The twelfth Yule Lad to come down from the mountains is Ketkrókur.

The English translation of his name is Meat-Hook and he "Uses a hook to steal meat."

Man, these guys are just getting more terrifying.

I can't believe I was just cool with all these guys coming to my house when I was a little kid?!?

"Oh sure son, Meat-Hook will come to your window while you sleep and give you some presents if you were good."

Me, not knowing whether I had been good or not, "so you mean to tell me there's a guy with a friggin HOOK for a hand that's known for breaking and entering and theft is just gonna come chill and watch me sleep tonight?!?"

"Yes son, and if you're not good Grýla (their mom) might come steal you and put you in her sack. In fact, if you haven't gotten new clothes for Christmas she'll probably bring you to the Christmas Cat."

"Christmas Cat mom?"

"Yes, the Christmas Cat. It's a black Cat-Beast that eats children if they don't get new clothes for Christmas."

"Yeah I don't think so mom....I'm calling child protective services. This is absolutely out of control!"

"It's just a part of the culture sweetheart."

"Well I guess I'll better be good then jeez. Those other kids just get a lump of coal if they've been bad. They don't get kidnapped by a witch and fucking eaten by a hellish cat-demon!"

"Yes son. Better be good then..."

Anyways....Hook-Dude has calmed down throughout the years and he just walks around quietly listening to music on his earbuds as he gives kids their presents throughout the night.

However, he might get a little pissed off if one of your tracks comes on shuffle and it doesn't sound anything like you had in mind when you listened to it on your monitors.

So he leaves you with this to make sure your mixes translate.

Make the best mix you can on your studio monitors. Check it often with headphones to get a comparison. Once it's done bounce it out to listen to as many speaker systems as you can. If you have earbuds check it there. If you have a TV surround system check it there. If you have a car stereo check it there. During all of this you should be taking liberal notes on what the differences are between each system. Make notes of the different frequency responses as well as volume changes. If there's a distinct frequency difference then write down what area of the frequency spectrum it's in. If you constantly run into the same frequency problems then you might have a problem in your general mixing position due to standing waves or other monitoring problems. If you volume problems throughout try to find the best balance between each speaker system. It's called translation because every system needs to understand your mix the same way. Once you're done taking notes and tweaking the mix, do it all over again until it sounds decent on every single system you try it on.

In fact, I go through some mix translation issues using a reference track in my Quick Mixing/Mastering package so if you want a just-in-time Christmas present for yourself you should head that way:

www.QuickMixing.com

Stay tuned for tomorrow's final Yuletide Tip. I hope you've been enjoying them so far. If you need to look at the other tips you can check them all out on the blog here.