Consistent pattern now over maybe fifteen songs. I finish a mix late, think it's the best thing I've done, come back two days later and it's obviously harsh and over-compressed and I can't understand what I was hearing. Is this ear fatigue, inexperience, or something about mixing late at night specifically? Does it stop?
Also check whether late night mixing means quiet mixing to avoid annoying people. Very low playback levels make bass and treble seem weak, so you overcompensate on both. That's the classic recipe for a mix that's harsh and boomy in daylight.
Practical trick: bounce the mix and listen to it the next morning on your phone before you open the session. If you open the DAW first you'll start fiddling based on what you see rather than what you hear.
And write three specific notes on your phone while listening. 'Vocal too bright in chorus, snare too long, bass loses the second verse.' Then fix only those three. Otherwise you rebuild the whole thing and end up somewhere different but not better.
The fact that you can hear the problem two days later is the good part of this story. Plenty of people can't. Your ears are ahead of your workflow, which is a much easier gap to close.
Fifteen songs of this means you now have data. Next time you love a late mix, write down what you did in the last hour. I'd bet money it's the same three moves every time, and once you know what they are you can just stop making them.
@metronome_mira · last mo. · 3 replies
It's mostly ear fatigue plus loudness drift, and no, it doesn't fully stop — but it becomes predictable and you build around it.
What's happening: over a three hour session your ears desensitise to high frequencies, so you keep adding top end and it keeps sounding fine. You also creep the monitoring level up as you go, which makes everything sound better in a way that has nothing to do with the mix. Then you come back rested at a normal volume and hear it honestly.
The fixes are boring and they work — mix at a fixed monitoring level, take ten minutes off every hour, and make the last decision of any session 'save and stop', not 'one more pass on the vocal'. Also, harsh and over-compressed specifically is what a tired person makes, because both make things sound more exciting to fatigued ears.
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@metronome_mira · last mo.
Mark your monitor knob with tape at one position and never move it while making EQ or compression decisions. It feels restrictive for a week then you stop noticing.
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@streak_sol · last mo.
The volume creep is real. I definitely finish sessions much louder than I start them.
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