Making your song sound good on phone speakers (etc)

[AJ Dare]

I am wondering if anyone has any tips.

I was trying to find a plugin or something that would simulate how lower-end speakers (like phone speakers) would play back my track, so i could master it
to sound better... couldn't find anything of the sort.

Or a plugin perhaps that helps to auto-balance levels.

Newbie here... just trying to figure out how to balance my track out so it doesn't lose so much on lower-end speakers.. thanks for any tips!

[jestermgee]

There are things out there to emulate different speaker setups. You probably need to dig into Google a bit more:

https://www.noiseash.com/speakersim/

Using the real thing will always be best tho so always render your track out and play it on the target devices as a check.

With smartphones, you just need to keep in mind that they do not produce any low end at all so if you want a bassline to be heard you need some harmonics at a higher frequency to compensate for the loss of low end. Also, high end is lost on smartphones. Playback is often mono or from tiny stereo speakers very close together so having a good mono mix will be important. Always make sure things sound good when you play it in Mono (use the Utility device on the master if you do not have suitable external mono monitoring.

Spend a lot of time trying to mix just 1 project. May take you 50 times and many adjustments but hopefully you will start to detect what does not come through or what sounds unclear and with some experimentation you should be able to learn how to fix things.

[AJ Dare]

Thank you Jester!
Super appreciated amigo.
That's awesome advice.

[jlgrimes]

I am wondering if anyone has any tips.

I was trying to find a plugin or something that would simulate how lower-end speakers (like phone speakers) would play back my track, so i could master it
to sound better... couldn't find anything of the sort.

Or a plugin perhaps that helps to auto-balance levels.

Newbie here... just trying to figure out how to balance my track out so it doesn't lose so much on lower-end speakers.. thanks for any tips!

Buy a cheap pair of computer speakers (the cheaper the better here). Usually can be had for like $10.

These make a good alternative pair of monitors as they will give you a good idea of how mix sounds on a cheap system.

They sound like crap and a great mix will still probably not sound great through these but with proper tweaks it will allow you to check and see if your bass is being lost. And they also can highlight issues in other freq ranges as well, that might be harder to hear on full range monitors.


Also use reference mixes

[Angstrom]

I render out to a shared folder.
I connect to that folder on my phone and play it on the internal speaker, then on the headphones.
then I connect the phone to the bluetooth speakers in the kitchen. Then I connect my living room tv to that folder and play it back on the living room system. I write myself notes in evernote : "Low end sounds flabby,hi hats sound harsh at 1:20 . Weird bass note at 2:01. ", ... etc
I usually tweak the mix a bunch then.
then I take it out to my car which is still in wifi range and play it back off my phone plugged into the USB of the car.
If it sounds like shit in all those places then it's definitely one of mine.