When I listen to my mix with my monitor headphone, it sounds nice and clear, but it sounds not clear on my smartphone. So, I am wondering if it is a common issue or my smartphone sounds just crap.

I have managed the overlapped frequencies with Neutorn 2, but it was not so helpful. Also tried to manage the balance with the frequency map, but still my mix sounds crap on my smartphone.

 

Smartphone sounds always crap. But when you say it sounds crap, are you playing it directly with the smartphone speaker or using a cable to play it on your monitor from your phone ?

And also, what kind of crap is it ? Depend on the previous question answer, but if it's with the phone speakers, it can be mono compatibilities issues, or to much low end, or lot of other problem (maybe if you can, put a preview of the mix, maybe some people here can identifies some issues with their fresh ears and other monitor system)

 

Probably your mix just not translate very well on other playback systems. Have you tried listening to your mix on other players such as in your car, or hi-fi or maybe other headphone and earphone, an actual monitor speaker?

 

I usually make experiment with my bundle earphone because tons of people listen to music with smartphone+earphone nowadays. Compared to the other songs in my smartphone, but their quality is definitely much nicer even with the same system. Those songs have clear and the each instrument is separated clearly as well. However, my song sounds not having separation among the each instrument.

 

Last edited: May 8, 2018

I do not have my car nor monitor speakers as I am a homeless. My belongings are a laptop, a guitar, an audio interface, a micro master keyboard, two backpacks and a luggage.

 

Posting a problem is a good start but leads to more questions than quick answers without details details details. As others hav made good points. If separation and sound is good on monitor headphones....plug them into ur smartphone to compare..........
Suggest start with Export to MP3 at 256bit..always "Variable rate"

 

but actually those listener doesn't know what is 'sounding crap', you cant too before you entered to audio production.
if you want solve the problem i can give you a solution, that give $1000 to every people walking in the audio store. and more, don't forget theres also have tons of amount of homeless to Europe and black people whose will be starved to death.

 

Why don't you give a try mixing a song using your phone as the monitoring device and see how that translates to other things when you get a chance.

What city are you in?

 

You got wrong point of me. I was not putting down my case, but were talking why I cannot use car audio system and monitor speakers unlikely people who have in their home studio.

 

Last edited: May 8, 2018

My goal is to make my song for every body. Mostly, the commercial albums sounds good for any system. So, I tried it with my smartphone. Plus, I have no idea how to use my phone as the monitoring device.

 

Have you tried using a well produced track similar to yours, that sounds good on your earbuds+phone, as a sound reference for your track? Listen to it simultaneously with your track and try to replicate the sound balance, or get it to sound as similar as possible. Check both with a frequency analyser like Voxengo Span [freeware], too. That should give you a better idea on what is it you're doing wrong, at least.

 

Because smartphones don't have the energy or physical properties of generating full range frequency spectrum.
It's like saying "my go-cart sucks for picking up my friends at the station".

 

I hope they have at least some bass.

Maybe this will help.

https://audiosex.pro/threads/only-potential-losers-with-dynamic-abilities.38483/#post-330276

Also, instead of lots of reverb or widening, try mono+pan.

 

'make my song for everybody'? sadly you cant. listening in headphones cant get right image which studio monitors can, and other systems like car audio or smartphones speaker has different playback characteristics of every brands. only thing you should do is staying on the right place.
you could call a mastering engineer and seeing how him do that.

 

Maybe you should just narrow the frequency spectrum of your sounds with cutting or shelving eqs and/or increase & decrease different frequency accents to seperate them better.

 

The secret to a good mix is in prioritising. e.g. What are the main instruments? Turn them up. What instruments are not that important for the track? Turn them down. Which instruments are clashing in frequencies? Turn one of them down, or pan, or EQ, or any combination of these, or just lose the less important one.

 

try to first balance your mix and reference with different speaker or head phones and side chain in EFX to satisfy those reference devices. at last use your most "Used-to" monitor to blend them in.

 

which phone?
i guess its mono, that could explain it
in that case go full mono and check again on your headphones.

 

Sorry to put my grain of salt

but maybe your solution, unless you want to become
crazy is the outside auditor (a buddy) trusted with a series of simple questions.
for example: is the bottom of the spectrum muddy?
is the voice well seated, is it intelligible?
Are high frequencies aggressive, do you see the kind of question?
Indeed the dynamic range and the eq of a smartphone is anything but excellent it is average, headsets too,
unless you have a substantial budget...
to be brief as everything takes time and time is not elastic, you have to compare what can be.
it can be in your case:
listen and control with a medium low quality headphone.
in general especially from 300 to 800 hz it is the swamp, if you want to hear precisely
your great mix that is so beautiful ouah the guitars etc...
and the bass guitar ouch, well it's missed and muddy.

have fun people

 

Check if all EQ and sound processing on your smartphone is turned off.
By default, vendors keep it on to "enhance" sound for common masses.