Making music for phones and tablets.

Hey So I got some gigs writing for videogames; they're all for tablets / phones etc. They're on a "if we ever make money we'll give you some" basis. I'm wondering what I need to do in terms of mastering. I've used RBass on the bass (it creates harmonics so you get the false fundamental, which helps on small speakers). Should I compress the thing to death? Keep the bass in the center? Better to do it in mono? Here's the waveform, The spikes are the white-noise snare drum. My compressor's not catching them, and I'm wondering weather to limit them, or it's ok (generally, I'd never limit heavily, as I don't care about loudness, but I'm wondering if it'll have issues playing through phone speakers). (The soundcloud is a more general audience version, and the vocaroo is more for phones and tablets).

For that target, imho you should pretty much continuously monitor how your stuff sounds through tablet & phone speakers while (composing, orchestrating, mixing and) mastering - and not simply "[wonder] if it'll have issues playing through phone speakers."

That's a good point. I've been playing through my laptop, but I'll try to get things playing through my phone. I'm wondering if there are any general rules though, like, maybe I should have a high-pass around 100hz, because phones can't reproduce anything below that? Maybe exciters are very useful for this medium? The woman told me she preferred the original version, because the drums weren't good through phone speakers. I'll test that today after work. I wonder if it's the actually drum sound (which noise plus envelopes and EQ plus exciter) or the fact that it's too loud relative to the rest of the mix (and needs harder compression).

I would recommend strongly centering your compositions around higher mid-range keys such as G1 (49hz) and above, for maximum low-mids impact. Use harmonic rich instruments for any low melodies - i.e. basoon, cellos, etc, as opposed to french horns. If you want to use french horns for melodies I'd back them with softer trombones and use octaves (traditionally 1st and 3rd french horn play the higher octave, 2nd and 4th play the lower). Finally as far as technical things go I'd emphasize the 800-1500hz area for all low strings and brass and avoid excessive low-mid reverb (EQ the reverb bus).

Wow, really good advice! Thanks! You say to center around 49hz and above. Did you mean 49hz and below? If not, what should I do with the lower frequencies? Cut them? And where should I stop centering? Should I make HF content really wide? On my example track I did use a harmonic rich synth, but bassoon etc. is a really good idea. If I'm using for example a bassoon; should I emphasize the harmonic content even more? Or would that be overkill? (I guess it's a matter of listening / case by case basis). What you said about emphasizing the 800-1500hz area; would that apply to bass synths as well? Do you think using a harmonic eq, like Voxengo HarmEQ (it creates harmonics on the fundamental for the emphasized frequency) would be a good idea for this? Thanks!

Won't processing the music in that manner make it sound like crap on headphones?

I think that most people who play the game won't use headphones. It's a simple little bike game, and usually kids play that stuff with their friends on their phones. What I read however is that you can mix it for small speakers, and then add in some sub frequencies, which the small speaker will just ignore. I've also read "roll off some of the highend using a 6dB slope low pass set at 17-18kHz. Just play with it a little and you'll know when it's right." Which I don't understand. Phone speakers can't handle high frequencies either? I also read in this thread; that someone created an IR for iPhone. I wonder how that works exactly, and if there's something similar for Android.

Hm, I just listened to the track on both my monitors and on my phone (a Motorola Moto G). I think your first problem is levels. The... violin? is very loud, as is the snare, while the rest of the music sort of sits in the background. Both these sounds pop out even more when listening on the phone speaker. There is also a lot of very harsh aliasing going on. I understand that it's a chiptune (sorta) but these types of sounds really doesn't do the music any favors on a tiny speaker which is shrill to begin with.

Is this an improvement?