Heartbroken over my mixes · Fix-The-Mix™

Heartbroken over my mixes

Hey, guys. Just a little humor and you guys may be able to give me some advice, too. My mixing has really leveled up since I joined this community. I've watched the 10 hr video on how to use compressors and most of the 9 hr video on how to use reverb and my mixing gets better with each new song. Even my mom said she can tell the difference. She said my mixes sound like they have more life now. They said excellent in the car. So I was like "yo, I wanna hear my beats through my Amazon Echo," so I paired my Alexa to my phone and played them. I was heartbroken by what I heard 😂 And it's always my low end sounds that sounded horrible. All of my other synths sound great. My vocal samples sound great. The drums sound good, but my bass was all over the place. The sub is loud enough in one beat in my car AND my headphones (regular headphones, not studio headphones) but I could barely hear it through my Alexa. The 808s in that beat were perfect, but then I have another beat where I use 808s and they hit in the car but are barely audible through my Alexa. I think one reason is my reverb plug-in may be trash. It has parameters I need it to have. It just doesn't get the job done. I have a better one now that I just upgraded to Pro Tools 2024. And of course the only reason I would use reverb on bass or 808s at all is to give it that depth and spacial effect. The reverb isn't audible.

So my low end. I've two different ways to try and fix that problem. One Mastering.com video said to use medium attack times when compressing low end. Another guy with Mastering.com said to lighten up on the threshold when I serial compress. What I've been doing - and as far as I could tell, it was working but now I'm not so sure - was dividing the ratio up between however many compressors I use when serial compressing.

Any advice on compressing my low end would sure be helpful. Or maybe somekne could tell me why my mixes sound good everywhere but in my Alexa.

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