How to Train Your Ear to Hear Subtle Problems

You’d be surprised how many times you’ll play a mix and think it’s fine, simply because you don’t have an ear for what to look for yet. Masking, imbalance, and harsh frequencies are all hidden in plain sight until you develop an ear for it. Training your ear isn’t so much about special techniques, as much as simply paying attention. Pick a sound, the vocal or the bass for instance, and just listen to that all the way through the track. Can you hear it when it’s strong? Can you hear it when it’s fighting to be heard? Can you hear it when it’s loud and proud? Start developing a critical ear for your sound. It’s easy to just play a mix and judge it as a whole, but this is much more effective.

If something sounds weak, the initial response of a lot of new producers is to make it loud as hell until it can be heard. Most of the time this just drowns out the rest of the instruments. A sound that is weak is probably fighting with other sounds at that frequency. So if it is weak, don’t raise it in volume. Instead, try dropping the volume on other sounds. By doing so, you’ll find that you get much more clarity with small movements. This will train your ear to work with your mix instead of constantly trying to blow it up.

If you can dedicate just a little time each day to listening to your mix and comparing it with a commercial mix, you’d be surprised how fast your ears will develop. Try just 15 minutes a day, and just play your mix against your commercial reference every 20 seconds or so at the same volume. Don’t try to compare everything, pick just one thing, like the low end, and just ask yourself if it sounds as good as your reference. After a while, you’ll just have an idea of what a good mix sounds like.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself sitting there for hours just going back and forth and not making any progress. This is a good time to step back and take a break. Many times you’ll find that your ears just need a little time to settle down. When you come back to the mix you’ll hear all sorts of things that you couldn’t hear before. In fact, one trick is to just listen to your mix at really low volume. If the main sounds you need to hear can still be heard, then your mix is generally good. But if you can’t hear them, or if they are all mashed together, then you need to work on your mid range.

When it comes down to it, developing your ears for mixing is just like anything else. It takes practice, and at first it can be slow going. But if you just dedicate a little time each day to working on your ears, you’ll be surprised how quickly you can develop them. Instead of hearing a wall of mushy sound, you’ll start to be able to pick out all of the different instruments, and you’ll start to develop an idea of how they should sound and sit in your mix. And as you get better and better, your mixing time will become less and less because you’ll have a better idea of what you need to do. Instead of just twisting knobs and hoping for the best, you’ll know what you want and how to get it.