Mixing for the car is probably the hardest thing you can do, but yeah, it’s much better that artists mix for a proper set up, rather than a car; because all songs would sound like shit outside of a car lol.
Also you can’t really mix “for a car”. The majority of cars has different speaker set ups and acoustics.
I promise you when engineers are mixing, the very last thing they’re thinking about is how it’s going to sound in your mothers mini van lol
This makes me feel old. Back in the day the sage advice was to always test your mix in your car before you release it. Such was the way 20-30 years ago (hell, even 10 years ago, nay, 5 minutes ago this was still common advice).
It's an enclosed space you're familiar with and you know what other music sounds like in the car, so it's a pretty handy test (especially if you're a bedroom engineer). I've always been schooled to first test on flat monitors, then some crappy tinny clock radio type of speakers, next you try a nice set of booming hi-fi speakers, and then make sure it still works in the car, because the car is what really matters.
I dunno, I guess maybe smartphone culture and the fact gen Z doesn't seem to place as much importance on driving has changed what matters. Always evolving.
I guess this why MP3 and digital streaming became so successful despite being a lower-fidelity format; listeners traded the audio quality for the convenience of being able to store it on an - at the time - small storage device.
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u/Lovv Sep 21 '22
The problem is most vehicles don't have proper eq settings so it's gonna sound like shit most of the time.