New Monday #78
Happy New Monday -
We’re going to be talking about listening and mixing for the next few New Mondays. Things to hear, things to learn. Experiments to try.
And we’re going to push ourselves to mix with our ears, not with a real-time visual frequency response display. Mixes have to sound good. Who cares how they look?
Who here mixes at around 75dB-SPL, with occasional louder or quieter moments?
This is a de facto standard/best practice because of the nature of the way our ears work. Our ears are evolutionarily optimized for speech. It’s most sensitive from between about 2kHz to 5kHz, the spot where consonants have the most energy, the frequency band that makes speech intelligible.
Our hearing is nowhere near flat. It has a pronounced midrange hump, with much lower sensitivity to sounds below and above that range. But this sensitivity changes as things get louder. As volume goes up, our hearing’s response tends to flatten out. The louder the flatter, but it gets relatively flat somewhere between 70-80dB-SPL. So that’s become the mixing “sweet spot.” Mixing at volumes above that sweet spot for any period of time is kinda stupid, unless you want tinnitus.
This is all documented and codified by ISO 226.
Let’s go to volumes much much quieter than that.
If you read along and listen, you’ll learn a ton.
Turn the Volume All the Way Down
Bring up a mix you’re working on and the reference tracks you’re using. Or bring up some of your mixes and some other recordings you admire. Or use my little list below.
But first, turn your monitor volume to 0 so even if something was playing you couldn't hear any of it.
Play your mix or reference, and wait a few moments to get past the intro. We want to start listening to it when the whole production is present.
Here’s my list. I picked out each of these for various reasons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25s6rYUi7fs
https://youtu.be/BUt0dZXPFoU?si=ENP7NG7czKzC6sUN
https://youtu.be/2SUwOgmvzK4?si=P5S3refqVgern5gK
https://youtu.be/HV3zWSawJiw?si=eEN8dXjS74Qaosro
https://youtu.be/nMO5Ko_77Hk?si=HA6WEw4BgODtmY4V
https://youtu.be/uXRvmkQLyTc?si=dfBasj9v5hXpbNVR
https://youtu.be/FqIACCH20JU?si=_Qs4nS4IrYBQ87JG
Now, really slowly turn up the volume until you hear the tiniest bit of the recording, the very first thing that escapes the speakers and gets to your ear.
What’s the first thing you hear? Is it a vocal? Is it a snare? Is it a keyboard pad?
I would argue that what you’re hearing is the loudest thing on the recording. Yes, your ears are sensitive to the mids, but your ear needs a bit more information than 2 to 5kHz to recognize a sound—the first thing you’re hearing isn’t buzz, it’s a part.
If you’re comparing your mix to a reference, are they similar at this volume? Or does yours have a vocal and the reference a bass line?
If you click through the list I gave you, and repeat this process, turning things all the way down and then turning up until the first thing you hear, you’ll notice every recording is different.
Bring Up the Volume
Pick a reference or a mix and slowly creep up the volume.
Is the song balanced from right to left? When do other parts start coming in? When does the bass come in? When do the rhythmic constants (hi-hats and such) come in?
At a certain volume, the song will focus and you’ll hear the overall “shape” of it.
Does your mix and your reference pull into shape at the same volume, or does one have to be louder?
Repeat this process with other songs. Always start all the way down, turn the volume up until you hear the first thing, then continue to go up until the music shows its shape.
Compare some things. Compare some older records to newer records. Compare Rolling Stones from the early 70s, where the vocal is tucked in deliberately, to U2 songs or Hip Hop, where the vocal is very much pushed out.
I find I really like listening at very low volumes. It presents a very useful view of the mix.
For me, at about 58dB-SPL I hear the shape of the song well, but of course, this depends on your speakers, your ears, etc.
Don’t have an SPL meter? Get one for your phone. For iPhone, I use this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/niosh-sound-level-meter/id1096545820
This one is for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splendapps.decibel&hl=en_CA
What’s Leading the Way?
Drop the volume all the way down and listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUwOgmvzK4
Notice how assertive that bass is? Which totally makes sense as it’s the melodic hook of the whole thing. Think about the amount of processing, in terms of EQ, compression, and perhaps saturation, to get that bass to be that big at a very low volume—remember, at a low volume, most of the frequency range of the bass isn’t matching up to our ear’s frequency response.
Are you checking your bass at very low volumes, and on a very small speaker with bad bass response? Can you afford to lose the bass at low volumes, or is it essential to the hook?
What about a vocal? If you need the vocal to lead the way, is it present at low volumes, or does it get lost and the snare dominates? Or are you losing the snare and the groove way down there, and do you need that?
Ask this same question of all your mixes: is what I need leading the way present at any volume?
Listening for Lumps
Listen to a mix and squint down on that vocal. If a vocal is sibilant at really low volumes, if it sounds spitty, that’s a great indicator that you have too much upper mids, from like 4kHz to 8kHz.
Before you do a mix, listen to your various tracks solo’d at very low volumes. If there’s harshness at a low volume, it will just get worse. Does the snare hurt? Are the cymbals killing you?
Typically, what sounds bad at low volumes gets worse as things get louder.
As you come up in volume, when does the warmth region start coming up, that 200 to 500Hz range? If you’re hearing that area at very low volumes, there’s a really good chance that things will be muddy as you turn things up.
When do you hear the stuff that’s below 150Hz, or the sub bass that’s even below that? At what volume are you getting that sense of breath, that area above 8kHz? Don’t be surprised if you really can’t hear what’s going on in that range, because you really can’t—it’s more of a sense thing. But at what volume are you able to sense that “air?"
What sticks out at very low volumes is generally an issue you’ll have to deal with.
Listening for Effects
Check this out at a low low volume: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMO5Ko_77Hk
Notice you can hear the ambience on the vocals, on the orchestra stabs, and string parts at really low volumes, and as you increase levels, things don’t sound a lot wetter.
Contrast that to this: https://youtu.be/j0Mz_IqpZX8?si=jaAcFgKE-3RoY-M5. At low volumes, it is really obvious that there’s a slapback on the vocal, but as the volume comes up, it sounds more like reverb.
Listen to the drums off the right. The room they’re recorded in is really clear at low volumes, much less so as you increase things.
Think about setting and tweaking effects at very low volumes.
A Last Thought / Caveat / Warning
Doing a lot of intense listening at low volumes temporarily shifts the way one's ears hear. Mine get much more attuned to that vital intelligibility midrange, and as a result, my tinnitus gets a little louder, temporarily, and overall my hearing really sharpens. Everything starts sounding harsh and unmusical. It goes away after a bit, but it is annoying while it's happening.
And always bear in mind that your hearing, perhaps more than any of your senses, is heavily influenced by your thoughts and your mood. Fixating on any one thing in a mix will tend to make that element perceptually louder. Frustration with a mix leads to emotionally colored hearing and a shitty mix. Take breaks. Reset your hearing outside.
Please write and let me know your results. Would this info work better for you as a course or a video?
Warm regards,
Luke