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Thursday, February 20, 2025
On The Same Page: Do You Hear What I Hear?
ProSoundWeb: Many live mixes are not only too loud, but also sonically unbalanced. I got to thinking about this (again) when recently re-reading “How Loud Does It Need To Be?” by Peter Janis of Radial Engineering here on ProSoundWeb.
I agree with this article wholeheartedly because I feel like my ears start bleeding more often than not when I’m listening to a lot of live mixes. Because a lot of music has so much bass and people tend to like feeling the bass, a lot of mixes tend to cater to that preference and everything just becomes so loud because the mix is so out of whack and it has to be balanced out by bringing everything up too. It was super interesting to hear the author talk about his home speaker systems and how they are a very flat mix so that he trains himself to know what is a good mix and trains his ears to always be able to mix to a very high standard no matter where he is and what he’s doing. I do wonder what his mixes sound like and if they always just sound the same or if he actually caters to the gig though.
I loved the point this article made about your base reference for sound mixes affecting how you listen to music. Our brains are good at listening and adapting, so we will become accustomed to the sound environment that we are most often in and consider that “right” because it is our point of reference. This is an interesting reminder that our minds think in terms of our reference points, not just when it comes to sound. If we see two things that are red, the one that is closer to the red we are used to will seem more red to us. The same can probably be said of taste, feeling, and smell as well, what we perceive exists in a relative to what we know. I think this is an important point to remember as a theatre maker, everything that we make is viewed in relation to what the audience knows. I think that’s often what’s so beautiful about theatrical experiences, everyone has a different interpretation because they have a different point of reference.
I love reading all the articles that come from ProSoundWeb. I think they cover a lot of great content and topics that are pertinent to the sound world, something that I want to learn as much as I can about. This article talks about mixing and how many mixes are just too loud. I would agree with this statement and that often sound and mixing engineers are not mixing to the best of their abilities because of the environment they are in. Either they are listening to really loud mixes and damaging their ears or don’t have quality gear. It makes sense to me the comparison that was made to fast food and that if you only consume low quality mixes, that is what you will get used to and what will become acceptable to you as a mix engineer. Overall, I think this article makes great points about the influence of music that we listen to and the systems that we have on our ears. Just like what we eat and watch, what we listen to will influence our perspective of good and bad sound mixing.
God, I really wish I had the kind of grown up money it would take to outfit my next year's apartment with this kind of sound system. And Hermes (my car). But alas, this must wait. This is really valuable insight. I have experienced this myself, to a degree, because I used to be the kind of person who kept his headphones on max all the time. I realized in 10th grade I was messing up my ears, and I set the max to 80db, and I have noticed that my enjoyment of music, and my mixing, have been far better since. It never really occurred to me that listening to a bad EQ would do the same thing, but now that I know I need to be making a conscious effort to improve my auditory palette.
I really like the message of the article, since I think it is not only useful to sound mixers but also other areas of life. Particularly on getting used to subpar work and thinking that is the baseline for excellence. It made me realize that I need to experience more above par work for my own work in order to improve and know what the goal is. Having a goal and frame of reference is something that was first told to me in band class where our teacher told us to have a favorite person on our instruments and focus on listening to them so we would strive to that level of playing. I also am grateful that the author is telling people to turn down the sound decibels. Every time I go to a concert I see so many people, me included, wearing earplugs, which seems redundant to me if the person mixing would just turn it down so that everyone in the audience doesn’t need noise dampeners just to listen.
5 comments:
I agree with this article wholeheartedly because I feel like my ears start bleeding more often than not when I’m listening to a lot of live mixes. Because a lot of music has so much bass and people tend to like feeling the bass, a lot of mixes tend to cater to that preference and everything just becomes so loud because the mix is so out of whack and it has to be balanced out by bringing everything up too. It was super interesting to hear the author talk about his home speaker systems and how they are a very flat mix so that he trains himself to know what is a good mix and trains his ears to always be able to mix to a very high standard no matter where he is and what he’s doing. I do wonder what his mixes sound like and if they always just sound the same or if he actually caters to the gig though.
I loved the point this article made about your base reference for sound mixes affecting how you listen to music. Our brains are good at listening and adapting, so we will become accustomed to the sound environment that we are most often in and consider that “right” because it is our point of reference. This is an interesting reminder that our minds think in terms of our reference points, not just when it comes to sound. If we see two things that are red, the one that is closer to the red we are used to will seem more red to us. The same can probably be said of taste, feeling, and smell as well, what we perceive exists in a relative to what we know. I think this is an important point to remember as a theatre maker, everything that we make is viewed in relation to what the audience knows. I think that’s often what’s so beautiful about theatrical experiences, everyone has a different interpretation because they have a different point of reference.
I love reading all the articles that come from ProSoundWeb. I think they cover a lot of great content and topics that are pertinent to the sound world, something that I want to learn as much as I can about. This article talks about mixing and how many mixes are just too loud. I would agree with this statement and that often sound and mixing engineers are not mixing to the best of their abilities because of the environment they are in. Either they are listening to really loud mixes and damaging their ears or don’t have quality gear. It makes sense to me the comparison that was made to fast food and that if you only consume low quality mixes, that is what you will get used to and what will become acceptable to you as a mix engineer. Overall, I think this article makes great points about the influence of music that we listen to and the systems that we have on our ears. Just like what we eat and watch, what we listen to will influence our perspective of good and bad sound mixing.
God, I really wish I had the kind of grown up money it would take to outfit my next year's apartment with this kind of sound system. And Hermes (my car). But alas, this must wait. This is really valuable insight. I have experienced this myself, to a degree, because I used to be the kind of person who kept his headphones on max all the time. I realized in 10th grade I was messing up my ears, and I set the max to 80db, and I have noticed that my enjoyment of music, and my mixing, have been far better since. It never really occurred to me that listening to a bad EQ would do the same thing, but now that I know I need to be making a conscious effort to improve my auditory palette.
I really like the message of the article, since I think it is not only useful to sound mixers but also other areas of life. Particularly on getting used to subpar work and thinking that is the baseline for excellence. It made me realize that I need to experience more above par work for my own work in order to improve and know what the goal is. Having a goal and frame of reference is something that was first told to me in band class where our teacher told us to have a favorite person on our instruments and focus on listening to them so we would strive to that level of playing. I also am grateful that the author is telling people to turn down the sound decibels. Every time I go to a concert I see so many people, me included, wearing earplugs, which seems redundant to me if the person mixing would just turn it down so that everyone in the audience doesn’t need noise dampeners just to listen.
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