Is Louder Always Better

The relationship between the record label producers and executives and the mixing engineer has generated a number of entertaining stories over the years.  After all, engineers and producers have to be part psychologist at times in order to produce a product that everyone is satisfied with.  Perhaps one of the most compelling illustrations of that sometimes rocky relationship is a somewhat generic story that you may have heard.  It goes like this: a mix engineer is playing back the final mix of a song for the client and the executives from the client’s record label.  The song finishes and the execs shrug their shoulders and say “It’s okay but it’s missing something.”  The engineer says “Hold on a moment…” and reaches over, moves a couple of faders, tweaks a couple of knobs and then plays the mix again.  Suddenly, everyone is smiling!  The mix is killer.  The artist and the execs are thrilled and it goes to print.

So, what magic did the engineer do to turn a lackluster mix into a stellar one?  Well, not much it turns out.  The fader moves and knob tweaks were bogus.  All they did was turn up the volume a little bit.  A similar story has an engineer delivering two mixes – one is slightly louder than the other.  Guess which one was chosen?  So what gives?

In the so-called” loudness wars” that have been going on regarding making every album as loud as it can be at the sacrifice of dynamics and often at the expense of audio quality, one truism exists.  Louder actually can sound “better” IF, it’s over a short span of time.  The problem with all the brick-wall limiting and lack of dynamics in the albums that are mastered too hot and loud is that it’s actually very hard for a listener to endure listening to the entire album.  After a couple of songs, the ears are fatigued and need something different.  But that’s just it – after a couple of songs…  In other words, when something is cranked up loud or mastered overly hot, it really can sound great for a short time.  But when the ears are subjected to longer periods of listening to that material, the paradigm collapses. 

Let’s take this into the studio now.  You’re mixing a song and you’ve been at it for a couple of hours.  Depending on your listening habits, your ears may be already fatigued and your judgment skewed as a result.  Or perhaps your ears are still fresh.  What makes the difference?  The difference is how you work with your monitors and/or headphones.  My advice is to work at fairly low volumes the majority of the time.  If that sounds counter-intuitive, it’s really not.  By working at a lower volume, you can hear which elements of your mix stand out or retain clarity.  If for example, you’re working on a modern country song, the vocal should be clearly audible at an overall low volume.  The snare drum is probably next followed by the guitars.  If those elements are clear, then they’re going to be clear when the mix is loud as well.  This doesn’t mean that you mix quietly 100% of the time.  It’s great to get things to a certain point at moderate or lower volume and then crank it up for a short bit to see how everything has come together.  Then you can make adjustments and return to a moderate volume level.  The goal here is to listen at different volumes and avoid fatiguing your ears.  It’ll do a lot to help you maintain perspective. 

To sum it all up, louder can sound better for a short time.  Too much though and your ears will quickly fatigue causing you to lose your perspective and objectivity.  Vary your approach and you will likely find that working at lower volumes just might make your mix pop even more when it’s cranked up.