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I have been listening to my track on good car/home systems and things easily sound good. I have recently noticed how my bass is just low freqs that cannot be picked up on most system :/ without a good system that goes low and bangs half the tune is missing! so I have started listening to the track on a pair of really cheap headphones to try and make bass that I can hear on these crappy headphones and then clean up the sound using better equipment.

Anyone else do this?

I try to listen to my stuff on different set ups.

bandshell wrote:I try to listen to my stuff on different set ups.

but how important is the sound on a shit system? I am finding it quite important at the moment.

btw, ur sig sucks:D

serox wrote:

bandshell wrote:I try to listen to my stuff on different set ups.

but how important is the sound on a shit system? I am finding it quite important at the moment.

btw, ur sig sucks:D

It's basically completely irrelevent to dubstep, isn't it? You're never going to find yourself in a club with no speakers but 4000 laptops piled together for a sound system. Building songs for shitty speakers would end up with no frequencys below 200hz or something and severely dodgy eq. Its not a healthy practice whatsoever in my opinion.

Yeah but I have no choice im yet to upgrade from my £5 Asda speakers. I mix using only these and never hear my tracks on a good system

Comes back to the midrange don't it,

replicates well on crap systems but gives you an earache in a decent setup

Whereas sub sounding good on a decent system will be non existent on crap speakers,

It will come down to your style of music as a producer, will you take the sub driven route or the midrange route?

serox wrote:

bandshell wrote:I try to listen to my stuff on different set ups.

but how important is the sound on a shit system? I am finding it quite important at the moment.

btw, ur sig sucks:D

It depends if your wanting sub or midrange, just because you can't hear it on shit speakers doesn't mean you have to make it midrange.

and yes my sig is silly.

Sounds like you've accidentally discovered one of the oldest producer's tricks in the book: listening to it on as many different types of playback systems until the mix holds water on all of them, or as many as possible. OG producers & engineers have been doing this shit for decades.

And it's important that you get not only shitty playback systems, but rather anything common that people might listen to your tunes on - boomboxes, earbuds, full headphones, a cheap stereo, a nice stereo, car stereos, a club system, different computer monitors... and so on and so on. After a while you'll start to notice how the gear affects the sound too and can prevent problems before they even happen.

Probably sounds arrogant but I think lately my tunes are interesting enough above say.. 200hz range.. so when I do wack the laptop out and listen to tracks on there, I still think it sounds good - I suppose it just depends what sort of music you're writing I mean, if you track NEEDS sub to sound good - then its clearly a club-based track and isn't for home-listening, thats my idea about it, even if its a hype or mellow tune.

i'll give a listen on a pair of shit and decent headphones as well as speakers a lot of the time though just because it gives you a different perspective on a track (which is nice after you've heard it a bunch). It's nice knowing what kind of setup people have if your sending them something online.

it's also kind of cool if someone sees you play out that's familiar with your tunes on a crap system and have them ask if it's a different version of the track because they notice different things.

A lot of folks that can't afford a nice treated room / system will pop in pro audio shops and ask to hear a CD of stuff they are familiar with to decide on what to buy, just bring a CD of your own stuff to run through.

I finished a tune just an hour ago that sounds deep with the bass on the home system (logitech surround sound)....but the sub is almost too deep on the headphones (behringer hps3000). this tends to happen more than I'd like to.

my solution....increase the sub volume by one or two db

stappard wrote:


It's basically completely irrelevent to dubstep, isn't it? You're never going to find yourself in a club with no speakers but 4000 laptops piled together for a sound system. Building songs for shitty speakers would end up with no frequencys below 200hz or something and severely dodgy eq. Its not a healthy practice whatsoever in my opinion.

Sorry but I strongly disagree. I have noticed a number of bars and even some clubs that do not have sub speakers. Also dont forget how many people at home or in cars dont have subs.

I did not mean remove the sub or not bother with it btw. I just try to make sure you can actually hear the bass on a pair of cheap speakers.

lowpass wrote:Comes back to the midrange don't it,

replicates well on crap systems but gives you an earache in a decent setup

Whereas sub sounding good on a decent system will be non existent on crap speakers,

It will come down to your style of music as a producer, will you take the sub driven route or the midrange route?

I am not into mid range bass as you are on about. I am into more of an oldskool deep wump sound like you would hear by artist like EL-B. Not mid range 'cack'.

86. wrote:I finished a tune just an hour ago that sounds deep with the bass on the home system (logitech surround sound)....but the sub is almost too deep on the headphones (behringer hps3000). this tends to happen more than I'd like to.

my solution....increase the sub volume by one or two db

Sounds like you have the same problem as me.

I would suggest you try and layer something on top of that sub instead of increasing the db. Your sub is sitting somewhere where it has good rumble but you cannot hear it.

You dont need to layer some nasty mid range ear bleeding noise on it but instead can find something that sits nice and makes the sub stand out a bit more.

I bet if you heard that on a pair of cheap headphones it will sound like there is no bass or sub at all like mine were. After listening to other 12"'s I have I noticed there basssub does not disappear on a cheap setup.

try listening to as many different speakers as you possibly can. Even on shitty speakers, on most well produced tracks you can still hear the sub bass. This is down to the artist/producer hitting the right frequencies and will sound great on small and big speakers. Dont be fooled into thinking that because you cant hear the sub on small speakers it will sound great on a large system because 1 out of 2 times the sub will actually be too loud as your compensating for not having the right frequencies sitting in the first place.
I do hope im not chattin shit

Depone wrote:try listening to as many different speakers as you possibly can. Even on shitty speakers, on most well produced tracks you can still hear the sub bass. This is down to the artist/producer hitting the right frequencies and will sound great on small and big speakers. Dont be fooled into thinking that because you cant hear the sub on small speakers it will sound great on a large system because 1 out of 2 times the sub will actually be too loud as your compensating for not having the right frequencies sitting in the first place.
I do hope im not chattin shit

I think you are right. I was trying to make the sub sound louder becuase I was not picking it up at all. I think I may have been using the wrong note too low!

Sounds good and makes my room shake but its not the right way of doing things imo.

cheap headphones, car test, and cheap desktop speakers are great for referencing