it on a stereo with the typical "smile curve" EQ.  I got 
similar results in the car with the same treble and bass tweaking I 
normally do during everyday driving.

Yet in both cases, when I switched the EQ to flat, the whole mix went 
amazingly lifeless.  Without the normal twerks, it became overall 
kind of 'meh...'.

As an experiment, I tried the opposite -- mixing for a flat reference 
system -- which then resulted in the exact opposite: a mix that 
sounded okay with no EQ, but was obscenely overhyped with only the 
slightest user customization.

In the end, I mixed for what I figured the end-user would most likely 
be listening to, but I've not really encountered a situation where it 
made such a marked difference.  Has anybody else run into a similar 
issue in the past?

        --m.
-- 
_____
"I want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of 
murder... later"