Strange question I guess but I am noticing something...
 
If I listen to a full commercially produce mix at low volume it generally sounds the same as the volume increases (just louder). But with a lot of the stuff I hear posted here, my own stuff or stuff that others I'm working with send me it's like the mix changes at different volume levels.
 
I'm assuming this has something to do with mastering or really top quality mixing.
 
So again this is going to be a typical Beepster drive by query (because I've got a lot of little experiments and projects on the go) but I'm wondering if there is some definitive, logical reason for this or if I'm just kind of crazy.
 
I know the premise that "volume" = "better" to the human ear but that does not explain why I can listen to my favorite commercially produced albums at low volumes and I can hear everything (and if I turn it up it doesn't sound "better" just louder) but when listening to demos the volume seems to have a distinct impact on the mix.
 
In fact sometimes things sound BETTER at the lower volume and worse at louder volumes.
 
Does this make sense? Is this an actual thing? If so what are some concepts I need to study to make things consistent at various levels.
 
Talkign full mixes here. Not individual tracks.
 
Cheers and looking forward to what folks have to say on this matter.
 
;-)

Surely you know about this audio psychoacoustic phenomena:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves
 
If you mix at a low level, you may be applying a high and low boost, whereas if you mix at a high level, the levels will sound off at lower levels.
 
I thought that was why everyone mixed close to 0 Db.
 
Or are you meaning something else?
 

First, listen on various systems.  I always take my own stuff in the car and play a cd (not mp3).  I know the flaws in my jeeps sound system so I can see how well it works.  And since my music computer ain't usually connected to the internet, I sneaker walk it to a computer that is and listen on those computer speakers.  I also have a typical bookshelf speaker system in the front of the house.  I'll listen to the CD on that, too, which gives a  whole lot of variety of speaker size and quality and rooms.  Want to know if your vocal is too loud or soft.  Put a cd on in the living room and go into the kitchen.  You'll quickly know if it ain't loud enough.  I also play my songs in a pro studio w/ Barefoots.  Nothing like hearing your homebrew on a full-range system in a tuned room.  Not everyone has that opportunity but a listen on full-range (8-inch or so woofers) system is needed to check the bass.  All those systems together provide a median of how a song sounds - I'll do a lot of work from my car speakers template and the computers.  The last acoustic sound I listened on these speakers I trimmed a bit of low end out of the vocal reverb since it was blooming a bit.  Sounded good in the mains and a lot of the bloom disappeared.
 
Most of my eq'ing is filtering. Most of the actual energy in a sound wave is in the lower register.  Cutting down on stuff below 100 Hz on many acoustic tracks not only cleans out the mud but also gets rid of the wasted energy on that track.  Every time you bump up the volume, most of what you are doing on a lot of unfiltered tracks is raising the practically unheard vol of the low noise and rumble instead of the meat of the instrument.  On higher-pitched stuff you can take even more of the useless bass (reminds me of a player) out.  It helps on one or two tracks, but if you are doing multi-tracked songs it can make a lot of difference.  Even if you don't really hear the noise it is there and using up precious energy.  Your sound is more focused.
 
Nobody likes to hear this but experience is the main thing.  Take the vocal reverb bass in the above example.  The obvious thing to do was just chop the vocal, but it was already filtered up to almost 200 Hz.  I knew that wasn't the problem so it had to be the reverb.  There are a million other factoids like that one has to know and account for.  The only way to know them is to have experienced them.  You never learn anything by doing it right, only by messing up.  When you do you, you begin to understand why doing things by the book seems to work.  But if you stick to the book you'll never make the art form an art, but a simple a repetitive craft. 
 
So, as Nike sez, just do it.  You'll make mistakes, but you'll get better.  And your low-level listening will get closer to sounding like your loud levels.
 
@

Thanks, guys. So I guess maybe this really is just another variant of how without things being mixed/EQd properly then it's going to sound different under different conditions.
 
Like the whole "My mix sounds good on X system but sucks on Y system"... except in this case the "system" isn't a different sound pushing device... it is the same device at different levels and the different levels act as the different "system".
 
Perhaps the sheer volume of different freqs pushes the speakers in different ways at different levels. Especially consumer grade stuff.
 
If that is the case this is almost a cool/useful thing for someone like me because then maybe as I mix, instead of constantly using different sources at first I can just check the mix at different VOLUME levels to see if it remains consistent. THEN start moving it around to other sound sources to check for consistency.
 
Or maybe that again is totally crazy but it's kind of making sense in my pea brain. Now with MixRecall that becomes a little eaiser too. So I can use my Senn280s... get a good mix at one level, save a snapshot. Use the same cans but start adjusting the volume randomly and seeing if it holds up to the level changes. If not mix it until it does. Take a snapshot. Move on to my low grade consumer cans, or my monitors or my computer speakers or through my VRM box or whatever and just keep putzing with it, saving scenes, tweaking until I get something that can withstand whatever source I run it through resonably well.
 
That volume thing is interesting. Again... I could be just totally crazy but if that is a factor (and I will test this) it would definitely help me in my less than ideal "studio".
 
hmmm....
 
Of course any and all thoughts on this "volume" thing is appreciated.
 
I did know about tossing tunes onto other systems and whatnot but the "volume" part of the equation is really what I'm prattling about here.
 
I'm guessing there is some link to multiband compression here as well and some of the fancier analysis correction tools like that weird Melda thing I keep seeing raved about.
 
Cheers.

short answer = pro mastering.
 
they actually know what they're doing.

batsbrew
short answer = pro mastering.
 
they actually know what they're doing.

Indeed and why I never even talk about attempting mastering on my own or pretend like I ever could (and when I do talk about my own "mastering" it's in quotation marks and only means I put a limiter on a stereo mixdown and did a bit of light EQ/compression... not a master at all because I DON'T know what I'm doing).
 
I'll get the tools just so I can make my demos sound better on my own but anything important will go to a real pro. Probably Danny or some local dudes I know.
 
Otherwise people will take what they buy as is and get their own mastering dudes. I'm even going to hang on to full projects so if someone wants to buy a tune they can get all the original files and get their own mix engineer on it.
 
Really... I'm an artist above all else. I am doing all this other crap to make my creations sound as presentable as possible. When it comes time for real shiz to happen (if it ever does) I'd want real doods to do their real dood stuff to it. Whatever I "mixed" "mastered" would merely be a guideline for how it was INTENDED to sound.
 
If I happen to become an actual engineer along the way... great... and I will pursue that with every little fishy in my nutsack but I have no illusions I am or will be a "pro" engineer. Demo quality maybe. Creative "producer" sure.
 
Top notch, super awesome, engineer? We'll see. Long way off of that and I got a late start on this type of thing.

As Jim sez above, there is the fletcher-Munson curve.  So the other thing you'll notice in many pro studios is the vol level itself.  It is not excessive, nor even loud.  Sessions will get checked out loud, but not used exclusively.  At more than one studio the mains aren't even the primary speakers, but the nearfields.  All that provides a more real-world listening environment. 
 
So far I haven't seen any ear buds, but no doubt there should be a software company making an app for that. ;-)

arachnaut
Surely you know about this audio psychoacoustic phenomena:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves
 
If you mix at a low level, you may be applying a high and low boost, whereas if you mix at a high level, the levels will sound off at lower levels.
 
I thought that was why everyone mixed close to 0 Db.
 
Or are you meaning something else?
 

That Wiki article (and the graph it contains) does seem to jibe with what I THINK I am experiencing.
 
So that's great... I'm not as crazy as I thought.
 
A little odd I actually may have noticed that without any prompting or maybe not. It looks pretty subtle but maybe in the field it isn't.
 
I had heard the NAME of this "phenomenon" but haven't ever researched it. Now I will.
 
As always an awesomely useful and educational thread.
 
Thanks doods.

dupe

AT
As Jim sez above, there is the fletcher-Munson curve.  So the other thing you'll notice in many pro studios is the vol level itself.  It is not excessive, nor even loud.  Sessions will get checked out loud, but not used exclusively.  At more than one studio the mains aren't even the primary speakers, but the nearfields.  All that provides a more real-world listening environment. 
 
So far I haven't seen any ear buds, but no doubt there should be a software company making an app for that. ;-)

 
Typically I work at probably really low levels because my ears just can't take it and I am mostly working through headphones. Even when I fire up my monitors I just can't seem to really focus on things at higher volumes.
 
So I do think maybe that might be part of my problem. I figured I was better off mixing low and it would remain constant as the volume increased but with this curve I guess not.
 
Now I will indeed start cranking things up in incrments to see how it stands up. Still going to mix at low levels but I'll nudge it up (or crank it up) for a pass to see if something is wonked then turn back down to see if I can correct it.
 
This is actually really cool. Of course it will need some experimenting.
 
Cheers.