Why Your Mix Sounds Great in Your Studio, but Bad Everywhere Else

Ever had this happen to you?

You finish a mix in your home studio and it sounds great.

Then you listen in the car, on your AirPods, or at a friend’s studio… and it just doesn’t sound the same.

The term in the producer world is that it doesn’t “translate” — and it’s incredibly common for home studio music makers.

Today, let’s look at the most common reasons this happens, and how to avoid them.

Even though you might have a pair of studio monitors designed for mixing, you might not have acoustic treatment in your home studio, so the room impacts the sound you hear.

Or perhaps you mix on headphones, which rarely have a flat frequency response.

This can make it difficult to know how your mix is going to sound once it leaves your studio.

My advice: check your mix on three different systems — your studio monitors, a pair of headphones (ideally open-back ones designed for mixing), and a consumer system like the earphones you use for daily listening.

Then settle on a mix that sounds good on all of them. Not great on one and bad on the rest.

Remember, a mix that translates well should sound good everywhere — not just in your home studio.

Give this a try on your next mix and let me know how it goes.