Every audio engineer needs at least one reference recording as a baseline for what sounds good, and although that’s a personal preference, some recordings have become standards in different industries. If you haven’t picked your reference recordings yet, the ones used by some of the pros is a good place to start.
Selecting A Reference Track
I always suggest that you use recordings that you like the sound of overall, or maybe just one mix element in particular.
For example, you might like the balance of one song, and the reverb on another. Maybe the vocal sound really hits you on yet another, and the low end might do it for you on one more.
If you mix for different musical genres, then you might have different songs for each one.
If you go to a concert and get there early when they’re tuning the system, you might hear “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift, “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars if it’s a pop concert, for instance.
Bose Knows
Recently I came across a post about the songs that Bose audio engineers use to tune car stereo systems, which is a big part of the company’s business. What’s interesting is that they used a range of songs that I wasn’t familiar with, but seemed to be in the standard playlist for Bose engineers around the world.
Let’s have a look at them.
- Holly Cole Trio, “I Can See Clearly Now”
- Bruno Mars, “24K Magic”
- Winterplay, “Billie Jean”
- Tom Petty, “Learning to Fly (Live)”
- Dave Brubeck Quartet, “Take Five”
- Steely Dan, “Hey Nineteen”
- Straight No Chaser, “Homeward Bound”
- And of course, the ever present pink noise.
The one song that seems to appear on every sound engineer’s reference playlist regardless of the industry is “Hey Nineteen,” as it’s extremely well-balanced and not too dense production-wise. Shout out to Elliot Scheiner for the fine mixing job.
Yes, “Hey Nineteen” is one of the songs on my personal list, along with Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean,” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” among others, but I’ll save the reasons why I chose these for another post.
That said, if you haven’t chosen a few ref tracks already, these songs might be a good place to start. Don’t use them because everyone else (including the Bose audio engineers) does though – you have to be able to identify something about them that you want to aim for or they won’t be much help at all.
