As I mentioned a couple of posts back, The Chanteuse and I are moving into the final phases of recording our new collection of carefully crafted tracks for eventual release to eager listeners. In that post I outlined the processes that we go through at this stage in order that the end product be as close to our imaginings as is humanly possible.

One of those steps is the settling on a final mix for each piece. This is where both the individual sounds are polished up as well as the overall balance between them settled upon. This is perhaps most closely the equivalent of editing the draft of a book, or perchance of using Photoshop (other brands available!) to ‘perfect’ a photograph.

There are many tools available in the world of recording with which this process may be effected – a fact that the evolution of the art into the digital realm has merely amplified a thousandfold. At the end of the day, however, the most important tools are the producer’s ears. It matters not what fancy gadgets are employed; it matters only how it sounds to the listener (the which is, of course, highly subjective).

Just as when one is trying to chose a paint colour for a room one must look at samples of the paint under many different lights – so too with music. The same mix of a song will sound completely different dependent on what audio system it is played upon and what space it is played in. When I am mixing tracks I listen to them in a variety of different ways. I listen on headphones in the studio as well as on several different types of studio monitor. I also listen to the tracks on my cell phone using in-ear monitors or earbuds.

Finally I listen to the mixed recordings on the audio system in my car. This latter is most important because – since I listen to a lot of music in the car – I know exactly how things should sound in that enclosed space. If it sounds good in the Lexus – then it probably is good!

It came as a considerable shock, then, that just a couple of weeks back the Lexus’s audio system suddenly started making hideous rasping noises whenever I played anything. Something was clearly amiss. Being a reasonably smart boy I immediately consulted The Girl (whose turf this is) to see if she might know of a concern that specialised in car audio systems.

She at once directed me to Ralph’s Radio Ltd in downtown Victoria, the which – as you can see from their card (pictured above) – has been in this business since 1949. I called the current owner, Justin Miller, who not only knew at once the details of the particular system in the Lexus but also the most likely cause of the problem.

The long and the short of the matter is that – within a couple of days and taking just an hour and a half (whilst I sipped almond lattes in a nearby coffee shop) – Ralph’s replaced both the bass speakers and the tweeters in the front part of the car. Justin showed me the bass unit that had caused most of the trouble. I don’t think I have seen a speaker quite so comprehensively wrecked. The cone had torn away from the mounting most of the way around its circumference and the coil had popped out of its mounting and was vibrating against the shell of the unit.

Needless to say it now sounds great again and I am back in the mixing business.

My grateful thanks to Justin and to his tech guys. Their customer service is excellent – they are friendly and extremely knowledgeable and they got me back up and running with the minimum of fuss and at an entirely reasonable cost.

Kudos – gentlemen!