Mixing into "mono" and/or phones

Big recent project in Omaha as I did some rebuild on a desk I built in the 1970's:

http://brianroth.com/pix/mb77-june2014/

Great folks gave me a chance to attempt to redeem myself  <g>.

ANYWAY...working with guys half my age, and I totally realized that mixes for Iphones, etc require a different mix than, say a car stereo.

Duh..."back in the day", we would throw a mono and stereo mix for a song or jingle or whatever.

Iphones (without earbuds) are essentially mono...like the "postage stamp" speakers in my laptop.

DUH again...I am late getting back into mixing.

BUT, I am hearing big mix differences ...

Example...One of my recent fave songs is "Come a Little Closer" by Cage the Elephant.  In mono  (my clock radio or on my laptop...yeah  2 postage stamp speakers...let's agree...mono), the guitar sound in the chorous REALLY sticks out..and totally sounds COOL!!!! Beyond cool....(ahem).  In the car, or on my computer speakers...it's back in the mix.

At my geriatric (G!!) age, I'm mixing again.  Need input.  Mix for cars?  Mono Iphones?? Ipods? Ipads??  None of the above?


Bri

When I'm mixing I only work for the people who want to listen right, for the best conditions. I mean, who are listening shearing one HP each other didn't mind how it sounds, same for celphones or laptop speakers,  who sits in front of a couple of nice speakers or use a nice headphones is looking to listen something good. I mix for them, I don't care what listen someone listenin with one headphone, but that's just me, as someone said once, "mixing is the art of making decisions" or whatever you translate is. It's a matter of taste, I've already take my position.

JS

Much to say on the topic. 

Mono compatibility matters, always has and still does.  Check in mono often.  It's acceptable IMO to lose ear candy in mono but not essential elements of the song groove.  Remember elements panned hard left and right will drop circa 3dB in mono, elements panned center will be boosted by the same amount (assuming proper mono and not just a missing channel). 

As for speaker differences there are two things that dominate
- The smaller the speaker, the less low end.  It's important to find ways to get your bass elements to project even if everything below say 100Hz is lost.  That might be adding a 2.5k boost to get the kick drum to speak or adding harmonic coloration to the bass to fake energy above the fundamentals.

- The smaller speakers in laptops and phones do not like dynamic or spitty hi end, it can distort.  A de-esser/HF limiter is your friend and not just on vocals, acoustic guitars, cymbals, some synths can all benefit.

Final thought, if the mixes will not be mastered professionally set your final limiter output ceiling to -1dBFS.  This gives a safe ceiling for intersample peaks and other clipping which can occur when audio is compressed into MP3/MP4/Ogg Vorbis etc for online use.

Cheers,
Ruairi

If you are serious about mixing for the modern paradigm get yourself a Spotify subscription and listen on a phone and laptop.  Find tracks that work well and figure out why.  Katy Perry is a good place to start.  Seriously.

I'm not jumping into this discussion ... but I will put my toe in ....

The -1dB that Ruairi mentions above is a GREAT idea to keep in mind.

Mixing on headphones ... I don't do.  All of your spatial / panning judgements are distorted.  I'll check a mix at times, sparingly, on headphones ... but never really wear them and mix.

I totally think about mono ... not just for cell phones and laptops but for the grocery store and elevators and every where else.  Mono still exists and should be a concern.  This isn't to say that I won't make a decision at times that I know will screw with mono ...

I don't print separate mixes though ... I just try to create a great mix that will survive ... whether it is listened to in mono ... sudo mono from a phone ... or one channel playback in a store ...

FYI ... if you go to check your mix in mono ... you should really mute one of your speakers too ... make it truly mono.

Mono in stereo is different than mono from a single point source....


Michael

Yeah and you should listen L only and R only too as well as flat, smiley-face-EQ, highly limited, through dolby surround processing, etc (just as a ref point maybe). You never know what's going to happen once it leaves you.
And dynamics are certainly cool but the end listener is too and what else they'll be listening to (levels, loudness, transitions between other songs, etc).
Cheers!
-jb

0dbfs said:

Yeah and you should listen L only and R only too as well as flat, smiley-face-EQ, highly limited, through dolby surround processing, etc (just as a ref point maybe). You never know what's going to happen once it leaves you.
And dynamics are certainly cool but the end listener is too and what else they'll be listening to (levels, loudness, transitions between other songs, etc).
Cheers!
-jb

Click to expand...

With respect, I disagree with this viewpoint. 

Mix it so that it sounds good.  It is impossible to guess what mighty happen and changing your mix to account for maybes can cause you to lose focus and direction.  When I mix I like to take account of small speakers and what happens to the low end, some times you can fake upper bass that works well on small speakers, sometimes you don't have the raw material.

No matter what I discovered when I listened to L or R alone I would not change my mix (i have this option on my mastering console and often engange by accident).  The same goes for Dolby Surround.  A well balanced mix (especially properly mastered) will survive the extremes of the frequency response bell curve.

Cheers,
Ruairi

I always try to keep in mind how it will sound on an old telephone handset. 300Hz to 3K HZ. A bulletproof mix should work in mono and severely band limited.

Edit: Ruari is right on about the high frequency limiter. I think it's a dirty little secret that a lot of what people like about the sound of vinyl has to do with the HF limiter that is always inline.

One big difference between tape and PCM is that with PCM you are often trying to soften it rather than maniacally maintain transients. This coupled with the good HF response (but poor low end response) of modern cheap playback systems compounds the problem.

Mono compatibility was always a concern and why we put the mono/stereo switch in the master section.

I recall a decade or two back when some voodoo efx processor cut a deal to process a major artist's new CD (IIRC it was Madonna), well they were drinking too much of their own kool-aid and never bothered to test for mono compatibility..  As I recall the story within days of the CD release some tracks found their way onto mono AM radio, and the shinola hit the fan... The CD was quickly re-released without the mono unfriendly processing.

FWIW lots of time based studio efx treat left and right outputs differently. Several techniques to perform stereo synthesis alternately add a processed signal to one side and subtract it from the other to create stereo separation. Clearly when such artificial stereo gets summed back to mono the added and subtracted signals cancel out.

In general know the customer for the product... If the product will get listened to on mono systems, monitor that the mix is acceptable to you when played that way also.

Note headphone stereo is subtly different than speaker stereo, while I have no idea which is dominant medium these days.

JR

ruairioflaherty said:

0dbfs said:

Yeah and you should listen L only and R only too as well as flat, smiley-face-EQ, highly limited, through dolby surround processing, etc (just as a ref point maybe). You never know what's going to happen once it leaves you.
And dynamics are certainly cool but the end listener is too and what else they'll be listening to (levels, loudness, transitions between other songs, etc).
Cheers!
-jb

Click to expand...

With respect, I disagree with this viewpoint. 

Mix it so that it sounds good.  It is impossible to guess what mighty happen and changing your mix to account for maybes can cause you to lose focus and direction.  When I mix I like to take account of small speakers and what happens to the low end, some times you can fake upper bass that works well on small speakers, sometimes you don't have the raw material.

No matter what I discovered when I listened to L or R alone I would not change my mix (i have this option on my mastering console and often engange by accident).  The same goes for Dolby Surround.  A well balanced mix (especially properly mastered) will survive the extremes of the frequency response bell curve.

Cheers,
Ruairi

Click to expand...

I have to agree with Ruairi. It doesn't matter what people do with your mix as a listener. They will do all kinds of stuff with it like bell curves, etc. If you just get a good solid mix it will survive all of that. I've always mixed with a diverse monitoring system. I use my mains, a cheap jambox, mono, and decent headphones. Once it clears all of those sounding good I'll take it out to my car to check there as a cd but also as an MP3 on iphone. I like to run my 2 mix with an SSL Bus compressor on it. The MP3 version let's me see if the compression of my bus mix is to heavy once the MP3 compression kicks in. I also like to leave some room (compression wise) for the mastering process.