Studio advice from my uncle in Houston saved my mix

My uncle has been making cumbia records since the 90s and he told me to stop obsessing over my monitor placement and just listen to my track at low volume on a cheap bluetooth speaker. I thought he was crazy because I spent like $600 on acoustic foam and positioning guides. Last month I finally tried it with my track from the D11-04 sessions and the bass was completely buried in the low end. I fixed the levels in about 20 minutes just using that little speaker. Now I check every mix that way before I even look at the big monitors. Has anyone else had luck with super basic listening setups instead of expensive gear? What speaker do you guys use for reference checks?

1 comments

1 Comment

abby_henderson11d ago

My uncle used to test his cumbia bass lines by playing them through the speaker in his old Chevy truck, and he swore by rolling the windows down at 30 mph to hear how it cut through wind noise. Now I do a car test on every track too, and it catches problems my expensive headphones just hide.