How much concern do you give to an iPhone speaker? (mixing/mastering)

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

First off, let me say that I’m not a professional and I don’t earn any money from my music. It’s simply a hobby but one that I want to do as best I can. But keeping that context in mind can be helpful for keeping perfectionism in check.

 

So I’ve been working on a dynamic instrumental track for a while (mostly synth/sampler-based) and there’s just one part that is still problematic. It’s six bars in the track that have a relatively high melody part played with a heavily-EQ’d EP sound in the octave of C5 to C6. C6 is roughly 1K at the fundamental and C5 is about 500 Hz.

 

Most playback systems sound pretty good (again, keeping in mind I’m an amateur), but when I play it back on an iPhone speaker those notes resonate and create a fuzz. When I listen to professional reference tracks at the same volume that doesn’t happen. I’ve already dipped the heck out of the problematic frequencies (including dynamic EQ) and I’ve cut the part so heavily that I had to employ noise elimination in Wavelab to raise the level without hiss. But it still creates a fuzz with that specific playback method. It sounds fine in the car, on my monitors, on my iPad speakers, with a good set of headphones, with ear buds, etc.

 

I’m going to try replaying the part an octave lower and I’ll use some ducking and panning to try and avoid a conflict with the lower register, but my question remains: How much care/concern do you give to a lousy playback medium? Music doesn’t generally sound good from iPhone 13 speakers.

 

I’ve listened to and tweaked this track so much, I’m ready to move on to other material. But I don’t want to let something go that I can possibly fix.

 

Thanks in advance.

Todd

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

My goal with phone speakers is to be able to hear the bones of the song clearly enough (provided it does sound good on car systems, a PA system, radios, Sony earbuds, and headphones [and the studio mixing setup of course]). I should be able to hear the kick/snare/hihats, lead vocals, and primary instruments clearly and intelligibly enough. I'll often reference other professionally-produced tracks on the same playback system, even when it's a phone speaker, to see if I'm in the ballpark.

[Stokely]

Yeah I'd check it to see what pops out.   Much as people did using small auratones or taking a mix out to a car system.

Personally I think it's ludicrous that people would ever use such tiny crap speakers to actually listen to music on, but then I think using tracks live is ludicrous and everyone does it so my judgement is suspect  ...  our singer gave me some guff about one mix I did, and she said she was listening on her phone speaker "like most people do".... that seems dubious.  I see everyone wearing earbuds, where at least you might have a chance at hearing some mids and bass...

 

[Anderton]

10 hours ago, Mighty Motif Max said:

My goal with phone speakers is to be able to hear the bones of the song clearly enough (provided it does sound good on car systems, a PA system, radios, Sony earbuds, and headphones [and the studio mixing setup of course]). I should be able to hear the kick/snare/hihats, lead vocals, and primary instruments clearly and intelligibly enough. I'll often reference other professionally-produced tracks on the same playback system, even when it's a phone speaker, to see if I'm in the ballpark.

 

I'm 100% with this. People only listen to the vocals and beats anyway As long as those come through, you're golden.

 

Remember that phones are optimized to reproduce the range of frequencies that are most important for speech intelligibility. Anyone who wants to hear decent music from a phone needs to use earbuds, which connect to an audio source that's not tuned like a speaker.

[KenElevenShadows]

I just mix, and don't bother considering iPhone speakers. As Mighty Motif Max and Craig have said, if it's clear enough to hear things, we're good. And I feel like if I do a good mix, it typically works out quite well.

 

The other thing is this. If I have a really great mix, I'm not going to change it all that much to accommodate iPhone speakers.

[Anderton]

4 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

The other thing is this. If I have a really great mix, I'm not going to change it all that much to accommodate iPhone speakers.

 

...because you probably won't have to! To my way of thinking, one aspect that makes a mix great is being able to translate well over anything.

[KenElevenShadows]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

 

...because you probably won't have to! To my way of thinking, one aspect that makes a mix great is being able to translate well over anything.

Yes, that's my sincere hope!!

[Sundown]

I’m going to give it one more try … I’m going to play the part one octave lower with a different sound. 

 

The simple fact is, professional tracks don’t fuzz-out an iPhone speaker like mine does. Which tells me there is a buildup of frequencies in the 1-2K range that need to be tamed.

 

Todd

[KenElevenShadows]

What distorts on the iPhone? Does it appear to be something triggered by the whole mix in general? Or does it seem to be an element or two (guitar, keyboards, snare, whatever)?

[Sundown]

4 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

What distorts on the iPhone? Does it appear to be something triggered by the whole mix in general? Or does it seem to be an element or two (guitar, keyboards, snare, whatever)?

 

Hi Ken,

 

It happens when this short melody part hits C6, which is around 1 KHz in fundamental. At that same moment, some EP chords are playing behind it, along with a percolating acoustic guitar arpeggio. My hypothesis is that the frequencies are stacking up and creating a resonance.

 

What I can do to test the hypothesis is solo the parts, run it through my finalizing chain and then see if the individual parts distort.

 

I’m already using a lot of dynamic EQ, ducking, etc., to give the individual parts room to breathe, but something about the 1 KHz region makes my phone speaker buzz and resonate (or it could be a multiple of the fundamental, eg. 2K, 4K, etc). 

 

I could also create some basic sine waves and see what frequency is causing the phone to resonate.

 

Todd

[KenElevenShadows]

Got it. I suppose you could attempt to dip the accompanying chords around 1k or try a different chord that still works with the melody and see if that works? Or turn down that one part without being obvious about it via compression, automation, or whatever? Or dip 1k only on that one bit? Or doing some very subtle combination of several of these approaches?