Change your volume

kama

kama

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When listening to the track you just churned out and trying to figure out the levels of the different elements:

Be constantly changing your listening level. Check the levels loud, is that bass too loud or does the kick drown it? Check the levels quiet, is this acid synth over-compressed? Check the levels on moderate volume, are the transients snappy enough? Turn it up, is that ride too upfront?

I've been doing this for almost 10 years, and I'm self taught, which means I've learnt the hard way every time. This is a practice I've only recently started using - with even a mediocre monitoring system this is a very sound policy, because for example compression problems turn up very well at low levels, but then again problems with the bass area become apparent better at loud levels. It forces your ears to focus again instead of numbing them to the same level.

/rant
 
Yeh DTX taught me this method back in 2004, definitely a must. Also there's a lot of discussion about mixing certain levels of tracks at -12db and the final mix at -3db, ready for mastering.

Btw Kama, loved that track you did with DTX, Harmony. Awesome tune.
 
kama said:
When listening to the track you just churned out and trying to figure out the levels of the different elements:
Click to expand...

the human ear responds differently at different
sound pressure levels... good to mix at different
volumes for this reason...
 
druu said:
Yeh DTX taught me this method back in 2004, definitely a must. Also there's a lot of discussion about mixing certain levels of tracks at -12db and the final mix at -3db, ready for mastering.

Btw Kama, loved that track you did with DTX, Harmony. Awesome tune.
Click to expand...

yeh i love that tune :D
 
so so true...tracks will sound entirely different with the change of a db or two. Always good to "watch out for mud" making sure your kicks/snares/bass is clear and distinct as possible. And nothing worse then getting yelled at by a Mastering Engineer for not giving them enough headroom.....I hear horror stories from my friend Marcus who does mastering for Soul Fuel records, over compressed stuff pisses him off so much...lol
 
the is a response curve of the ear called like the 'fortnum mason' curve (i'm aware that fortnum mason is some other company!) it means that at low levels we hear middish (around the 3khz mark) 'louder' as when we were cavemen, this frequency was best to pick up echoed voices in caves and it remains in our audio make-up...

however, as the volume goes up... our ability to hear bass, low mids and trebble increases.

With this in mind, you have to reach a compramise between low, medium and high volume levels... with dance tracks, this needs to be around the high/medium area!
 
fletcher munson curve... n 3k is so audible because
its around this mark that the standing waves
in your ear occur.. these freqs are reinforced
because of the shape of the ear canal...
 
kama said:
When listening to the track you just churned out and trying to figure out the levels of the different elements:

Be constantly changing your listening level. Check the levels loud, is that bass too loud or does the kick drown it? Check the levels quiet, is this acid synth over-compressed? Check the levels on moderate volume, are the transients snappy enough? Turn it up, is that ride too upfront?

I've been doing this for almost 10 years, and I'm self taught, which means I've learnt the hard way every time. This is a practice I've only recently started using - with even a mediocre monitoring system this is a very sound policy, because for example compression problems turn up very well at low levels, but then again problems with the bass area become apparent better at loud levels. It forces your ears to focus again instead of numbing them to the same level.

/rant
Click to expand...

I've been quoting your godly advise for months now and I think I have a collection of advise now. I may just have to zip that puppy and give it out haha
 
I find it hard to understand a written explanation of some directions than actual hands on practicality - just me - but a comparative sound recording or two would be nice ;)
 
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