Your Ears Are Lying To You

Transcription of the video above

Okay, here is the horrifying truth. Your ears are lying to you and you can’t trust them. The sooner you come to accept that fact, the sooner you can get busy learning to mix.

Your ears are like that friend you have who no matter what always tells you you look good in those pants and then you see the picture from the party and you’re like, “What were you thinking?” And your ears are like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I thought it looked okay.” That’s your ears. They’re that kind of friend.

There’s scarcely an effect on this planet that doesn’t change the level of your audio. And so if that level goes up even a little, your ears want to go to that party and they’ll tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get you to sign off on it. I have a belt and it’s got two holes, one for winter and one for summer.

And that’s the only way I know for sure if my butt’s going to be hanging out of my jeans. So the solution is to set and learn loudness landmarks. Until you do that, you’re mixing using luck.

Your compressor is not actually doing what you think it’s doing and all the work you’re putting into your mixes may or may not be as flattering as you think when you hear it back in the wild. We’re going to start by looking at a dynamics processor, a compressor. Stick around, follow us.

And if you want somebody to walk you through this in person, come talk to us about our classes.