We’re always looking for the silver bullet to get our mixes sounding professional, polished and pristine on a consistent basis. As you can see from that first sentence, my search for ‘p words’ is complete, but the hunt for that mixing silver bullet seems never-ending for a lot of us.
Personally, I don’t feel there’s a catch-all solution to becoming great, or even good, at mixing. It takes time, consistent action, repetition and constantly learning new things. The good news is that the same thing applies to learning any new skill and, over time, things start to come together quickly and your talent grows exponentially.
Besides using my one hack that you should already know about, I have another mixing secret to share with you today that will make a huge difference. This secret took me from having my mixes fall apart completely outside the studio to getting a consistent, professional sound. I wish I had learned it a lot earlier and it’s time for me to share it with you…
No, it’s not an EQ move, a new compressor or any other piece of gear or plugin.
This might seem simple, but here it is…
Mix at low volume
As I said, it might sound straightforward but hear me out.
I’ve always been conscious about protecting my hearing. Even before I had any interest in mixing or producing, I played in bands and knew that if I wanted a longterm career in music, that I needed to make sure my hearing lasted.
When I was in college and started to have access to good gear, great musicians and good times, we used to crank the monitoring volume. A lot of our work was group-based, so no matter how often I turned the volume down, it’d find it’s way back up to ear-bleedingly high levels in no time. It felt good to blast out our mediocre recordings and think we were working on something special. We’d move our faders around and make our EQ and compression decisions while listening at obscene levels. We were fooling ourselves.
Once we took a CD (remember those things?!) out of the studio and listened to it at home, we’d very quickly recognise that what we had produced would never stand up against a commercial recording.
Now, over time, we got sense (at least in the studio) and gradually began to monitor at lower levels. Can you guess what happened next?
Our mixes improved!
Not only that, but they started to sound better on our home stereos, iPods and whatever other cheap knock off mp3 players we were using at the time.
We fell victim to the fact that as simple humans, we perceive louder as better. So when we cranked the volume, we thought we were working on a masterpiece, when we were actually polishing a very loud turd.
At some stage during my early career, I read a brilliant article that featured CLA talking about mixing at low volume and how it’s crucial to him getting a hard-hitting mix. That sounds counterintuitive, but CLA is masterful at pretty much everything when it comes to mixing. So when he talks, I listen.
Even though I always tried to mix at low volume, I dropped the volume of my monitors down even further. My approach now was to not only protect my hearing, but to see if I could really make my mixes pop at a low volume. I had a set point on the knob where I wanted the volume to sit at all times. I then proceeded to listen to all music and my reference set at this level. Once I got used to how things sounded, I began mixing that way and guess what?
It was really hard to avoid raising the monitoring volume
Any time I got stuck and couldn’t hear what I wanted to hear, I raised the volume and then it all became clear. But once again, I was tricking myself. In time, I found that the better approach was to either increase the fader of the individual track or EQ/compress it better. The volume knob shouldn’t move.
So, I stuck with this approach and still mix this way today. The only time I raise the monitoring level is when I want to get excited about what I’m doing and hype myself up to finish a mix. I do that once or twice a mix and that’s it.
Now, enough about turd polishing, CLA, my experiences and on to how this applies to you.
Here’s why I think you should mix at low volume levels:
- Your ears will thank you and you’ll have a longer career.
- You won’t experience ear fatigue and can mix for longer periods of time in a single session.
- If it sounds good at low volume, you better believe it’ll sound good loud.
- The opposite of 3 is not true.
- If your room acoustics suck, then this is a sneaky workaround. Mixing at low volume takes your room out of the equation to a certain degree.
- Listening to your reference set at low levels means that you can directly apply what you’ve learned about how those mixes sound at low levels to your own mixes. Therefore, when you crank your mix, it will sound as professional as your references.
- If 5 and 6 are true, then doesn’t that mean you can mix in any studio? You’re no longer tied to your home studio or using one specific space because you “know the room”. While that is valuable, so is flexibility.
- CLA does it and he has more Grammy’s than me.
I could probably keep listing off reasons but that should be enough to convince you for now. The most important reason for me is that your hearing is everything and that gift shouldn’t be taken lightly. Without it, none of the rest matters.
Now, you can get super specific with SPL levels and all that sort of stuff, but I don’t bother with that. I mix at a low level that I’m used to and I know sounds good to me.
Oh and before you ask, my early college recordings and mixes are available to listen to. I’ll send you a map of where they might be buried and you can have your very own treasure hunt, only to be rewarded with the world’s worst prize!
Now, I’d love to know…
Do you mix at low levels? If not, why not?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
Thanks for the wisdom, I will start putting this technique into practice more.
You’re welcome, Xavier. Let me know how you get on with it!
Yes Steven I mix at low levels also and I just turned 73 yesterday. I still have pretty good ears. I am still recording and mixing since the sixties. True to what CLA says about mixing volume does hold true blue. Great insight for young mixers. Thanks….
Congratulations (with some delay) Mr. Phil Rogers!…
Happy (belated) Birthday Phil! I hope you had a wonderful day and you’re enjoying how 73 is treating you 🙂
This is so very, very true. I swear by 3 things.
1. Listen at normal “room conversation” volume
2. Mix in mono
3. Level using pink noise.
The rest is gravy.
I love your attitude, Justin! Could you let me know a little more about “level using pink noise”? I’d be really interested to hear how you do this. Thanks!
So do I!!! What is “pink noise” anyway?…
So pink noise is like white noise, only it has a spectrum that’s what you’re used to hearing in commercial music. This makes it an incredibly useful tool for setting your levels. Once you’ve got your main frequency issues out of the way – so you’ve eq’d compressed whatever to make sure that you don’t have instruments competing for the same frequency spots, you zero all your main mix outputs and play a pink noise generator (melda has a free VST).
Now take the first fader, turn it up until you can just hear it over the noise, then mute. do the same with the next fader and so on. Then mute the noise and unmute your mix outputs. What you will have is a pretty much perfectly balanced mix. It takes about 2 minutes. If there’s anything that needs to be slightly enhanced for focus – the instrument that makes the track (usually the vocal) then just nudge that up a dB or 2.
To some extent, it doesn’t matter what listening medium you do this on since in comparing your mix sound to pink noise, it’s apples to apples and thus removes any speaker effects. You can do it in cans, monitors, crappy PC speakers, whatever.
Thank you very much for this tip. I have never heared before. I will try it. Seems easy and sounds good.
Now I have tested it. It´s great. Have you find out it your self, or are you teached it from someone else?
Incredibly! Thanks again.
Very interesting… Thank you for this explanation!
Gerd.
I read about it someplace years ago. No idea where it originated.
Thanks so much for posting such a detailed reply, Justin. I really appreciate you helping out everyone else.
yeah I was kinda forced into mixing at low volumes because of complaints from the neighbours, but I soon realised that what initially really annoyed me turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because, yeah not only is it a better way to mix for the finish products sake its also more of a relaxing experience, and a lot less stressful, maybe that’s just me though, I came to realise, the louder the mix problem was, the more I got stressed trying to fix it because of listening to said problem repeatedly at an uncomfortable level if ya get what I mean, turn the whole thing down and you some how hear these problems without scrunching your face up in pain and they become less of a problem than you thought they were and easier to fix, Another very golden valid article Steve
Those pesky neighbours! It’s a common issue though and we all have to be good neighbours 🙂
I totally get what you mean. When you have the problem smacking you in the face at high volume, it’s more annoying and harder to fix.
Great work Pete! Thanks for your valuable comment.
-S
Yes, I do mix at low levels (specialy when my 7 years son is already sleeping…). And yes, my living room is NOT the best mixing environement so once again, yes I get better results by working things this way.
But… as Stephen wrote is this another great article, I become excited at the last stage and love to turn up the knob just to feel the vibrations! 🙂
Awesome!
I actually mix at two different volumes:
1) Low enough to still hear the low-end and high-end.
2) Really low so I can only hear the mid-range and to check in the main elements of the mix are still audible.
Btw, something that really helps me to concentrate and notice more “things to fix”, it’s to close my eyes while I’m listening.
So true!!! Here`s something I must force myself to do! I have the stupid habit of looking to meters and try to leave the db levels in specific values / numbers (what for!?). People ain`t gonna look to the graphics, they`re gonna ear the mixes! Thank`s for the reminding…
This is a great tip. Closing your eyes will give you much more sensory acuity. Thank you!
Ceratainly, I do mix at low level, but as one PRO engineer mentioned in of his youtube videos, cetain frequencies (especially if there is a trace of harshnessto them) may may become transparent only when you turn your mix a bit more loud.. This is why I raise my volume knb from time to time when mastering final project.
The article is great, however, thank you Stephen, may Jehovah God bless you!
Thanks Ivan. You might only hear harshness at louder volumes, but those harsh frequencies are still there at low volumes. Sometimes it takes careful listening. But, everyone is different and what works for you works!
Oh sure, I still need to train my ears, right on Stephen 🙂
Yes, I also do most of my mixing at low levels. For me, louder monitoring is mostly just to find out what it “feels” like louder – then it comes right back down. There are significant parts of the mixing job, too, that are not so much about spectral balance, etc., like editing for example. You don’t need much volume to check timing, pitch, remove unwanted noises, etc.
You also make a very good point about saving your hearing – both on the short term to prevent ear fatigue – and the long term to keep your hearing intact. You only get one set of ears – and mixing with ear fatigue can be very misleading.
I protect my hearing a lot and it has paid off. I want to record and mix well into my 70’s like Phil, so I’m quite protective of my ears. I have different types of earplugs for different environments – not just very loud environments, but even ones that don’t “seem” loud. Try putting 32dB earplugs in while in a car for a while, then when you’re at highway speeds, take them out. You might be surprised how loud that continuous sound really is even in a relatively quiet car. If you have relatively normal hearing, it will automatically adjust with earplugs in to listen with more sensitivity – and again, you might be surprised how much you can hear with earplugs in after they’ve been in for several minutes. (Yes, I’m somewhat obsessive about that. 🙂 ) Depending on the environment I’m in, I use 32dB foam plugs, “musician’s” earplugs, or reactive earplugs (not while mixing or doing any critical listening, of course).
Thanks for such a comprehensive reply, Walt. I love when I get replies like this in such detail because we can all learn from each other. The article is just the starting point and then the real discussion begins down here.
Fantastic advice on how to preserve your ears and thought provoking. It reminds me that I need to get some new earplugs.
Thanks again Walt!
Thank you Stephen – It’s nice to get to give back when guys like you take the time to run these blogs so that many people can learn from them. These are valuable subjects….