Listen to all the speakers

I got a message today from one of my mentees:

What does it mean when a mix sounds great on good monitors, speakers and headphones, but sounds more shrill on a really bad speaker like from a computer monitor? Do I need to do some EQing of the pain frequency even if it’s not hitting that frequency on good listening methods?

And — what a great question! Because, like, bad speakers are sort of supposed to sound … bad? It’s right there in the description, after all.

But! Every speaker can tell you something! And I have this maxim around the house:

It’s easy to make things sound good on good-sounding speakers.

I put that in the “pull quote” formatting because I really want to emphasize it. Because it is TRUE.

As an example: I have a $3,000 pair of Focal speakers as my mains. You can spend a lot more on a pair of speakers — like A LOT MORE — but these are for sure into the realm of Nice Speakers. I’ve paired them with a subwoofer, and I have Sonarworks (which you should have too if you mix at home), and the whole thing is super accurate and incredibly detailed and the transient response is fairly bonkers. Like, I can definitely tell what’s going on when I listen with these speakers!

But here’s the thing about these $3,000 speakers: sometimes they’re TOO NICE. Like, I can get fooled! I can listen to objectively unbalanced sounds on these speakers, and it sounds great! Because, at a certain level, literally everything sounds great on $3,000 speakers. Because the speakers sound great.

So … I don’t use them most of the time! I get things started on them, for sure. I get all my basic EQs dialed in on them, make sure nothing’s too out of whack — and then I turn them off. And I finish my mixes on my NS-10s and my mono 1985 Auratone (which was nicknamed Horrortone for a very good reason).

Because: it’s easy to get mixes sounding good on the Focals. And, more to the point, it’s easy to get fooled by the Focals into thinking that a mix is good when it’s not actually that good.

But you know how I know when a mix is good? When it sounds great on the NS-10s.

And you know how I know when a mix is really good? When it sounds great on the mono Auratone.

And you know how I know when a mix is really REALLY good? When it sounds great through the speakers on my old iPhone 8+ (which I can play through in real time from Pro Tools / Logic / Wavelab / etc using this plugin, which is without exaggeration the single best audio-related investment I’ve ever made).

So when my mentee told me that her mix sounded a bit suspect through her computer speakers, I knew enough to know that that’s something to at least take a closer look at. Because a great mix sounds great everywhere.

And, sure enough, her mix needed a little pressure-relief cut at the pain frequency. 3150 Hz, -2dB, Q=2.5. Done and dusted.

Mostly listening to the worst speakers I own — jamie