theres no substitute for good acoustics, and monitoring. its pure physics. any sort of eq is asking for phase related issues, and making the nulls in the room worse. between a pair of headphones, earbuds, bluetooth speaker, boombox, vehicle sound system, and studio monitors, there's plenty of options available to an engineer at a relatively low cost, to hear how their mix moves around. imho any room simulation is pure advertising lies.

To add to K's comment, if the problems would only be EQ curves those room emulation and calibration software would do a good job..
But no, EQ is a very small part of having a good listening environment for mixing and mastering.
No software I know can account for reflections in the rooms, standing waves and low frequency buildup or lack of or other problems one can be faced with.

With all that said, any monitoring systems need to be learned. To some degree minor inconsistencies can be compensated if you know them well.
For exemple, I was mixing with a bit too much bass for a while. When I got to my car, I had to go back to my mixes to fix this. Until I added a subwoofer to my system.
It is not that my room is unbalanced or my monitors not giving enough.
It's just that I like a lot of bass, it's me who is defective. When Adding a bit too much bass to my system. my mix are a lot more accurate.
I'm telling you this because many people torture themselves over monitors and listening environment before even being able to ear the difference.
Recording and mixing need to be learned and experienced before anyone gets better.
If the first my I picked up when starting to record was a U87, I bet my recordings would still sound bad because I didn't know how things should sound ;)

Appreciate the above replies-getting a chance to hear other peoples views on this

What is happening now is things like Izotopes tone control. This allows you to ignore your ears and room as your only sources. By analytics of the overall mix from basic forms of various styles, and here is the cool part, against other older reliable top notch recordings. For those of us on lower budgets, with no hope of ever having a perfect environment, it’s a real boon.

As Kyle said also you then go to listen on other devices/phones etc. Also as Chris always says, mono your recordings as you work on the mix, it’s a very telling way of picking out issues too.

Tony

Thx for the info re-Izotopes TC--I'll take a look at it online later on....
The main thing I've been focusing on since I'm new to all this is getting info on the specific types of settings all these "translation" software units use that I can use on the Samson S Curve 1/3 oct I just got to simulate the results these produce... i.e."critical listening" w/"Soundways Reveal" sets up 2-5k as the mix frequency range focus area if I'm understanding this correctly....

I have been getting a good sense of things w/the S Curve as before this I had to make do w/the low/high shelf EQ in the TASCAM DP-008 as my only means of dealing w/frequency areas....it's been very enlightening to see what the components of a given sound are at the different levels...I combined the COMP/EQ settings on the ZOOM RT223 w/the adjustments on the SCurve + the TASCAM compressor settings yesterday to get a snare sound for the track I'm making...very different now that all the online studying I've been doing of how to get things to sound a given way becomes a reality w/actual hands-on experience....

The main thing w/this move from focusing on the musical material itself to dealing w/the recording process in all its aspects is getting used to the difference between spending time working on chords/patterns/beats etc to the type of approach needed to do things as a recording engineer ....i.e.knowing when to take a break from continued repeated listening to something that is being adjusted ....

I'm trying to set up a balanced approach where I still work on the musical aspects of things.... but given the situation of my having about 50 demo tracks recorded w/a little digital handheld I'm redoing w/the current equipment I think the balance shifting to the recording process is OK for now.......and I'll be taking full advantage of using this forum to get feedback from people willing to share their experience /insights about
whatever aspect of recording comes up....

pcrecord, post: 458265, member: 46460 wrote: With all that said, any monitoring systems need to be learned. To some degree minor inconsistencies can be compensated if you know them well.
For exemple, I was mixing with a bit too much bass for a while. When I got to my car, I had to go back to my mixes to fix this. Until I added a subwoofer to my system.
It is not that my room is unbalanced or my monitors not giving enough.
It's just that I like a lot of bass, it's me who is defective.

(y)

pcrecord, post: 458265, member: 46460 wrote: When Adding a bit too much bass to my system. my mix are a lot more accurate.

(y)

pcrecord, post: 458265, member: 46460 wrote: I'm telling you this because many people torture themselves over monitors and listening environment before even being able to ear the difference.

100% spot on.