Bill Moriarty, record producer and Highrise customer (case study), offers some interesting advice to other producers at his blog: Mix Records on Crap Speakers.
“It’s the very naive producer who works only on optimum systems.” -Brian Eno
It’s unlikely whoever is buying your records has anything better than an average hi-fi, boombox, car stereo, or ipod. I’d bet they don’t have studio monitors.
Recording & mixing solely on studio monitors is foolish. All that low end in the guitar? It’s useless in the small speakers. It’s just taking up frequencies the bass or drums or organs or tenor instruments can occupy. You have to be ruthless in cutting away useless frequencies so the record is loud & jumps out of all speakers. Make the record sound outstanding on little crap speakers since that’s where most people will hear it. I’ve found when I do this it still sounds great on the fancy speakers.
Love this. It’s not about the gear. In fact, gear can distract you from the essence of what you’re working on. Strip what you’re doing down to its bare essentials and evaluate that. If that comes off great, then it will work as it gets louder, starts to grow, or whatever. (And web designers can definitely apply the same idea to bandwidth speed, screen size, etc.)
Robbert Broersma
on 08 Dec 08But that does ruin the lives of people with high-end audio systems :(
Andrew
on 08 Dec 08Lets take another look at that…
It’s the very naive producer who works only on optimum systems. As a person who has done extensive studio work, I can tell you that I do most of my mixing on high end ADAM speakers. Having this set of speakers that I work on and know the response to lets me get a mix in the ballpark much quicker. With that said, I do check/tweak all of my mixes on low end systems (stock car stereos, boomboxes, computer speakers, etc).
I think Brian Eno is right when he said that “Recording and Mixing on only studio monitors is foolish.” It’s all about having the right tool for the job and knowing your craft well enough to know which tool that you need.
Tim Case
on 08 Dec 08Actually in this case it’s completely about the gear, basically you are changing what would be the normal process of mixing music, that is listening to it through a flat colorless studio monitor and matching the mix down to make the music reproduce as true as possible.
What the suggestion above is saying is that because most music is listened to through inferior devices go ahead and change your engineering to supporting the most popular case.
By this logic 37Signals should redo all their sites to optimally support IE6.
ratchetcat
on 08 Dec 08Yes, forget nuance! Let’s make everything loud!
Seriously, “sichel schnitt”-ing stuff left and right is fun, but you obviously run a risk of cutting something great in the process.
Paul
on 08 Dec 08I remember Bjork mentioning that the songs on her album “Vespertine” were meant to sound good and gain even more nuance post-mp3 compression. A special treat for those downloading her music, wherever that may be. An interesting example of going with the flow instead of trying to run in the other direction, to say the least!
ML
on 08 Dec 08Yeah, there’s obvs times where you’ll want to mix for a high-end system. But I love the idea that you get to the core of what you’re doing on a simple, crappy setup. You get it to sound good there and it will sound good anywhere.
Joe Hass
on 08 Dec 08My stepfather has repeatedly reminded me that during the great Motown days, they would use the final test of playing the track through a car stereo to hear how it sounded there.
Andrew Nesbitt
on 08 Dec 08The same sentiment doesn’t really work with IE6 in mind, with the web you have the ability to make use of extra features of more modern browsers whilst not affecting old browsers that don’t support them.
If everyone designed their sites using IE5.5 and a tiny monitor innovation would be minimal (and everyone would hate their job!)
Mongo Sound
on 08 Dec 08Having mixed a number of albums (that’s right, I said “album”), I wish it were this simple. The truth is you have to mix for a large variety of speaker systems, including high-fidelity systems. I suppose the analog is that you should, at least, be functional in IE 6, FF3, Opera 10, Konqueror, etc…
I always encouraged my customers, at the time, to take the CD out to their cars and listen. Now, of course, I would make them listen to it on the crappiest of sound environments – the iPod. Yeah I know it sounds Troll-ish, but really, man does that thing mangle sound.
Snowflake Seven
on 08 Dec 08Sure, the metaphor for coding is interesting, but back in the music world where us humans experience music, applying this principal has created a lot of music that sounds like crap.
Going for loudness on crap speakers to the determent of a good mix on higher quality speakers is the equivalent of developing all your websites for the mobile web browser found on a ten-year-old $30 clam-shell cellphone and then never bothering to progressively enhance it for Firefox.
andrei_c
on 08 Dec 08I agree with all the commenters who say that recording mastered on crappy speakers will sound like crap.
Here’s some reasons why.
First, different speakers are crappy in different ways. They have different problems and deficiencies. If the recording sounds perfect on one set of crappy speakers, it will not necessarily sound any good on a set of crappy speakers that belong to end consumer.
Second, not all listeners are created equal. Those who have real influence (such as music critics and diehard enthusiasts), tend to use decent audio equipment and will hate the recording, and will write corresponding reviews and negatively affect sales.
Andrei
brad Hurley
on 08 Dec 08I agree with people who say you should test your sound on a variety of speakers, just like testing a site on multiple web browsers.
On the subject of speakers, I recently bought a pair of AudioEngine A2 desktop speakers for my computer and was blown away. They were optimized specifically for MP3s and other lossy output from iPods and computers, and the sound quality from those sources is unbelievable, basically blowing away everything else I’ve heard or tried over the years. They cost $200, but as far as I’m concerned they’re worth it.
Vesa Nieminen
on 08 Dec 08The idea is lovely, but it isn’t the truth. Of course it’s good to test your mix on a low fidelity setup, but if you mix on it you ain’t gonna hear everything and so the end result is not really under your control. It’s pretty much the same as saying that photographers should process their photos using a 100 bucks screen without any color profile. It just ain’t gonna magically turn your material to work everywhere.
Dan
on 08 Dec 08Yeah, go for the lowest common denominator. If you don’t have a standard you trust and if you can’t hear imperfections because you have crappy monitoring, then you are going to put out product with flaws.
Are you saying the same thing for television productions? Since most people have TV sets that are not set up correctly and are certainly not studio monitors, should all movies and TV be shot on $800 cameras and edited on your laptop? Who needs 35mm film or pro HD cameras. People watch on their iPods anyway. Let’s all just do the least amount we can possibly do to get by.
Good music producers always use a combination of great studio monitors in an environment they trust as well as consumer-style smaller speakers to A-B test the mix. Always.
JeremyJ
on 08 Dec 08The standard reason for still having a cassette deck in a recording studio these days is so you can master down the mix, and listen to it in the car outside.
There are also some pretty decent digital speaker simulators that let you get an idea of the distortion you might expect through other set ups (some of the software ones will allow you to add suitable ambient noise to the output).
rumblestrut
on 08 Dec 08I think the car test is a better gauge than crappy speakers. At least that’s what I used to use.
GeeIWonder
on 08 Dec 08Yeah, there’s obvs times where you’ll want to mix for a high-end system. But I love the idea that you get to the core of what you’re doing on a simple, crappy setup. You get it to sound good there and it will sound good anywhere.
Except when it won’t because those crappy speakers may have exotic and numerous resonant frequencies in their construction.
Also, I remember when ‘Zwan’ (Corgan et al.) came out with their album they were so inundated with people complaining how everything was distorting in the mix, even on really excellent systems. They finally ended up publishing an open letter saying that they had spent a week in the studio distorting every track - drums - bass - guitar - vocals, you name it.
Mark
on 08 Dec 08AKA why you still need to support and test in IE6, yes?
david reeves
on 08 Dec 08@Tim Case: Exactly.
It is very much about the gear, and beyond—it’s about understanding the environment in which your product (or album, or whatever) will live in the real world, and adapting it toward that purpose.
If you’re making an album for audiophiles, by all means use studio monitors.
But not if you’re making a pop record.
Robert Handrow
on 08 Dec 08Nice backfire.
You can’t assign the 37signal’s mantra of simplicity to each and every area of work solely for the sake of it.
If it is about mixing and or mastering sounds, music etc. using different gear in a elaborated way is essential.
This truly applies when one composes music where ideas are trumps though.
MC
on 08 Dec 08Some music sounds better on the (cheap) radio in your car as you’re hurtling down the highway, especially songs you haven’t heard in a while. Then you get home to your fantastic audio system, find the song, listen to it and… disappointment sets in. Happens to me all the time.
Bill Moriarty
on 08 Dec 08Hi all! I didn’t say a producer should work only on small, crappy speakers. I said “Recording & mixing solely on studio monitors is foolish.” I have a pair of Adam monitors I use every day. It’s personal taste, but I find the best records sound outstanding everywhere. They have compromises that make them sound amazing on both studio monitors, cars and earbuds. But my mom still has one speaker in the kitchen and the other in the living room. The music needs to work on all systems.
Mixing on small crappy speakers does not make the record sound like shit. The mix engineer makes it sound like shit. The point is to make it sound the best it can on little speakers and also a high end system. It’s easy to make it sound incredible on studio monitors. The more difficult challenge is to translate the music’s intention through even the worst setup.
I’ve learned this from everyone I’ve worked for who makes outstanding records. People who make amazing records who practice this: Larry Gold, Oz Fritz, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Four Tet.
@ rumble strut: I live in a city and my car’s not always nearby. If it was I’d monitor in it, too.
@Dan: Seems we agree… “Good music producers always use a combination of great studio monitors in an environment they trust as well as consumer-style smaller speakers to A-B test the mix. Always.”
@Vesa Nieminen Again, I didn’t say only mix on the little guys. I rely on them heavily and it works for me.
@andrei c: We’re talking about mixing, not mastering. Secondly, the music producer’s job is not to please music critics.
@Tim Case: I love my ADAM monitors, too.
@david reeves: Yes yes yes.
take care, Bill Moriarty
August Lilleaas
on 08 Dec 08People that listens on retarded speakers doesn’t care anyway.
Just like IE6 users doesn’t care. They’re IE6 users after all.
Brandon Durham
on 08 Dec 08This message holds a valuable lesson to those outside of the audio engineering world, but I’d venture a guess that most every engineer (with an iota of credibility) has a shitty jambox or low-end speakers wired into their recording setup. It’s kind of a given. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a studio that doesn’t have a pair of Yamaha NS-10s plugged in specifically because they’re totally flat and colorless as well as some sort of boombox. I’ve never let a mix pass by me without listening in every car stereo I can get my hands on.
I find it just as important (if not more so) to remove yourself from the studio altogether and listen somewhere else. At home, the office, in headphones, etc.
Paul M. Watson
on 08 Dec 08Of course, if 90% of your listeners are on high-end gear…
Morning Toast
on 08 Dec 08Same reason I don’t put much worth into color calibration or safe title/resolution on TV work. TV stations have all the nice equipment, Joe Average has a cheap 36” TV that he can barely operate beyond what he needs. (BTW, I am Joe Average when it comes to TVs).
My father used to run the sound board for all my high school band concerts and while it sounded great in his little headphones (the mic mix), it sounded like crap to the people sitting in the auditorium…however, he always insisted it sounded “perfect” as it should because the little meters told him so.
Just goes to show that nothing beats end user/customer feedback and observation of your product in action. I doubt most things are used “as they should be.”
Jacob
on 08 Dec 08Ah, but then there’s the beauty of putting on studio monitor earphones/headphones and hearing what music was meant to sound like.
The way it works now is fine for most people, and it allows those who care about it to enjoy it on a higher level. Mixing for crap speakers would not drastically improve the mainstream experience but would certainly destroy it for the people who do buy high-end systems.
Peter Marks
on 08 Dec 08That’s why Techno is so great. It’s mastered for enormous sound systems. It doesn’t have to compromise for individual listeners.
Josh
on 08 Dec 08Reminds me of an article I read back when I was into metal music in high school… when Pantera was recording Far Beyond Driven they would periodically take the in-progress tracks out to a crappy car stereo to see how it sounded.
AudioNerd
on 08 Dec 08ML—thats not what he’s saying at all. The key word is “only”. He’s still doing the core of his work on the high-end system, he’s just checking the mix on low-end systems. Just like every other record producer in the world. Google “auratone” if you are bored / want to read more.
They actually sell a gadget for studios that broadcasts the 2bus on lpfm so you can check the mix in your car without burning a cd.
You don’t mix on a high-end system for a high-end system, you mix on a high-end system so you can hear what’s actually going on. Then you make sure the mix translates to shittier systems. A high-end system is the average of all shitty systems. The problem with low-end systems isn’t that they are lacking in some particular dimension, its that they are inconsistent in every dimension. I mean, JF doesn’t purposely use a monitor with terrible color reproduction, does he? You don’t write your CSS for IE first, do you?
Anonymous Coward
on 08 Dec 08I have an AM radio from 1982 that attaches to my bike and runs on 4 D batteries. I always run my mixes through that on a windy day – if I can make it sound good there, by God it will sound good anywhere.
andrei_c
on 08 Dec 08@Bill Mixing/mastering correction taken, agreed.
I disagree with you on importance of critics and reviewers audience because it is really the part of audience that makes 90% of the buzz, and, in some cases, saves or kills the product. Of course, it really depends on the kind of music being produced, but targeting unsophisticated audience only is not necessarily the route to success.
Erik
on 09 Dec 08Web developers should slow down there internet connections to remind them about the user experience for the vast majority of web users. You can do this on your local machine, even if the site is being developed locally. For instructions see: http://www.railsillustrated.com/simulating-a-web-experience.html
CJ
on 09 Dec 08For the designers out there- Remember if it looks great on your Macintosh it might look like crap on a PC so check it twice my friends.
Joshua Street
on 09 Dec 08We do the same every mix goes through the fancies, the car, the macbook pro, and the ipod in ears…it really passes the test if played through the myspace crap player.
CJ Curtis
on 09 Dec 08I don’t know if I would go so far as the self-powered Radio Shack speakers, but you can’t put an audio mix to bed without listening to what lower end systems do to the final product.
I’ve found this especially true with audio mixes for interactive projects, where background sound effects are often extremely important. Once you do your final exports to 144 or whatever you’re using, you may find that your more subtle channels are gone completely.
@CJ: If only I could hook up a Mac monitor to my PC. :)
john
on 09 Dec 08well, if you are peddling mass-market crap, ok. if you are making art… not so much. Bjork is making art, but it’s the irony and intention that make it so—you can’t fake that or expect top-40 producers to understand it. key work in Eno’s statement is only.
Flüge
on 09 Dec 08@#1, Robert, don’t be afraid. The way discribed above is used by all major all good producers. Labels even refuse releasing new albums when they sound shitty on car radio. The art is too make the music sound great on all devices. Music is not optimized on crap speakers but mixed audible on them.
Gary
on 09 Dec 08I work on a 24” iMac and am regularly disappointed with my work once I see it on an average screen. Subtle colour variations, drop shadows and gradients just vanish. I could probably do with checking my designs on inferior machines throughout the process…
CJ Curtis
on 09 Dec 08@john:
When it comes to the music industry, it’s all “mass market,” isn’t it? I don’t quite see how that makes it “crap.” I can’t imagine a band ignoring large numbers of listeners because they can’t afford $2000 speakers.
Onur Orhon
on 09 Dec 08I’d like to respond with an Edward Tufte quote, from his course “Presenting Data and Information”, which I think applies perfectly to this context: “Never design your presentation for the lowest common denominator in your audience. That’s basically hiring the stupidest person in the room as your design consultant.”
CJ Curtis
on 09 Dec 08I think some people are taking the overall idea out of context:
“You have to be ruthless in cutting away useless frequencies so the record is loud & jumps out of all speakers.”
I am working on a site design that is, at present, 1280 pixels wide. This will not fit on roughly 85-90% of all monitors. If I were so diluted into thinking that those 85-90% don’t matter, I might just leave it alone. But that would be rather idiotic.
Brandon Durham
on 09 Dec 08Evan
on 09 Dec 08I think it’s a false analogy – if being mixed on crappy speakers were the only determinant of a good mix, then everyone would be mixing on crappy speakers alone. Must be something more to it?
The frequency response of crappy speakers eliminates a lot of signal you could hear on higher-end gear; that doesn’t mean the signal that the crap speakers omit isn’t sounding terrible.
Your last paragraph stands fine on its own, but it seems like it has almost nothing to do with the text that comes before it.
Scott Gatz
on 10 Dec 08When I worked at NBC in the 90s, most of our audio rooms had “television speakers” in them. While we did most of the work on an amazing sound system, you’d press a button on panel to hear it coming through a typical television speaker. Tinny and not great, but we’d always want to make sure that all the mixing flattened out and still sounded good how “real people” enjoyed it.
David
on 11 Dec 08ML Said:
“Yeah, there’s obvs times where you’ll want to mix for a high-end system. But I love the idea that you get to the core of what you’re doing on a simple, crappy setup. You get it to sound good there and it will sound good anywhere.”
First, that statement is completely inaccurate. Why would you think that purposely cutting out all of the bass and dynamic range would make “make it sound good anywhere”.
Secondly, sadly when a person appears to be an authority (in this case Bill Moriarty) people often give them credence even when what they say is absurd. Let me ask you this. Do you think video editors “mix video on crap monitors” in order to properly mix video? I only wish I had the time to explain how utterly ridiculous and inane his statement is. It only sounds reasonable if you know nothing about the subject.
That is not to say that producers may not listen to music on smaller monitors as well as fuller range monitors. And yes, sadly many producers purposely destroy the music by cutting out bass, reducing dynamics, and putting nice big humps in the mid bass.
Will
on 11 Dec 08This is histerically misinformed. In this case the gear is all that matters—you can’t mix what you can’t hear, and if you mix on shitty speakers then you can’t hear a lot. Yeah, you should A/B your mix on shitty speakers, but no one in their right mind would mix exclusively on them.
The point of studio monitors isn’t to make your mix sound good on audiophile systems. They exist so that you can actually hear what you’re doing. Suggesting that a recording engineer mix on crap speakers is like suggesting that a photographer shoot with a blindfold on.
David
on 11 Dec 08Thank you Will! It is a travesty that people actually pay this guy to mix music. Sadly there are very few standards in the audio industry (unlike the video industry which is full of them), so you find jokers like this on every corner.
David
on 11 Dec 08Will said: “Suggesting that a recording engineer mix on crap speakers is like suggesting that a photographer shoot with a blindfold on.”
And here all this time I’ve been making sure the lens on my camera has fingerprint smudges all over it ;-). After all, most monitors that it will be viewed on will have smudges on them.
What some people do not understand is that the ONLY way to properly mix music, or video, is to have ACCURATE monitors. Otherwise you have NO reference. That is why video for example, has every single device in the chain calibrated to a reference level. You don’t purposely mix on a monitor calibrated to 9300K just because that’s what a lot of people at home will be watching at! Jeesh!
CJ Curtis
on 12 Dec 08Will said: “Yeah, you should A/B your mix on shitty speakers, but no one in their right mind would mix exclusively on them.”
First, if you would read the original post, you would see that this is pretty much what it suggests.
Anyone that honestly doesn’t understand the usefulness of this, I’m guessing, has never actually had to mix audio for much of a variety of professional applications.
It’s no different than the 9” NTSC monitor sitting at the end of your video editing rig.
blue star web design ireland
on 12 Dec 08i do take my sound seriously, but even back in the day when i could only afford cheap hi-fi systems i was still happy with the sound, even if i did crave better
This discussion is closed.