Mixing INSIDE Your Car?

L

Last Creation

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So i'm gonna be with family for a while and I won't have access to any studio equipment besides my laptop until I get back. And this thought just came up.. has anyone ever tried mixing a track starting straight from their car stereos? You end up playing all your songs in the car anyway so I figured it wouldn't turn out too bad right?
 
itll probably sound really good in the car an not so much anywhere else I think you should try it as n experiment to see what happens
 
This is very usefull. but not to mix,,, after you mix, play it in your car so you can understand your studio speakers in your studio. i did this many times and it allowed me to hear the bass and the levels of the vocals. now i dont need to hear it in the car. Because i know my Sound.
 
If I we're in your situation, I'd only do the most basic mixing (like basic levels, underdubbing, creative stuff etc), and then go back and adjust a bunch of stuff once I get out of the car and then do all the fine tweaking.
Also, I'd rather use a pair of closed headphones or earbuds than the car stereo (must be horrible working on a track hearing all of the noise coming from the road).
 
the car is only used in the early stages of learning your mix. every studio has a different sound. the engineer has to understand how there mix will sound in many ways. for example. in my studio, i made a beat that sounded dope. when i played it in the car,, i noticed that the bass was a little low. so i know from now on,, in my studio, raise the bass a little. The key is to hear how your mix will sound outside the studio so that you can adjust your mix for 100% satisfaction .
 
JSoundsOnline said:
the car is only used in the early stages of learning your mix. every studio has a different sound. the engineer has to understand how there mix will sound in many ways. for example. in my studio, i made a beat that sounded dope. when i played it in the car,, i noticed that the bass was a little low. so i know from now on,, in my studio, raise the bass a little. The key is to hear how your mix will sound outside the studio so that you can adjust your mix for 100% satisfaction .
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thats a valid point
 
Yeah true i'll probably end up mixing them in the car and comparing it to my monitors at home when I get back. I feel like the bass in my car is kind of weak so i'll probably have to raise it a little.
 
I used to mix on my car a lot. What I do is pre-record everything with multiple takes. Master them on my car stereo (I used to have Sony balanced sound system) then recheck them using my headphones. I don't suggest you getting the habit to mix on ur headphone as it damage ur ears on the long run. One option I used to do is taking my monitors and connect them to my car and sitting in the back seats while my monitor faces me just like how I mix in my room. You can find many adapters to use ur car battery to power up ur monitors.
 
Meh, if it's the only thing you have access to, then I guess you should do it. But like others have mentioned, maybe bring some earbuds and work on those; probably will end up better. The problem, at least I think, with raising the bass with the car's equalizer is it will have it's own specific way of boosting, which means you will adjust your mix for the car. Just more work for you to do once you start playing it back on other speakers / headphones.

Your car is great if you're in the process of mastering. It's just another way to hear and adjust your track, especially with other references. But for mixing, I'd avoid it.
 
Mixing in your car can be helpful, but it shouldn't be your only option.

The ups for mixing in a car is you get a firsthand view on what your mix will sound like in car speakers.
 
I'll bet you most of the people here saying not to mix in your car, have never mixed in their car. I think mixing in the car is a GREAT idea. It is where I listen to music the most. For me though, it's really good because I have a subwoofer, which I don't have in my house so I can really get the low end in a better place than I can at home. Another thing I've noticed is I can get my vocals a little better in the car than I can at home because the car is less forgiving.. it takes more effort to get them to sound right so your processing moves are different. Another thing, you can get some very interesting stereo placements since the stereo field in a car is so weird. I completely support partial mixing in a car, but you still have to do some mixing with your studio equipment. Although if I didn't have a sub in the car I don't know that I would do it, because I don't like having to get in my car with my laptop, drive to an open area where my sub wont bother anyone.. kind of gets annoying.
 
I think this is crazy, the transients of raw recordings will damage the speakers in your car. They are designed to playback finished mixes, where any harder transients have been tamed with compression. On top of that its far from the ideal listening environment for mixing. A pair of decent head will do a much better job, but even these aren't ideal. Why not just get some headphones and write some new stuff and leave the mixing until your back in the studio.
 
AtkinsonAudio said:
I think this is crazy, the transients of raw recordings will damage the speakers in your car. They are designed to playback finished mixes, where any harder transients have been tamed with compression. On top of that its far from the ideal listening environment for mixing. A pair of decent head will do a much better job, but even these aren't ideal. Why not just get some headphones and write some new stuff and leave the mixing until your back in the studio.
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This is preposterous. There is no threat to your car speakers any more than studio monitors as long you monitor at a reasonable level. Have you ever mixed in your car? Or are you just making posts about a subject you have no experience in?
 
I tried mixing in my car when I was in College, and it didn't turn out great. Sat in the back, so I could be centred wasn't great because the front seats were blocking the speakers. I always found my car boosted 2k in a harsh way, I'd mess around for ages tweaking a vocal in an attempt to get it sounding good. Then I unmuted the drums and tried mixing them, after an hour or so one of the speakers began sounding distorted and flabby. I asked my lecturer about it and he told me the same thing. I believed it because it happened to me. Granted, poor quality speakers in my car may have been the culprit.
 
AtkinsonAudio said:
I tried mixing in my car when I was in College, and it didn't turn out great. Sat in the back, so I could be centred wasn't great because the front seats were blocking the speakers. I always found my car boosted 2k in a harsh way, I'd mess around for ages tweaking a vocal in an attempt to get it sounding good. Then I unmuted the drums and tried mixing them, after an hour or so one of the speakers began sounding distorted and flabby. I asked my lecturer about it and he told me the same thing. I believed it because it happened to me. Granted, poor quality speakers in my car may have been the culprit.
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Ok well my bad for being aggressive, just too many people posting things here that have no experience. I guess I've just had a different experience in my car. I guess the better answer is "everyones car is different." Might be beneficial, might not.
 
I can imagine that my cheap student car, had cheap speakers, poor wiring etc. it was inevitable something was going to break sooner or later. Even still, I wouldn't trust I mix I did in my car, studio monitors are the way to go. But I've found that the most important part is acoustically treating your room. DIY bass traps are cheap to make and do the job very well. If not better than the foam you can buy.
 
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