Okay...Okay...yeah, I know, and I get it. All speakers sound different, and even a certain speaker of XYZ brand can sound a little different than another same model speaker from XYZ brand. But, with that in mind, let me explain the situation a bit here and see where this goes.
I have the beginnings of a song, roughly about a minute long, and I cannot get this to sound decent through any speakers other than my monitors, a pair of M-Audio BX5's. They're not high end monitors, but they sound decent when playing my keyboard. I've recorded with my Korg Kronos with the audio outputs going to my little Scarlett 2I2, and the usb from there to my computer. Simple enough operation.
I've watched numerous videos, tutorials, for mixing trying to figure this out. So I cut this frequency here, boost it there, panning, gain staging, setup buses for tracks, for effects...I've tried it all. And yet, when I export the audio and play it on anything else, it sounds like it's in a box....that's the only way I know to describe it. I've tinkered with this kind of thing in the past and I've usually not had the problems I'm having now. Each track is a single stereo track, there are no mono tracks.
So....I started to go through things track by track, re-recording with the effects on the Korg for the programs/voices, as well as just recording the dry sound and adding effects via plugins in Cakewalk. Same problem either way. If I record it dry, when I export the song it sounds dry and has a cheap boxy sound to it. Record wet and the music has the effects but has that same boxy sound. So.....I figured that I've tried EQ, tried recording dry, recording wet, went through all the gain staging, mixing, putting each instrument in its own space, etc.....what else is there? No matter what I try it just doesn't work. When I play back the exported audio and listen on the monitors, it sounds fabulous (to my ears). But going through the car stereo, home stereo, bluetooth speakers, headphones, it all sounds like *****. I'm not the only one to experience this...and it's nothing new....right?
Here's the thing though. I took a couple of the voices and recorded just small parts in a new project, with each as a stereo track just like in the song. Recorded both with the onboard Korg Kronos effects (Reverb, delay, whatever else comes with the sound ) and also recorded them with no effects at all. I exported those two tracks to two different audio files. Both play and sound great through the monitors, and both sound like ***** through anything else. Thus, it's not a mixing issue. Each sound by itself sounds awful through anything except the monitors. One of the voices is a string section and what I found is that if I run the audio through a Bose stereo speaker plugged into the computers headphone jack, I'm then able to EQ the voice to sound pretty good through the speaker by cutting the heck out of the midrange and low end while boosting the upper end a bit. So...I then took the song, EQ'd that one track with the strings in the same manner, exported the song, played it back through the speaker and, surprise....that section of the song no longer sounds like it's in a box. I then copied the track within the project to another stereo track, panned each stereo track differently, sent both tracks to their own bus and added a plugin to that bus to expand the stereo image. So, I now have two stereo tracks panned diffently, both tracks going to a bus, and have the stereo imaging plugin on the bus. Seems a bit extreme, but it worked. Full spacious strings sound without that boxiness. Although I had to cut the heck out of the bass frequencies as well as the upper and lower midrange for that particular track, when played together with the Bass and drum tracks in that section of the song, it doesn't sound thin at all and the boxy sound is gone, at least in that portion of the song.
The problem here, though, is that now when I switch my audio to run back through the monitors, that section of the song still sounds good, but nowhere near as full and spacious as it did before since I cut the heck out of the lower end and the midrange. Still sounds good, but nowhere near as full. Unlike when playing through the regular speaker, when played through the monitors the string section now sounds a bit on the thin side.
So....I guess my question for the more experienced out there is simply this. Is this how it's supposed to work? Realizing that it's all subjective and that there is always going to be a compromise somewhere, is it just a matter of learning what sounds need adjusting here, and others there, in order to find that compromise? I guess what I mean is simply that when you mix the song, is it generally the case that you may need to have the sound not quite right through your monitors in order to get it to sound good or acceptable on regular audio speakers? This seems a bit counter intuitive to me and, although I'm sure this would come with more experience, is this how it's supposed to be? The reason it seems counter intuitive is that it seems to me that the better the sound system, the better the song should sound, but that doesn't seem to be the case here at all.
It could also simply be the case that since it's my own creation I'm hyper critical of the sound. Where I think it sounds thin on the monitors, someone else might think it sounds even better.
Okay...Okay...yeah, I know, and I get it. All speakers sound different, and even a certain speaker of XYZ brand can sound a little different than another same model speaker from XYZ brand. But, with that in mind, let me explain the situation a bit here and see where this goes. I have the beginnings of a song, roughly about a minute long, and I cannot get this to sound decent through any speakers other than my monitors, a pair of M-Audio BX5's. They're not high end monitors, but they sound decent when playing my keyboard. I've recorded with my Korg Kronos with the audio outputs going to my little Scarlett 2I2, and the usb from there to my computer. Simple enough operation. I've watched numerous videos, tutorials, for mixing trying to figure this out. So I cut this frequency here, boost it there, panning, gain staging, setup buses for tracks, for effects...I've tried it all. And yet, when I export the audio and play it on anything else, it sounds like it's in a box....that's the only way I know to describe it. I've tinkered with this kind of thing in the past and I've usually not had the problems I'm having now. Each track is a single stereo track, there are no mono tracks. So....I started to go through things track by track, re-recording with the effects on the Korg for the programs/voices, as well as just recording the dry sound and adding effects via plugins in Cakewalk. Same problem either way. If I record it dry, when I export the song it sounds dry and has a cheap boxy sound to it. Record wet and the music has the effects but has that same boxy sound. So.....I figured that I've tried EQ, tried recording dry, recording wet, went through all the gain staging, mixing, putting each instrument in its own space, etc.....what else is there? No matter what I try it just doesn't work. When I play back the exported audio and listen on the monitors, it sounds fabulous (to my ears). But going through the car stereo, home stereo, bluetooth speakers, headphones, it all sounds like *****. I'm not the only one to experience this...and it's nothing new....right? Here's the thing though. I took a couple of the voices and recorded just small parts in a new project, with each as a stereo track just like in the song. Recorded both with the onboard Korg Kronos effects (Reverb, delay, whatever else comes with the sound ) and also recorded them with no effects at all. I exported those two tracks to two different audio files. Both play and sound great through the monitors, and both sound like ***** through anything else. Thus, it's not a mixing issue. Each sound by itself sounds awful through anything except the monitors. One of the voices is a string section and what I found is that if I run the audio through a Bose stereo speaker plugged into the computers headphone jack, I'm then able to EQ the voice to sound pretty good through the speaker by cutting the heck out of the midrange and low end while boosting the upper end a bit. So...I then took the song, EQ'd that one track with the strings in the same manner, exported the song, played it back through the speaker and, surprise....that section of the song no longer sounds like it's in a box. I then copied the track within the project to another stereo track, panned each stereo track differently, sent both tracks to their own bus and added a plugin to that bus to expand the stereo image. So, I now have two stereo tracks panned diffently, both tracks going to a bus, and have the stereo imaging plugin on the bus. Seems a bit extreme, but it worked. Full spacious strings sound without that boxiness. Although I had to cut the heck out of the bass frequencies as well as the upper and lower midrange for that particular track, when played together with the Bass and drum tracks in that section of the song, it doesn't sound thin at all and the boxy sound is gone, at least in that portion of the song. The problem here, though, is that now when I switch my audio to run back through the monitors, that section of the song still sounds good, but nowhere near as full and spacious as it did before since I cut the heck out of the lower end and the midrange. Still sounds good, but nowhere near as full. Unlike when playing through the regular speaker, when played through the monitors the string section now sounds a bit on the thin side. So....I guess my question for the more experienced out there is simply this. Is this how it's supposed to work? Realizing that it's all subjective and that there is always going to be a compromise somewhere, is it just a matter of learning what sounds need adjusting here, and others there, in order to find that compromise? I guess what I mean is simply that when you mix the song, is it generally the case that you may need to have the sound not quite right through your monitors in order to get it to sound good or acceptable on regular audio speakers? This seems a bit counter intuitive to me and, although I'm sure this would come with more experience, is this how it's supposed to be? The reason it seems counter intuitive is that it seems to me that the better the sound system, the better the song should sound, but that doesn't seem to be the case here at all. It could also simply be the case that since it's my own creation I'm hyper critical of the sound. Where I think it sounds thin on the monitors, someone else might think it sounds even better.