- Joined
- Mar 24, 2002
- Location
- Halfway between the gutter and stars
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
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