They Mix Quieter 

We live in an era of great audio power, with modern sound systems capable of pushing out a loud 120-130 dB throughout a given venue. Powerful arrays make it possible to completely envelop an audience in crippling loudness that can leave audience members with hearing damage after prolonged exposure.

While you may not be mixing at 110 dB, it is important to understand that truly great mixes sound excellent at low SPLs. Why, then, is it so typical to hear an event mixed incredibly loud, and what can we do to fix this mindset? First, let’s be honest. When you’re at a one-off event, it’s a special occasion. People want the thumping bass; they want the coolness factor of a loud mix. Aside from that, however, louder mixes, to a point, simply seem better to the ears. The same mix played at 85 dB will sound better to most people if played at 95 dB. Without improving the mix, ears associate more energy and the feeling of being enveloped in sound as a better mix. It’s hard to hear noise from neighbors or distractions outside the mix when it’s louder. You can feel the thump of the bass, and it gets you excited.

Because of this natural response to louder mixes, novice audio techs tend to simply mix louder. Rather than focusing on truly improving the mix, we become lazy to an extent and simply turn the volume up. The loudness covers up our mistakes, increases listeners’ perceived fullness, and makes us feel more confident about our mix, whether or not it is, in fact, a good mix.

So then, do you know what really talented audio engineers do when they want to improve their mixes? They bring the volume down. They don’t make it so quiet they can’t hear the details, but they bring the overall volume down to around 85 dB. This is the sweet spot for being able to accurately hear a mix. When you bring the volume down, you are forcing yourself to deal with your actual mix. You have to resolve the issues, the mistakes, the noises that clutter your mix and make it sound less than ideal. You have to focus your EQ and compression so that everything can breathe and is represented and allowed to live freely in the mix. That’s hard to do at 85 dB, and that’s why most engineers don’t do it. They live in another world of SPL, and because of that, they won’t have the best mix possible. See, if you can make your mix sound amazing at 85 dB, then when you crank it to 95 dB, it will sound amazing and incredibly full. But if you make a mix sound good at 95 dB, there is less guarantee it will sound good at 85 dB. There is simply too much being mentally hidden from your senses at the higher SPLs.

Armed with this information, start to become very diligent about always starting your mixes at 85 dB. Train your ears to overcome the feeling that the mix is dead, and instead learn that it sounds that way because your mix is actually not very good. Start to mix better and focus on 85-88 dB for the target loudness range. Once you have your mix sounding stellar in that range, raise the volume to the appropriate level and safe level. I personally only mix around 85-89 dB for most events. This is a safe hearing level, and I can make my mixes sound very good at that level. If you continuously expose your church, venue, or yourself to louder SPLs, you will cause hearing damage. So, at the very least, have respect for your own ears and refrain from listening to music at high SPLs. This is one of the hardest rules to learn, especially for young audio engineers. But every talented audio engineer should agree that if your mix doesn’t sound good at 85 dB, then you have a mix issue, not a loudness issue. Think on that.