How to Make Your Mixes Translate On Different  Playback Devices

Introduction

Have you ever spent hours perfecting a mix in your studio, only to hear it fall apart when played through your phone speakers or car stereo? You're not alone. Mix translation, that is ensuring your music sounds good whether it's played on high-end studio monitors or tiny earbuds, is one of the more challenging aspects of music production.

In this article, you'll learn techniques to make your mixes translate consistently across all playback devices. We're using Reaper, but the principles will apply on any DAW. We'll explore essential EQ strategies, creative use of distortion and saturation, and how to leverage Reaper's built-in tools to achieve professional-sounding results that work everywhere.

By the end of this article, you'll understand how to craft mixes that maintain their impact and clarity whether they're played on studio monitors, smartphones, Bluetooth speakers, or any other listening device your audience might use.

Main Sections

Understanding Mix Translation: Why Your Mix Sounds Different Everywhere

Mix translation refers to how well your music maintains its balance and impact across different playback systems. The reality is that most listeners won't hear your music through studio monitors. Instead, they'll use phones, laptops, earbuds, and Bluetooth speakers with vastly different frequency responses.

The primary challenge lies in frequency reproduction limitations:

• Small speakers (phones, laptops) struggle to reproduce frequencies below 200-300Hz
• Consumer headphones often have hyped bass and treble responses
• Car stereos can have unpredictable resonances and reflections
• Bluetooth speakers have limited frequency ranges

The Mid-Range Solution: Making Bass Audible on Small Speakers

When mixing, one of the most effective strategies for improving translation is enhancing the mid-range and upper mid-range content of your low-end instruments. This technique ensures that kick drums and bass guitars (and other instruments that emphasize low frequencies) remain present even on speakers with limited bass response.

EQ Enhancement of a Kick, for Small Speakers:

1. Insert ReaEQ on your kick drum track
2. Add a bell curve around 2 kHz with a moderate bandwidth
3. Boost 3-6 dB to add "click" or "beater" presence
4. Fine-tune by switching between your main monitors and a band-limited reference (phone speaker emulation)

For bass guitar, consider these frequency points:

• 700-900 Hz: Adds definition and note clarity
• 1.5-2.5 kHz: Provides string attack and presence
• 3-5 kHz: Adds brightness without harshness

Key Point: The goal isn't to make your mix bright or harsh, but to ensure crucial elements remain audible when low frequencies are absent.

Creative Distortion and Saturation Techniques

Adding harmonics through distortion or saturation is a powerful way to improve translation; especially for bass-heavy instruments. Reaper offers several approaches to implement this technique effectively.

Method 1: Parallel Processing

1. Duplicate your bass track, or route it to a second track 
2. Insert a distortion plugin on the duplicate (try JS: Distortion)
3. High-pass filter the distorted track at 200-500 Hz
4. Blend to taste using the track fader
5. Test by going back and forth between bigger speakers, and small speakers (or an EQ curve designed to mimic small speakers, or a phone.

Method 2: Insert Processing with Blend Control

If you're using a plugin like Bass Professor Mark II or similar, you can:

1. Insert the plugin directly on your bass track
2. Adjust the controls to emphasize upper harmonics
3. Use the mix/blend control to balance the two sounds
4. A/B test with your phone speaker reference

Key Point: Subtle is key—you want to add just enough harmonic content to maintain presence without making the instrument sound obviously processed.

Using Reference Tracks for Better Translation

Reference tracks are professionally mixed songs that translate well across all systems. In Reaper, you can set up an effective A/B comparison system to guide your mix decisions.

Setting Up Reference Tracks in Reaper:

1. Import 3-5 reference tracks under only the master fader
2. Have your mix running through a fader under the master fader, as well. No FX on the master fader
3. Match the loudness: you can do it by ear, or normalize to the same LUFS-I levels
4. Mute all references tracks until you're ready to hear them. Then solo the one you want to hear

Tukan also has an A/B plugin, but i haven't tried it yet 🙂

Using Spectral Analysis for Comparison:

1. Select all the reference tracks and your mix track. on your master bus
2. Go to the actions menu. Search for and run "load Spectrum.lua"
3. All selected tracks will show up in the analyzer. 

Pay special attention to your ultra-low end; the frequencies below about 35Hz. These are the most difficult to get right as most prosumer monitors won't reproduce sounds in the area very well. If that area is out of control in your mix as compared to the reference mixes, you'll have to figure out what instrument or instruments are the cause, and deal with them. EQ, compression, and multi-band compression can be your friends here. 

Key Point: Don't try to match references exactly—use them as a guide while maintaining your mix's unique character.

Strategic Filtering for Different Playback Systems

High and low-pass filtering and shelving are useful for controlling how your mix translates. Reaper's stock plugins provide excellent tools for this purpose.

Filtering Guidelines:

High-Pass Filtering:

You can high-pass anything that has low rumble (content below 30, or 35 Hertz, that doesn't add to the heft of the sound in a positive way). As a general rule, keep the slope of the high-pass as gentle as you can. Be careful not to thin your instruments out too much.

Low-Pass Filtering:

I use high-pass a lot more than I use low-pass. But in some cases you'll have excess content up in the high end. It's better to take care of it at the source, than to low-pass your entire mix, if you can figure out what's causing the excess frequencies.

Shelving EQs:

Some people prefer high and low shelves instead of high and low pass filters as, in some cases they won't cause phase issues around the cutoff frequency. It's a whole thing, but don't worry about it. Just keep your filter slopes gentle, and don't overdo it. 

Creating a "Phone Speaker Check" FX Chain:

1. Add ReaEQ with steep high-pass at 300 - 700 Hz
2. Add another ReaEQ band with low-pass at 5 - 8 kHz
3. Save as preset named "Phone Speaker Emulation"
4. Toggle on/off during mixing to check translation

Key Point: Regular checking through band-limited monitoring helps identify problems before they become unfixable in mastering. But always check the changes you've made, on your main monitors.

Common Use Cases

Electronic Music Production

Electronic genres often rely heavily on sub-bass, making translation particularly challenging. Use parallel processing on your sub-bass with heavy saturation, high-passed at 200 Hz, to ensure the bassline remains audible on all systems.

This is a common technique in other genres, too. You can divide bass instruments into two bands, and process them separately, saturating or distorting the higher end, only.

Consider multiband compression and make sure the ultra-low bass is full without being out of control.

Rock and Metal Mixing

Acoustic and Folk Music

These genres typically translate well, but watch for boomy acoustic guitars. High-pass filtering at 100-150 Hz often improves clarity across all playback systems.

Podcast and Spoken Word

Voice clarity is paramount. Boost presence frequencies (3-5 kHz) slightly and ensure consistent levels through gentle compression to maintain intelligibility on all devices.

It's A Trade-Off

Interfering Frequencies

Keep in mind, if you boost the upper harmonics on you kick and bass guitar, those frequencies will be right where the guitars and vocals live. The trick is to get enough of those harmonics in there so that your low frequency instruments can be heard on small speakers. But you don't want them to interfere with the midrange instruments, right?

Maybe you can find a frequency slot where they don't interfere. Or maybe you can put just enough dirt on that bass so that it's audible, but not so much that it interferes with the guitars.

Ruining Your Mix For Bigger Speakers:

You can also chase the sound on smaller speakers too hard. Add that fuzz on the bass until you can hear it plain as day on those small speakers. Come back to the big boys, and that bass sounds like your weird uncle Tommy smells.

So, you've got to go back and forth between small speakers and big speakers (or use the EQ trick if you don't have two sets of speakers) and find something that works for both. Yeah, it can be difficult. Welcome to mixing. It's a thing.

For me, it usually ends up where I can hear the bass on the smaller speakers, but just barely. If I mute it, I miss it, but it's not prominent. Take it back to big monitors and it's sitting just about right. YMMV.

Use This Advice In A Bigger Content

Any time I write an article or do a video like this, a few people pop in and say something such as "This will ruin your mix. Distortion on bass will interfere with guitars." Or, "You should get a really good set of monitors and if it sounds good on them, it will sound good everywhere."

Well yes; if you put too much distortion on your bass guitar, it will interfere with your guitars. That's why you compare your mix on small speakers and on big speakers. You make sure you land in a zone in which you can read the bass on the small speakers, but it still sounds good on your big speakers.

And sure, it's a good idea to rely mainly on one, good set of studio monitors. Learn them, and mix mainly on them. I'm not suggesting you put a cell-phone sounding EQ on your mix, and mix that way all the time. It's a check you use occasionally to make sure your mix reads well in different environments.

So, however good your monitors and room treatment are, they're not telling the story perfectly. This is why every professional recording studio I've ever been in has two, or more often three sets of monitors. Professional mixers, almost every one of them, have a way to check their mixes on different speakers.

How I mix To Translate

Virtual Listening Spaces: Slate VSX

This web site is for folks who record their music at home, as I do. We often don't have a way to create a perfect studio with acoustically treated rooms. Slate VSX puts you in different studio control rooms, virtually. VSX uses a special set of headphones, and software.

This allows you to compare your mix in several different environments. Personally, I use the big speakers in this room (Steven's mix room) to check low end, and the small cube speaker in the center of the console, to check for translation on smaller speakers. There's a set of near-field monitors in the Sonoma room that are very well balanced, as well.

My Mixing Process

But I mix mostly on a pair of Presonus Eris 3.5s. They're definitely budget monitors, but they punch above their weight. I'm happy with them. But they're not totally accurate, especially in the low end. So I spend about 5% of my time in Slate VSX, checking mix translation.

You might ask why spend the money on Slate just to spend 5% of my time in it. Because it's important, that's why. If I didn't have the money for Slate, I'd use a frequency analyzer more, and do the best I could that way.

Key Takeaways:

• Always consider how your mix will sound on limited playback devices
• Use mid-range enhancement to maintain presence on speakers where bass is absent
• Leverage parallel processing for adding harmonics without sacrificing original tone
• Regular A/B testing with reference tracks keeps your mix on target
• Strategic filtering prevents frequency buildup that hurts translation

Take Action

Start implementing these techniques in your current project. Remember, small improvements in translation add up to dramatically better-sounding mixes.