FAQ Friday’s are our weekly series where I answer YOUR questions! Leave your questions in the YouTube comments and I might answer them on the show!
Before we get into today’s FAQ’s, I want to remind everyone that we’re having the biggest mix competition that we’ve ever had with approx. $5,000 in prizes!
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Here’s another Frequently Asked Question:
How does monitor calibration play into monitoring levels during mixing?
Everyone maintains about 85db, because that is where you get an even sonic landscape. Basically, everything sounds the way it should. When you turn your monitors up, it might be because you’re trying to compensate for excitement, you want more high-mids or it might be that you want to hear more low end, so you keep cranking it until it does all of those things.
That’s not going to be good for you because you’re going to get ear fatigue and just as importantly, it’s going to tell you all kinds of lies! If I listen very very quietly, I find that I’m not hearing any low end at all. If you’re mixing super quiet, you’re not going to hear the thump of an 808. If you’re mixing super loud, you’re probably going to burn your ears out on the high-mids and you’ll end up turning those down.
You need to be listening at a level that sounds even in all of those frequencies, which is around about 85db.
If you’re cranking your monitors up, you probably would have to recalibrate them for the room because there are other factors at work! Not only are your ears hearing things differently, but your room might react quite differently at really really high levels.
You’ve got to think about the fact that if you’re listening at a normal level between some speakers, you’re not going to get as many reflections. If you crank that up, you could have all kinds of craziness going on.
Seeing has this an an episode of FAQ Friday, here are the questions I answer in the video below!
• How do I get familiar with new headphones?
• What monitors are those next to the Genelec?
• How does monitor calibration play into monitoring levels during mixing?
• Regarding phase, can reverb or delay become an issue? Can we experience low end loss with those effects?
