Car Test is a free plug-in that lets you test drive your tracks in your studio
It could be especially useful for producers who, well, don’t own a car.
Image: Rocket Powered Sound
Most music-makers will give their tracks the good ol’ car test to find out how they sound on an ‘average’ stereo system – well, now there’s a free plug-in that lets you do that from the comfort of your studio.
Car Test emulates the frequency response of ‘modern, typical’ car speakers to give you a sense of what it would sound like through a car stereo. All you have to do is chuck the plug-in at the end of your chain and you’re good to go.
Now, this of course colours your mix and shouldn’t be used as a guide for adjusting fine mix details. With that said however, there are benefits to re-hearing your mix through a ‘lens’ – it’s similar to how studios will often have a secondary set of monitors.
We can see this plug-in being useful especially for producers who don’t own consumer speakers – or for that matter, a car – who want to experience their track from a listener’s perspective.
It could also be useful for artists getting their mixes back from an engineer, as a way to ‘road-test’ their mixes without getting out of the house.
Regardless of how you use it, these sorts of auditioning methods tend to work better the more familiar you are with how these secondary speakers colour your audio; in other words, if you’re planning to rely on the Car Test plug-in as a second opinion, it might be a good idea to do some listening for fun with it engaged.
Said Rocket Powered Sound on the accuracy of the plug-in Test: “Ultimately, your studio’s monitoring set up and listening environment plays the biggest role in the accuracy of this plugin.
If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, you can download Car Test at Rocket Powered Sound’s website.
Learn more at rocketpoweredsound.com
