Reviewer setup

[chartzog]

Hi there,

I am just beginning to dip my toes into the world of submitting music to Taxi listings. I was wondering if any of you guys know what the Taxi reviewer’s technical setup is for doing reviews in terms of audio quality and consistency from reviewer to reviewer?

Thanks!

Chris

[cosmicdolphin]

I was wondering if any of you guys know what the Taxi reviewer’s technical setup is for doing reviews in terms of audio quality and consistency from reviewer to reviewer?

In the old days they ued to work at Taxi HQ in little booths each equipped with a set of the same headphones ( I forget which ones ) but post Covid I believe they mostly work remotely so will each have their own set up. What I would say is, it doesn't really matter and if you're trying to second guess this stuff you're barking up the wrong tree.

Persoanlly I can tell just as easily on pair of basic earbuds that came free with my phone as I can on my £1k studio monitors in my treated room whether I think a piece is suitable or not - the fidelity of the playback system is not a concern. A well written , well mixed track will sound good on anything.

Mark

[Telefunkin]

..... and, Taxi screeners are only the first step. What about the library, what about the music supervisors and editors, what about the TV listeners? They'll all be listening on different kit. Basically, the music has to sound good on everything, and that's the whole point of mixing/mastering on a neutral system but also having alternative monitoring set-ups for comparison and to ensure the best translation.

[Casey H]

Most have a Radio Shack TRS-80 with a soup can speaker. Kidding!! Joking because, as others have said, people worry about this WAY too much. One of our favorite, highly successful, Taxi-friendly libraries still does initial screening on 128K mp3.

Just make the best mix you can with reasonably good speakers and headphones. Using plug-ins to check how it might sound on other devices is a good idea but it could also drive you crazy, obsessively tweaking forever.

If you look at the reasons for returns posted on this forum, I would guess the highest percentage (90%+) are: off target, too repetitive, needs development, outdated sounds, too mechanical, melody not strong enough, vocal pitchy or poor performance, and so on. You won't see, "You need to raise instrument X by 1.5 db" or "notch down 10K by 2 db".

Casey

[chartzog]

Thanks for the great feedback! I have a mix that sounds good to me on studio monitors and headphones. I'll try it on a few other lower end things too. I have been doing A-B comparisons to the reference tracks and I think I am meeting the requirements of the listing, but I'm biased! I try to learn and improve each time I get feedback from a reviewer. Getting an orchestral composition and mix just right is a challenge (but an enjoyable challenge for me!) since there are so many variables involved. I have found that if I can first get a good 4 part string arrangement in place that's half the battle as I find it easy to expand from there.

The listing I am looking at is S240317TC https://www.taxi.com/industry#listing-S240317TC

[Casey H]

Grain of salt since I'm a non-producer.

I would think that since you do A/B compares to the reference track, as long as you compare on one system (assuming it's a reasonably decent one), you are fine. After all, you are keeping that one variable a constant.