The first one that comes to mind is the elusive obvious: vary your monitoring levels.
Producers, as a general rule, like their music LOUD. They turn it up, make sure the 808 is slammin', and mix the whole thing with the volume banging on 11. The problem with this is that you are fooling yourselves by taking advantage of the Fletcher Munson curve.
Explanation: The louder the volume, the flatter the frequency response. Meaning, if you turn it all the way up, there is less difference between your lows and highs. This will give you the illusion of having a more balanced mix. But then when you turn it back down, it will not be as balanced.
You want to vary your mix levels. Its okay to turn it up and make sure that kick is knocking, but mixing at that volume is bad for your mix AND your ears.
Hope this helps. Leave Comments/Question!!!
-ZS
good point, my friend...another good idea is to leave some headroom (approx 8db) on the master fader, before any master buss compression/limiting. this prevents any unseen distortions within the DAW, as well as allows the mix to "breath" its full dynamic range. A tight mix, at this level, will become even tighter and louder when the appropriate master buss compression/limiting is applied...if your master fader clips red when you mix, you ARE digitally distorting, and introducing destructive artifacts to your mix.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing i notice quite frequently is the volume battle that people fight, between vocals and the beat, when tracking. An easy way to get around this...TURN THE BEAT DOWN 7-10 DB before even beginning to track. This will give adequate headroom in the master buss, preventing distorting monitor buss and cues....if the level is too quiet in monitor path...TURN THE MONITOR VOLUME LEVEL UP, NOT THE FADERS...often times the cues will present audible distortion before the monitor speakers...this kills the vibe and ruins headphones...KEEP RED OFF THE MASTER.
hope this helps...
blake
Great comment, Blake!
ReplyDelete