This $8 Speaker Will Make You A Better Producer

Howdy! Today I want to talk about why you might want to dig through your garbage and find yourself a magic sh*tbox.

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[keiz_]

This is such great advice. There's a reason so mang producers I've talked to test mixes in their car. I remeber Porter Robinson specifically in the past talking about how he would listen to the songs he produced to the Apple earbuds that used to come included with phones (at the time) because thats what most his listeners would be using.

[JeredtheShy]

ONN (that's the brand of his shitbox) is Walmart's house brand, they slap that on the cheapest of the cheap electronics they sell. So yeah, if you're shopping for the perfect shitbox you may as well start there, don't be shocked if this exact thing is still for sale for $7. Make sure you check the racks up by checkout for truly authentic shitbox options at the lowest prices.

[unduloid]

I once used some old Aiwa stereo to check how other people hear my music. Then I realized that nobody is hearing my music anyway, so why bother....

[ultrapim]

5:00 bro diffused a bomb of half his audience going "ooh where can i get this 8 dollar instant skill improvement"

[mistertestsubject]

I have a rack in ableton that I call "POS Speaker Sim" thats an EQ that takes out everything below like 300 hertz and everything above 8 kHz, cabinet (which simulates a speaker cab in ableton) and gets summed to mono with utility. I use it to check every single mix I do. I first made it when I was studying audio engineering in university and the studio instructor showed us these 3 little speakers they have in the main studio that are basically just mid-range cones with no sub or tweeters that you could switch to at any time to check your midrange mix. Valuable knowledge.

[mmoncur]

I have a pair of 4" PYLE speakers I bought at Amazon for about $10 for this purpose, hooked to a cheap Chinese amp. I have them on an Ableton output and set up a hotkey to switch to them (and usually switch to mono).

The BEST feeling is when I have my track sounding pretty good and then I realize I've accidentally left the cheap speakers switched on. I hit the hotkey to switch back to my monitors and I'm blown away...

[fox_power]

Engineer Philip Weinrobe talks about this, and also recommends switching your listening device every twenty minutes or so while mixing, cycling through studio monitors, bad earbuds, studio headphones, mono, trashy speaker, so that you get a glimpse into all the angles your mix might be listened to from as you’re working.

[santoss.]

I've always considered "The Car Test" the gold standard of mixing

[dzmo-official]

Cameron will now be permanently be stuck in a cinematic aspect ratio. He uses it wayyyy so well to go back.

[billsybainbridge]

If it's round, it's not a shitbox, it's a turdburger..🤣

[mooseblaster]

It's a great and often overlooked idea - the BBC famously had both high quality Rogers refererence monitors built to their specification in their audio production suites, but also crappy TV speakers with the intention that they were making audio that sounded good for both the highest and lowest common denominator.

It's very interesting how much that concept has been lost to time, meaning there is a huge amount of modern TV shows with terrible mixes because they were only ever tested on the highest grade monitors with people who've never learned what works or doesn't work on the average end device and never bothered to test it on the most common system.

Thanks for another really useful video. :)

[withak]

Hollywood needs to do this so I can watch stuff without having to turn on the captions.

[xiggywiggs]

interesting! I learned a kind of parallel trick in art school for composition and detail work on visual art, it works in painting but also digital art and even modelling / texturing.
Look away from the image, flip it upside down and look back at it again. In 3d modeling, move the light sources around the modeling environment, especially to something normally unnatural like lighting it from below, it's a great way literally turn your perspective on it's head, to give a fresh look at something you've been working on for a while!

[CINEMARTYR]

I mix exclusively on apple earphones because that’s what most people listen to music on. The best workflow I’ve found is make it perfect there, THEN try it on expensive gear and simply fix anything that is obviously very off and you’re done

[SonnyGreenwichJr]

My band's first album final mixes were checked on the bass player's stereo blaster. To this day, the album sounds amazing on that thing, not so much everywhere else...
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

[mocaman]

YEP!! As a TV composer this is the trick for getting mixes to sound good on TV. One speaker!!

[dominicspier]

No mix goes out into this world until I listen to it out of my phone speakers, that's how 99% of people are going to hear your mix for the first time so it has to sound good out of there first.

[NexxuSix]

Stranjah, who is a DNB Producer says in his mastering tips video to play your music everywhere… So, Venus is absolutely correct here. I have listened to my music through car speakers, reference monitors, headphones, and even a mono bluetooth speaker and you can definitely get a feel as to what your music truly sounds like in the real world this way. Thanks Cameron!

[rottenmilk]

This is similar to stand back and squint your eyes when painting on canvas. You stop being so focused on tiny details and appreciate better the overall composition. The first time I took my music to listen in my car I was so disappointed and couldn’t hear a thing, somehow ended up with the same conclusion: mix on shitty headphones, profit. Always good advice, buddy.

[PK.Soniclight]

Too often, Cameron goes over my head in some of his deep dives into things, but one thing always happens: his humor--including poking fun at himself--cracks me up every time. And I'm not someone who laughs much (a kinda too serious dude). So I get a twofer: I learn stuff and get some humor therapy. :)