One of the best investments you can make in your studio is a pair of super cheap, consumer grade computer speakers. That’s right, we’re talking those speakers that sometimes come free with your desktop computer. For some of you, this is easy, you already own crappy speakers. For the rest of you, I’m giving you permission to make a purchase. Just keep it under $100 will you?
Via William Hook Flickr
Uncovering Mix Problems
There’s a reason why a pair of cheap speakers (as a second set to your normal studio monitors) is crucial: they reveal hidden problems in your mix. This is the beginning of what I call the “cheap speaker test.” The biggest strength and weakness of cheap speakers is their over abundance of midrange frequencies. They have very little bass response and many times muted top end.What that leaves you is an exposed mid section (yikes!).
Listen to your mix for a minute and take note of any guitars, vocals, pianos, whatever that stick out in a bad way. Is there a frequency that is exaggerated on these speakers that you didn’t notice before? Try and sweep around on an EQ on your mix buss while listening to the midrangy mix. Once you find that frequency, you can dial it down a bit. More than likely you won’t notice anything missing on your better speakers. Problem solved. Now your mix sounds better everywhere.
Waking Up Your Sleepy Ears
The benefit of the “cheap speaker test” is that it can perk up your lazy ears. You see, after listening to your mix one set of speakers for a few hours, your ears adjust to that frequency response. They get lazy. This becomes a potential problem because they can compensate for what your speakers are telling you and you might know what’s really going on in your mix.
If you switch over to your cheap speakers for a few minutes, your ears will instantly be shocked out of sleep as it were and will be hearing your mix in a new light. I can’t explain the science behind it (I’m a musician people, what did you expect?) but I can tell you that my ears always respond to a different frequency response of some kind, especially cheap midrange dominant speakers. This works in your favor as it helps you discern what is needed in the mix and keeps you fresh.
Listening Like Your Audience
Much like the purpose of the iPod earbud test, listening to your mix on your cheap speakers is a practical way to know how your mix will actually sound to people in the real world. Most people don’t have nice hi-fi stereo systems in their homes anymore (just poll your non-audio engineer friends). They listen to music on consumer grade headphones and computer speakers.
A quick reference of your mix on theses same types of speakers will give you perspective, reminding you of what your audience will hear when they aren’t in your studio. For me this means I can sometimes stop over tweaking my mix because I can’t hear the difference on cheap speakers. Other times it means that I need to adjust some faders because what may sound sweet in the studio, doesn’t work in the real world.
And let’s be honest, at the end of the day all we want is our music to sound ridiculously amazing in the real world.
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
Graham,
This is an amazing tip that is definitely improving my mixes. Thanks
I TOTALLY AGREE!!! I do this ALL THE TIME! I secretly refer to it in my head “The Apple Test” (Only Because I have mostly apple products plus it sounds like a cool name LOL).
Basically I check my music on my Ipod ear buds, apple computer speakers that are built in, and recently my apple iphone (Surprisingly, some people don’t mind the sound of the speakers on apple phones. I think ANY music on there sounds very harsh on there, but hey it’s what they like).
And on the plus side, almost every person has at least some type of “Apple Product” at their disposal; thus, my music should be well presented on one of the most biggest products of all time. =)
GREAT TIP GRAHAM! =D
Although not below $100, what’s your opinion about Avantone Mixcubes (passive/active) or their predecessors the Auratones? Have you ever used either of them and could you shed some knowledge about them if you did?
I organized a groupbuy in the past and ordered a single Mixcube for mono reference purposes for just above $100 (the groupbuy was a few years ago and I can’t recall the price I paid for my Mixcube, only that it was a bit over $100). I personally think it wasn’t a bad decision, although I would have never bought them at their retail price at that time to be honest.
I believe auratones were the original ‘grot boxes’ at they’re called(less than fantastic speaker for specific monitoring purposes)
I’ve been struggling with trying to keep perspective, and IMHO the “best” way to do it is to have several kind of speakers to “review” your mix on.
A good set of monitors with a 6 (and most 8 inch) woofer is not going to show you that really low frequency problems like a 150 Euro hifi active subwoofer will. But there’s a lot of people that have them on their living rooms, so you’re “safer” if you also check your mixes on these.
The cheap computer speaker is a great test, like the iPod earbuds…and the list go on,
While I would’t make my mix decisions on headphones (specially on the low end), I do check them on my less expensive Pioneer Headphones (around 40€).
These guys aren’t like my (more linear and expensive) main headphones. They really hype the low end to a point where things can get really muddy on a bad mix, and that’s precisely why they are good (or useful) for that specific task.
Today it’s not unthinkable to check mixes in a laptop or a tablet / smartphone (with the built in speakers).
While I refuse to hear music on those conditions (as a music listener), chances are that many people will do it, specially if your song is playing on YouTube or sent via email.
The good “news” is that most of this is very inexpensive these days.
You probably have a smartphone, a laptop, and some cheap pc speakers and hifi active subwoofer won’t lead you to bankrupt. 🙂
It’s funny that on the latest Dave Pensado episode (available today on YouTube), Dave explains how he uses 4 set of different speakers (and one subwoofer) in his project studio to address and check specific parts of a mix (frequency wise).
I didn’t know that when I wrote my thoughts a few days ago, but I’d say that if Dave Pensado does it, it’s more than enough for me.
I can’t use this excuse anymore for my bad mixes. 🙂
Hey Graham,
Funny the timing of your post because I’m in the middle of reading the Phil Spector biography. I just read that during those infamous wall of sound studio sessions Phil Spector’s last step before putting a song “in the can” is that he would listen to the final mix on a small portable radio. He understood the importance of hearing the music the way the end user would.
I play all my mixes with my Nokia C2 media player and I listen while driving my car !
“Exposed Mid Section” lol
Great post, thanks for the common-sense, practical tips! Love this blog, you help take the confusion out of mixing for an newbie like me. 🙂
Haha. Good catch 🙂
Ditto! In fact, I’ve been considering creating two different end mixes/masters. One for the public and one for my car. I spend the most time listening to my own stuff in my car, so why shouldn’t I enjoy it? Whereas, I might hate a mix designated for lo-fi speakers, but the world doesn’t care. It’s sort of like a vegan grilling burgers at a picnic. Well, maybe not that drastic. Actually, that applies more to playing songs you hate for people who like them. But I digress…
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A few months back I was searching (again) for a way to quickly reference my mix on my iphone speaker. I found airfoil to be heavily suggested but the quality wasn’t consistent and emailing myself tracks was tedious and made on the fly changes impossible.
I was shocked no one has built a proper reference speaker yet so I decided to take on the task myself 🙂
If you want to reference what your mix will sound like on a phone speaker in real time check out what I’ve created!
http://www.m-ref.com
Hi. I couldn’t find the link to your reference speakers. Can you tell me where I can see them please?
Cheers
Andy