Borrowed a Focusrite VRM box today: for those not in the know, it’s a box you use to simulate (via clever software) different speakers and environments. More details here
I checked it out on a couple of mixes I’m working on: one is proper bass-heavy: really subby kick, subby rolling bass and a live bass: sounded honky as anything through the VRM : ‘uurgh, not impressed’ I thought.. til I loaded up a few more tracks where I knew the bass was balanced. Low and behold the VRM translated the mixes really well. In short, with only half an hour with the little box, the hard to mix frequencies on headphones were revealed in an instance. WIll check out the mix I’m struggling with tomorrow in the studio over a few speakers… (the brands in the studio are modeled on the VRM, so should be interesting).. I fear the VRM is correct! So, when you’re forced to mix without speakers, this seems like an excellent way to do it. Will definitely try some more mixes out down this path. For 80 odd quid, seems a steal.
armyourears.com 