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by Ruarl 7 days ago
If Rick Rubin could take a tape to his car to listen to his mixes, your product people can try their websites on £20 phones from Tesco. They can ask to sit in on user tests with minority groups. Extending your knowledge like this is trivial, but rarely done.
2 comments
genewitch 7 days ago
May i ask why, specifically, Rick Rubin? I don't know who that is, but whenever we finished mastering a new song, we had a series of "systems" we listened to it on. We went out to my dad's work van and listened there. We called up our friend with a street-comp sound system in his car, and listened in there (neighbors must have loved us!), and then a "cheap" boombox with large-ish speakers but cheap.

if it sounded "clean" on all 3, without the bass muffling everything, and the highs not hurting the eardrums, we called it "good" and released.

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bgarbiak 7 days ago
Working in the music industry and not being aware who Rick Rubin is… is a bit weird.
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genewitch 6 days ago
i don't work in the industry, sorry. We just made music and released mp3s, 1997-2008. Co-creator of Def Jam, alright.

I wonder if David Lynch watches his stuff on a tiny screen just to make sure everyone has a good experience.

hint: no, he thinks small screens are stupid.

ETA: after like 3 years of mastering and reviewing this way i trusted my ears and my studio monitors enough to know what it would sound like. I also wrote in headphones and mastered on speakers, then remastered in monitor headphones. Anyhow, i think the whole point i was making is "yes, this is a good thing to do, for music, for websites, for software, etc"

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nonethewiser 7 days ago
Yeah but for those not using £20 phones from Tesco, where is the disrespect?
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efreak 6 days ago
Not testing your software in the way your users use it is the disrespect. Not everyone has a modern device. Not everyone has 12gb RAM. Not everyone has 100mbps or even 10mbps. Not everyone has "unlimited" Internet.

If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load on the free Metro Wi-Fi, I'll go back to my search and pick a different page. If it takes more than 3 seconds to load on gigabit on a PC, I'll remember it and never click on links to it again.

If you don't respect my devices, then your work doesn't deserve my respect.

(Don't get me started on people calling themselves software _engineers_)

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