Quick tips for better sounding mixes, part 1
In this short series, I’m providing a few quick tips for improving your home mixes, that also don’t require putting down any money. For more in this vein, check out our series called Quality Budget Gear. There’s more tips on making the most with what you’ve got in there.
Tip #1: Turn down your speakers and headphones while mixing
When mixing at home, a good rule of thumb is to try mixing at a level where you could have an average volume conversation with someone sitting next to you, without needing to raise your voice.
This matters, because human hearing is not linear. This means that your perception of what you’re hearing changes dynamically in all sorts of ways, depending on exactly what you’re listening to.
Think about when you’re focusing on speaking to a friend in a loud and crowded room-those loud background noises interfering with your conversation just seem to automatically get softer on their own, don’t they? That’s one example of our wonderfully dynamic hearing system in action!
In music production, the big one is that louder sounds will also sound bassier, thicker, and punchier than they actually are. So, if you’re mixing (or performing) at a very loud volume, you will think that your music has more bass and more power than it actually does. This can cause you to end up making a thinner sounding mix than you intended; probably the opposite of what you were going for. Very counter-intuitive.
This is also part of the reason why it’s super easy to confuse a louder sound with a better sound when you’re mastering audio, and why mastering engineers use volume matching to correct for this-more details on that here.
Please also do check your mixes at louder volumes as well-it’s both/and, not either/or here. Louder volumes can tell you additional important things, like if your mix is sounding harsh or is fatiguing to listen to over a longer period of time.
In general, mixing at a softer volume will mean that it will sound nice and balanced when you turn it up.
