mixing for cheap ass speakers?

[hollywood_steve]

Working on the mix for this jazz tune where the bass player has this great walking part where he does that drop down to the 3rd and walk up move that all blues and rock guys love. In this instance he does it 3 time quickly in a row and it sounds so cool, even on my little Tannoy Reveals. On some of the bigger monitors in this complex, it sounds like God stopped by to play bass.

After I thought I had the mix down, I finally got around to the "crappy speakers in the rental car" test and it sounds like the speakers are self destructing every time he drops down to the 3rd. Aaarghh! and with my luck, the client drives the same damn car with the same cheap ass speakers.

I know that we all check our mixes on a variety of monitors, but with decent little monitors like the Reveals becoming so cheap, many of us are not bothering with the REALLY cheap speaker test. This is one of those sounds that is completely ignored by little 3 inch speakers in most boom boxes, clock radios, etc. but it causes huge problems on cheap "hifis" that try to provide plenty of bass without having hardware up to the task. The result is that sickening fart sound that makes people wonder if the engineer bothered to listen to the mix.

I wish more manufacturers of cheap systems just agreed to give up on everything under 100hz or so. In a perfect world, they would realize that they can't offer performance at that frequency for the budget they have to work with; so instead of offering lame performance, they should just concentrate on a more reasonable frequency range. Instead, I have to go back and redo this mix just in case someone decides to listen on a system that can't deliver the goods.

[2leod]

I hear ya Steve... I just did this meditation CD where the ambient music track was reaching for sub-sonic in a couple of spots so I dialed it back as much as I could (with the composer in the room) but I was under time constraints and let it go without checking it on the boombox. The lady who's CD it was came back to do some more and you know it... the lows were farting out on the box she uses to do her classes so I shelved everything below 80 Hz... I should have known better, I had a feeling on the first one there would be issues. Ah well, live and learn.

[tINY]

I know this sounds cruel, but I have no sympathy for people who buy a $50 boom box, crank the bass and wonder why it sounds bad at high volume.

I understand why the manufacturers do it: at polite volumes in the store, turning the bass up sounds good. It would cost too much to put a variable shelving filter tied to the volume control to keep it from distorting.

How much should you cater to the bottom-end cheap stuff?



-tINY

[Drumsound]

I spend a lot of time using my little Rat Shack speakers. I think they are 10-15 years old and about 2 1/2". I refer to them as the clock radio check.

Tiny,

I with you on the no sympathy for the boom box owner...But we do have to keep them in mind while working. I think now in the time of the $400 computer with speakers included, we may need to think about it more than ever.

[hollywood_steve]

But I really don't think my mix has any problems on the little 3 inch speakers on most computers, even special media/game PCs. Those speakers tend to roll off far above that first octave (40Hz to 80Hz). Its those no-name "hifi" systems that have 10 or 12 inch drivers that cost maybe $3ea. They are not rolled off on the low end; if anything they have a permanent 6 to 12dB boost in the low end. Which they just can't handle; especially when presented with some uncompressed music with large dynamic swings. So they just crap out, sounding like a duck overacting a death scene.

[digitaltaper]

Originally posted by tINY


I know this sounds cruel, but I have no sympathy for people who buy a $50 boom box, crank the bass and wonder why it sounds bad at high volume.

I understand why the manufacturers do it: at polite volumes in the store, turning the bass up sounds good. It would cost too much to put a variable shelving filter tied to the volume control to keep it from distorting.

How much should you cater to the bottom-end cheap stuff?



-tINY

I doubt the bass is cranked .... or that the lady would even want to boost the bass. If your making a meditation CD you should be worried about shitty playback systems .... Do you really think some women running a meditation room is going to have a high quality playback system?? When was the last time you went to a gym and saw a killer playback system??? Maybe where you live ... but around here its all $30.00 boomboxes .... most people are too cheap to throw in the extra $20.00 for the bass and treble control. fuuck

"How much should you cater to the bottom-end cheap stuff?"

If thats going to be your end market then you better do the most you can. Seriously .... if you were marketing a childrens music album, do you think a playschool cd player would support a fat deep end??