Tracks sound weird on Phone

[Dork Lard]

Hey guys. I've been attempting to finally finish off this last album (sheeeeeeeeeeeeeesh....) and I'm done but I've been checking how the songs sound on various devices, so they're good on the monitors of course but they sound especially problematic on the phone and I figure the phone is a really good test as to the quality of the mixing/mastering.

It's metal, and there's like a weird sort of shroud over the top/at the center of the songs, especially when there's vocals, like some weird shroud surrounding the track. I've tried re-mastering it in all kinds of ways, removing some of the highs and trading in a few lows, but it's still there. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like this unclear, high-endish cover right on top of the gtrs/drums and voice.

Does this sound familiar to anyone ? Any ideas what it could be before I have to run 5 million tests to rectify this crap ? Thanks in advance.

[Cranky Emu]

Originally Posted by Dork Lard

there's like a weird sort of shroud over the top/at the center of the songs.... Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Probably sound a lot more familiar if you uploaded it somewhere and put a link so others could listen to it and give you feedback on what it may be.

[Dork Lard]

Originally Posted by Cranky Emu

Probably sound a lot more familiar if you uploaded it somewhere and put a link so others could listen to it and give you feedback on what it may be.

I thought that description of the track sounding like crap on the phone might ring a bell, but here's a snippet I've uploaded:
https://soundcloud.com/phenomenon86/...nippet/s-R92i4

It sounds clear on the computer speakers, on the studio monitors...but a bit broken on the iphone, very similar to how a bad stream will sound like the sound gets a little messed up and loses detail, like it's got this unclear cloud of crap on it. Is there too much high end on the instruments ?

[Cranky Emu]

Could be several things, but if you are listening solely on the phone, not headphones etc and just the phones speakers then it will never sound as good as your monitors.

Sounds very compressed.

[Dork Lard]

Originally Posted by Cranky Emu

Could be several things, but if you are listening solely on the phone, not headphones etc and just the phones speakers then it will never sound as good as your monitors.

Sounds very compressed.

Compressed you say ? Will work on that then. Thanks.

No I just meant the phone is a good test for how ready your mix really is. I figure if it sounds good on the phone it should sound good (nearly) everywhere, because the phone speakers emphasize the loudest aspects you might not hear on detailed monitors. If I listen to a pro studio track on the phone, I'll clearly hear the vocals, the beat, and get an idea what chord progression is going on. With my mix, the vocals sounded unclear, the beat was okay, and the chord prog was meh.