monitoring levels

[alphajerk]

so i have been noticing lately. i set my level by ear. of course i change levels quite often and pretty organic when it comes to monitoring levels... but the majority of the time there is this level that the music seems to envelop my senses [soul] and thats where i like it best. any louder and it become fatiguing [not to mention possibly damaging] and lower seems to be distant and non-connected.

anyone else notice this... or better yet, what made you come up with your standard level of monitoring while mixing. or do you have a standard level?

side note: tracking i tend to listen quietly for the most part.

[NIGHT'SCHILD]

I try to mix at a low volume and then when mastering crank the hell out of it. There should be a certain monitoring level you stick with when either mixing or mastering otherwise you might make one song on a CD really loud and the others might be quiet. A point of reference is very important.

I found my "standard" by having to much variation in my first mixes. I noticed that when I leave my monitor level lets say at 30% I was able to hear everything well enough in my mix without loosing any subtleties. This is important because you need to decern if your volume is high and that is why your bass is booming or because you have the bass levels set to high in your mix. There is a very thin line. The best thing is just to understand your speakers and what type of response they have to music.

[maks]

ive went out and bought a cheap ($40)radio shack SPL meter, and marked a zone of around 85dbspl and one that is similar to what your describing and reviewed the loudness curve graphs(f-m), during work i go all over the place with volume , but i try to return to those references atleast several times to check for consistency. And when i listen to other cd's, vinyl, ill do the same...

[kevinc]

I`ve definately noticed that theres kind of a sweet spot in the level of my hearing that I do my best mixing at. It`s at a level that`s not what you would call loud but loud enough that it`s not quiet.
If it`s too quiet it kind of sounds to me like the speakers haven`t even kicked in yet.

I still spend a lot of time mixing at VERY quiet levels though because I find I can really hear the way things are blending without being swayed by anything euphoric happening when it get`s loud and rocks the room a bit. When it`s really quiet it`s allmost like your listening through headphones and you can pay a lot of attention to little details.

Sometimes I`ll get so low in level that it`s allmost an opposite approach for me. Instead of going "is this bass too loud" I`ll turn it way down and try to see if anything is so quiet you can`t even hear it at that level. When I make some adjustments and turn it back up to a more pleasing level things usually seem to sit better.

From there at least a couple times a session I really need to just crank the sucker up. (I spent too much of my younger days 5 ft away from a Marshall) I do try to keep the Loud stuff to a minimum if I`m mixing for days straight but it just seems to energize me more if it`s a good band when it`s cranked. Hearing it really loud is like a reward (along with a beer of course) for scrutinizing the hell out of something at the lower volumes.

[rufus13]

Monitoring and levels

[WEAPON_X]

i had in my early days of mixing big issues with inconsistency of monitoring levels, with constant hoovering from low to mostly high levels and all in between, which resulted in a state of inconfidence - i was never sure about my mixes and their tanslation/balance, and this was because i had a mooving reference point.

however, i figuered out that i need a fixed reference point (i took that idea about reference from bob katz, thanks BK !!!), and started to count the clicks on my dac-1 (in variable mode, direct feeding my monitors).
now i have something like a chart of how many clicks for what. (e.g. 9 clicks is the lower point that is needed that the moniors really start to kick in, click 12 is to check how much bass rolling is when turned more up, etc) .
since then i feel more confident and can make judgements and can come back to levels (eg how much bass has record x compared to mine at click 12 ?, how was the balance at 9 ?),

and in the end all this translates to better work (and more easy work).
i wished i had given the subject of mnitoring levels much much earlier in my live more emphasis and concern.
IMO it is one of the major issues of monitoring.
the best/ most expensve monitoring chain in not worth a poo if there is no consitency and defined referencing.

[Alexi]

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-soundlevel.htm




cheers

[DAWgEAR]

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule...der_page_id=59

Section IV.

Bob Katz's book, Mastering Audio, is a great read! Highly recommended!