Mixing Detective Work and Tail Chasing - Windows Laptop Audio

[forumuser842686]

Hello all,

So I had an absolute nightmare recently and wanted to vent but also share in case its useful for any of you. Mixing is a form of madness sometimes.

So in short I mixed a track for my wife I was very happy with. I listened to it on a couple sets of monitors/car/bluetooth speaker and it sounded good. Job done. So I thought.....

My wife comes in and tells me it sounds distorted on her Dell laptop. To my horror she was right - it sounded really bassy buzzy and crackly. Other tracks on her laptop sounded a bit buzzy - but I felt like my mix was worse as the relatively sparse acoustic/bass/voice was exposing.

I checked Windows Media player to make sure EQ was off. Yep. Also I turned off all the spatial audio/dolby on the laptop. Seemed a bit better but didn't fix it fully. I suspected some resonance or bass frequency that needed fixing in the mix.

Anyway I spent ages trying to remove resonance from the bass - cut some midrange boominess or harsh vocal resonance. But I cut so much and compressed so much the mix started feeling lifeless and still it didn't sound right.

Anyway long story short I eventually found something buried in the Windows menus called 'Sound>Playback' and a little inconspicuous checkbox called 'Audio Enhancement' which was ticked. I unticked it and voila - the bloated boomy buzzy sound had gone. A quick google after showed that this is a major culprit of terrible laptop audio quality when running the internal soundcard. Who in there right mind thought it was a good idea?

The negative is that I wasted hours trying to remix the track to sound good on her laptop. The positive is I think I ended up with a better mix than the original - as the original mix did have a bit of boominess/resonance that needed cutting out - but the major culprit here was Windows stealth settings.

Now my wife hasn't complained before of this issue so I can only assume that Windows 11 update turned it on - which I read can happen.

I expect most of you don't mix specifically for laptop speakers - and neither do I. But I want it to sound semi acceptable on them. It does worry me that these devices have these enhancements which end up distorting our mixes. Its not something we can really account for.

[Drew Stephenson]

Even without Microsoft changing things lots of manufacturers have their own versions of the same thing. HP and Dell to name a couple of the bigger ones. Obviously you can't mix for it but it can occasionally be a useful indicator that something may have crept through on a more competent speaker.

[James Perrett]

Commercial masters tend to keep the bass well in check. I will often tame the bass gently on a track although the method that I use only touches the bass that is likely to cause problems.

[Sam Inglis]

Glad you found the culprit, although the fact that your mix was worse affected than others would suggest there was still an issue of some sort with it. I think that's often why low-quality grotboxes can be useful for checking mixes. Sometimes they just can't cope with something that better speakers will handle OK, and they really let you know.

[Watchmaker]

Windows! pfft! How many times has it turned out that Windows is the culprit? And yet, here we are at Windows 11, which, in every conceivable way, is worse than 10 which is, in every conceivable way, worse than 7, which is... Except that it appears more convenient for the end user and facilitates an entire cycle of planned hardware obsolescence. But it's FASTER!

Capitalism is dead! Long live Capitalism! May Bill Gates and his acolytes roast long in a place Dante fears to tread.

There has surely got to be a better way.

Yes, I am in my cups this evening and a merry g'day to you too.

[RichardT]

Its enshitification! The curse of the modern world.

[forumuser842686]

Glad you found the culprit, although the fact that your mix was worse affected than others would suggest there was still an issue of some sort with it. I think that's often why low-quality grotboxes can be useful for checking mixes. Sometimes they just can't cope with something that better speakers will handle OK, and they really let you know.

Thanks Sam. I agree re the low quality speaker test being useful. The weird thing is that the smartphone I have for checking mixes didn't have any of the same issues. And had this audio enhancement been switched off from the start I really would have been non the wiser about any possible issues as even the original mix sounds acceptable on the laptop now. So I wonder how my workflow would change going forward after this experience.

[forumuser842686]

Commercial masters tend to keep the bass well in check. I will often tame the bass gently on a track although the method that I use only touches the bass that is likely to cause problems.

Not to give all your trade secrets away but what frequencies would you say are likely to cause problems? Because every speaker test I carried out was fine and even the laptop speakers were ok when I turned this setting off. So I feel like it's a bit of a guessing game for those with particular setups and audio settings engaged.

I use DI bass and usually just low cut the real sub end. Through this process before I figured out the audio enhancement issue I ended up cutting some 280hz with a 0.9Q and a little cut at 1.25khz. Which added some clarity to the mix overall so I kept it. But as I say the main culprit appeared to be this hidden audio enhancement.

[forumuser842686]

Windows! pfft! How many times has it turned out that Windows is the culprit? And yet, here we are at Windows 11, which, in every conceivable way, is worse than 10 which is, in every conceivable way, worse than 7, which is... Except that it appears more convenient for the end user and facilitates an entire cycle of planned hardware obsolescence. But it's FASTER!

Capitalism is dead! Long live Capitalism! May Bill Gates and his acolytes roast long in a place Dante fears to tread.

There has surely got to be a better way.

Yes, I am in my cups this evening and a merry g'day to you too.

Truly awful - stealth setting that also doesn't even tell you what its actually doing to the audio. I now realise there are so many 'why does my audio sound muddy/distorted on windows' posts on the internet and almost all of them lead to this hidden setting. Seems like windows updates or driver updates can also engage it when it was previously off. Makes me want to switch to a Mac.

[Philbo King]

Deleted

[OneWorld]

Its enshitification! The curse of the modern world.

Yep, for all the AI, ChatGeePeeTea, Grokkin and Cockin etc we got raining down on us, this is what we end up with, I'm not impressed one jot.

There was a discussion on the radio tonight about us following Australia's example and banning smartphones for under 16 year olds, saying that their brains are turning to a blob of gloop - and it took an emeritus professor to tell the listeners that, and he was hallowed and exalted, when even the dogs in the street know it.

AI will have its uses of course it will, but will it live up to the hype that we're being carpet bombed with, not as long as I have a hole my HarryFace, much of the hype being put out is simply for the free advertising the AI companies get, they're just keeping their company names in the public realm.

[James Perrett]

Not to give all your trade secrets away but what frequencies would you say are likely to cause problems?

It totally depends on the material - but this is one of those occasions where some form of multi-band compression would be appropriate. Use a spectrum analyser with something like 8192 bands or more to give you the frequency definition you need to look at the bass end. Chances are you'll find something sticking out there.

[forumuser842686]

Not to give all your trade secrets away but what frequencies would you say are likely to cause problems?

It totally depends on the material - but this is one of those occasions where some form of multi-band compression would be appropriate. Use a spectrum analyser with something like 8192 bands or more to give you the frequency definition you need to look at the bass end. Chances are you'll find something sticking out there.

Thanks. Is this in a mastering context or can it only be achieved on individual stems? Ideally going forward I'd like to mix the track as I want and not worry about it and hand it over to an ME rather than use ozone etc.

[James Perrett]

Thanks. Is this in a mastering context or can it only be achieved on individual stems?

This is for mastering. If you have the individual tracks then you can probably use a conventional full band compressor to even out the problem tracks.