Mixing for an iPod? Depressing...

[David Polich]

I recently finished (well, I thought I had finished) mixing and mastering
a project for a client. She had been over here to listen to and sign off on
the mixes, which she said sounded great. I mastered the tracks, they sounded
fine here...gave her the mastered CD. She emails me back four days later with this - "I dunno, it doesn't sound very good on my iPod", and has
asked me to remix everything so it will sound "better" on her iPod. Whatever
"better" actually is is not clear at this point.

This is driving me nuts...I really have no idea how to mix towards
a target of sounding good on an iPod. I'm not even sure it's possible.
The soundcard in a current generation iPod is pretty bad to begin with -
would I send the mix out an aux into an iPod and somehow monitor through
that?

I was wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this kind of scenario,
and if so how you responded to it (or didn't).

[Dan Worley]

I feel for you. She's going to have to get more specific. Is she listening on ear buds or speakers or what? Have her give you some reference tracks that are similar to her style of music and that she thinks sound good on the iPod and other systems. That way you have something to go on.

c-ya,

Dan Worley

[James Steele]

Yeah-- I was thinking the same thing. The sound of iPods are so dependent on the ear buds you're using. My car stereo has an analog input on the front and I connect headphone out of the iPod and listen through my car stereo. Wonder how it sounds then?

Gotta wonder too if she has iTunes set to rip from CD at some atrocious bit rate, etc.

[KEVORKIAN]

I've played WAV and AIFF files from my current generation iPod into my Metric Halo interface and through my monitors and I thought the sound was excellent so I'm not sure that the iPod it self is to blame on a fundamental level.

The earbuds that she is using are a huge matter (you may want to have her listen using a set of studio cans plugged into the iPod)

I always provide mp3 and AAC format versions of my mixes. That way I can be sure that the customer has an approved low quality version. If her iTunes is set to rip with some terrible settings that can also make things go poorly.

[stephentayler]

Gotta wonder too if she has iTunes set to rip from CD at some atrocious bit rate, etc.

This can be a real problem. I always encode my own AAC files to send out to clients, using the iTunes Plus setting. I can at least check that out myself first (and label up the track at the same time)

I would also question whether she has listened to the CD on any other system as well.

I used to get this kind of nonsense years ago when people made their judgements about mixes based on playing back a cassette on an inferior/broken machine.

Cheers

Stephen

[David Polich]

Thanks to all for the replies.

I have an iPhone 3G, and I put the 16-bit/44.1khzmastered tracks on that and played it back, A/B'ing against the playback from Peak, through my Apogee Duet. The iPhone clearly sounded worse. Collapsed stereo image, grainy high end, less detail. The soundcard in the iPhone stinks, and it's likely the same one as in the current iPod.

I know what the client is listening to - her iPod connected to her car stereo. That's where she does her evaluations. I suspect that she made mp3's of the mastered tracks and transferred those to her iPod.

Hmmm - well, she's coming back on the 22nd, I guess it's discussion time.
She has already given me examples of what she likes - tracks that look
like a solid square wave when you open them in Peak. Evanescense, Paramore,
Marilyn Manson...it all sounds pretty hashy and clipped and fatiguing to
me.

[KEVORKIAN]

Hmmm - well, she's coming back on the 22nd, I guess it's discussion time.
She has already given me examples of what she likes - tracks that look
like a solid square wave when you open them in Peak. Evanescense, Paramore,
Marilyn Manson...it all sounds pretty hashy and clipped and fatiguing to
me.

Ahh, so I'm sensing that this is less an issue of the quality of the audio Master and more of a comparative issue between your masters (which I'm guessing sound good and honor the original mixes) and her taste in music which appears to lean towards some seriously clipped rock. I've done some Evanescense and Paramore style masters in the past and I was shocked by the amount of clipping on the Evanescense tracks and the Paramore tracks are pretty smashed.

If you have the Slate FG-X then you should be able to get pretty close to these. I was able to get some decent translation of my mixes by using Paul Frindle's DSM before the FG-X.

I wouldn't expect an iPhone/iPod, for the price, to offer the same quality as an Apogee or Metric Halo interface, though. The high end and stereo width are the first things to go in lesser systems in my experience. What impressed me was the bass and midrange reproduction, especially in comparison to the JBL Boombox that I use for reference checks and to a Diskman that used to carry around. What I'm saying is that IMO portable audio quality has essentially improved while the fidelity of pop mixes has not.

[billf]

Gotta wonder too if she has iTunes set to rip from CD at some atrocious bit rate, etc.

That was my first thought too as I read the OP. Make sure she is ripping as an AIFF or WAV, and if she insists on MP3 rips, make sure the setting is fairly high.

[mikehalloran]

There are two ways to look at this.

128bit mp3 through stock Apple ear buds is becoming enough of a standard that we need to start listening to our mixes that way - or do an alternate mix to that standard.

Dumbing everything down to the lowest available bit rate and sampling frequency is just absurd.

The other way... oh that's just too depressing...

[David Polich]

Update - the artist and I have parted ways. She stopped over and after
discussing the "finer points" of the mixes I realized that what she
wanted was, as best as I can put it, "everything louder than everything
else". In other words, the mastered tracks had to start out as smashed square waves and then somehow at the choruses become even bigger, wider and more smashed. I told her this would require someone with a different skill set
than mine and that was how we ended the conversation.

I think I'm done with metal for awhile - and I'm beginning to think I'm
just not cut out for it.

Any Motunation members out there who specialize in mixing/mastering metal, let me know. I'd be happy to pass on some projects to you.

[HCMarkus]

Fatigue has its rewards... I'm just not sure what they are.

[James Steele]

People just need to discover the damn volume knob again.

[monkey man]

Your loss is those potential clients' loss, David, as well as being your gain and in turn our gain as it'll free up a little of your time.

It's a lose-gain situation.

[Shooshie]

David,

Maybe the thing your client needs is to hear something that resembles true stereo through her headphones. Er… earbuds. Whatever they're called. The problem is that with no "middle channel" from stereo acoustic crosstalk -- hearing both channels with each ear, separated only by a fraction of a second -- the mix goes extra wide and doesn't sound real. You can mix for open air monitors or you can mix for headphones, but you can't mix for both, and when you try to mix for one while listening to the other, it only leads to problems.

Unless…

… you have something like Redline Monitor.

http://www.112db.com/redline/monitor/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I use this when I'm mixing with headphones, and it really makes a difference. You can use this either way:
1) monitor through headphones a mix for speakers
2) monitor through headphones a mix for headphones

If you were to use headphones to monitor a mix for speakers, you'd simply do just that. Then when you bounce to disk, you'd cut out the Redline Monitor plugin from the mix, and the result would be a decent mix that sounds like you were monitoring it from speakers.

But if you want to mix so that it sounds more realistic through headphones or earbuds, you'd leave the Redline Monitor plugin in place when you bounce the final 2-track. This is what I assume you'd need to do in order to create a realistic mix that satisfies your iPod client. Monitor through headphones, preferably earbuds, and use Redline Monitor to provide the crosstalk between channels. Then bounce your final mix to disk being sure to leave the Redline plugin in place. Naturally, it should be the last plugin in your channel strip, although you may want to place a brickwall limiter after it to make sure the channel mix doesn't send any transients through the roof.

For me, this makes headphone mixes sound like I'm listening through speakers. Maybe it will do the trick for her, too.

Shooshie

[monkey man]

Genius in shining armour.