hey joe! i've learned alot from both you and graham thru the years! so thank you both for that. I'm very excited to see you still using studio one. i was kinda worried you were gonna switch over to protools (which is fine) but you've taught me a bunch of little stuff in studio one when i finally switched over! so selfishly, i wanted you to keep using Studio one!
Halfway through your HSC Mix Course, and I swear I told myself you did nothing, except one sounded slightly louder. Thank you soooooo much for confirming that I'm learning lol
I think you pulled this trick some years ago so I was expecting some thing like this. Since that time, you've made me a more critical listener . I watch your videos daily and you and Graham are the best. I'm still blown away with Graham's I Phone recording session. What a trip that was ! Anyway , love your work , keep it up. :)
I love how simple Joe's way of teaching is. He can get a fly to learn audio 🤣🤣 definitely caught me with this level increase. I first thought it was only a level change, but then thought it was some sort of compression that had happened. It's crazy how any slight change to an audio signal can make such a different feel.
After listening to 1 pass, it sounds like there's a bit of stereo width added to the 2nd track. However, there's a few things that could cause that effect other than just widening the master bus, such as compression or saturation. EDIT: or you know, 2nd is louder lol
Listening on my laptop, the 2nd sounded slightly wider to be as well. I've seen Joe do similar tests, so I knew it wasn't actually any kind of widening, but still sounded like it 😅
Thanks for the video - I appreciate the opportunity to learn. I listened in a very “real world” setting… on apple AirPods with a fan on in the background. I couldn’t hear a difference, even listening twice. I am trying to get my music to sound as good as I can- getting it right at the source, etc… recording in a closet with bath mats dampening the echoey-ness…. But the more I think about it - people are probably listening to my music on their phone, in the car, etc. I don’t imagine someone in a perfectly acoustically treated room, listening on a super hi-fi stereo system… I guess I’m trying to balance “good enough” with continual improvement. In the past I haven’t released a lot of music because I’ve felt insecure about the quality not being good enough… So I appreciate recording rev teaching me more…
I’m going to say compression. It seems a bit more dynamic and clearer to my ears. And plus, the wave shape seems to tell me that as well. It’s either that or saturation.
track 2 seems like a dB louder but also the kick seems louder or has more attack and also there is less low end rumble through my subwoofer so maybe the kick is just high passed on track 2 or has more compression on the drums but with slower attack to get the kick punch through more. So my short answer is that the drums are compressed more and peak higher than on track 1.
I thought for sure that the green track had the kick drum more compressed and a boost in the highs. Maybe the 1db louder made it hit the limiter harder?
Interesting. So, in the end if we have a nice mix and everything is EQ'd properly, it makes sense that +1 single dB makes the difference because we are lifting up every single post-EQ frequency of the mix, If we have that room, it sounds richer. Thanks for the tip!
Hey Joe, great demo. I am new to mixing so the question I have is, static mixing, are you saying before, adding any effects is just setting the levels of the tracks. Would there be some sort of starting guide for track level four different types of instruments in vocals. Thanks, looking forward to more.
That's usually people's starting point, gain staging so you have decent levels with all the faders at nominal. then usually bussing and finally the fun part with the effects and little level adjustments and automation and all that
I am absolutely 100% sure there was no difference... but I destroyed my eardrums in my 20's so I had my doubts, but since I learned only the volume changed, it was a bit of a relief. my hearing is still ok.
It sounds like there is a slight boost in the bottom end potentially from a saturation or colouration plugin. Edit after the fact: 1db louder.....interesting indeed!! Good stuff.
Did you relax the high pass on the low end, maybe just the bass? Well, I missed that one. I doubt I can hear that with my near fields where I listen. I'll replay it later on my mains, but I might have missed that anyway. Great test, thanks Joe.
i think a hear a liiiitle more excitement and 3d projection, a little more punch and separation. so maybe a little tube saturation. but it's extremely subtle.
Not sure due to no real mixing experience. It sounds like an EQ change that affect 2 things the most: the kick drum tightens and has more slap (so guessing either low cut under 100hz, boost 1-2khz, or both), and the vocal has more "fry" and sounds more focused & up front to me (so guessing possible mid-low cut on vocals, boost 4-5khz, or both). A light compression at 5:1 or 7:1 ratio with a reasonable threshold might also do this to kick & vocals? Also, a low cut on the bass guitar might tighten up the perception of the kick. But since the two passage colors don't sound wildly different, i'm guessing only one change instead of a complicated blend of changes. Final answer: low cut under 100hz on kick/bass, and mid-cut on vocals maybe 600-800hz. Now let's see how horribly wrong this is... hahah. Great channel, glad to see the return;)
Without reading everyone else's comments (since I'm a day late), my amateur guess is there is subtle glue compression happening, possibly a 1.5:1 ratio on the mix bus.
Just listening on my iPhone, I think I’m hearing a tiny difference between the versions. Version two sounds like I’m hearing some of the details better, maybe some things are a bit louder or there’s some subtle harmonic distortion?
I'm guessing after listening a couple times and not moving forward in the vid. My guess is the kick is out of phase on the 2nd one? Seems like the kick is slightly fuller on the first, then looses a little umph on the 2nd. Having a sub helps notice it. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong though :) **Update without spoiling** BAH! Fell for this trick again! Got me, and I should've known better.
I have no clue what was different. I couldn't hear any difference listening to it at normal watching volume, nor mixing volume, nor in my headphones or IEMs. I will listen again after i hear what you did and see if i can spot the difference then. *** edit... I turned it up even more and really listened a couple more times and i could barely hear the difference, but it was there, just very, very SUBTLE. I guess i am not able to differentiate 1deicbel level differences very well.
Oooh! I do like this kind of test. Really cool idea :) I can't 100% put my finger on it, but there's a noticeable bass boost and some more room on the bass drum. My entry is: you increased the bass drums output to a reverb bus. Maybe added a little low boost Wow! Absolutely blown away. Did someone else get the impression the bass was more reverberating? Hah, please do more of those. It's like a community sourced sound gym. Thanks a lot! Edit II: Just to clear that up. You only changed volume on the master? I'm wondering what does the listener do to that by changing the volume and to be hyperbolic for a moment, doesn't that lead to the thought of gain staging the whole thing superfluous?
To your second edit: I think he just changed the volume on the master only to prove the point that a volume difference can affect the way we perceive the mix. So the lesson here is not necessarily that we should boost our overall mix, but that the volumes/faders of each of our individual tracks matter even more than we may have thought they did. Getting those just right will churn out a much better mix even before we do things like eq and compression. And while it's true that the end user will eventually just use whatever listening volume that they want, the better our mixes are to begin with, the better the mix will sound across a range or different volumes too.
@@kenbouchard834 Yeah, that makes sense, I think so too, thanks for the clarification. Oh of course! I do get the point and it makes total sense that a better mix will always be better than a worse one. Okay, obvious :D It was more of a diabolical way of realising how much listening volume effects the mix. It's crazy to think a listener hears a "different mix" just by raising the volume too far. I'm also very surprised that I never realised that before, having adjusted listening volumes in all sorts of scenarios. But it goes to show again, where your mind isn't your ears won't be either :) Overall very informative!
Ah interesting! I haven't had audio engineering training but I decided to play around with my band's recordings to mix them before we put them out to the world. And that was the first thing I did, edited the levels of each instrument. Cool to know that maybe I did it right! 😅
well, to my ear it sounds like a compression, right? maybe saturation also, so it sounds like you mixed in the WET compressor knob in with the original signal and now it sounds fuller/closer.. anyway, that's my guess after 2:24..
Oh wow, I knew I should have recorded my guess!!!! I was going to say that clip 2 was 2db louder!! Thanks. Very cool! Hey, my nearly 70 year old ears are still working....
Initially, I couldn't hear a difference, but after a few listens, it sounds like the difference is a high pass filter to cut out some of the low frequencies. I'm listening while driving, but I just stopped for gas and took the time for some"critical listening" through my car speakers... if you can call it that. Lol
The Green feels wider, the blue feels slightly confined Damn, it was just 1.... Interesting how doing something like that can have an effect on your ears
Ah, yup. Happens to me all the time. This is why level matching the input/output of a plugin is very important to make sure we're not being fooled by a level diference.
I could be wrong, but I'm gonna take a guess that you did NOTHING. I'm wondering if this is a trick to see if we're really listening and hearing a difference, or just ASSUMING there's a difference because you said so. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that one track is purple and the other is green, haha! EDIT: Well, I was "almost" right, haha; you didn't add any plugins, you just adjusted the volume. Fun test!
Видеоклипы
The color is different!
You won💯
The second track definitely sounds more green to me. 😂
Fletcher-Munson curve in action. Well done and explained!
hey joe! i've learned alot from both you and graham thru the years! so thank you both for that. I'm very excited to see you still using studio one. i was kinda worried you were gonna switch over to protools (which is fine) but you've taught me a bunch of little stuff in studio one when i finally switched over! so selfishly, i wanted you to keep using Studio one!
Halfway through your HSC Mix Course, and I swear I told myself you did nothing, except one sounded slightly louder. Thank you soooooo much for confirming that I'm learning lol
I think you pulled this trick some years ago so I was expecting some thing like this. Since that time, you've made me a more critical listener .
I watch your videos daily and you and Graham are the best. I'm still blown away with Graham's I Phone recording session.
What a trip that was ! Anyway , love your work , keep it up. :)
Graham has a slightly better haircut
I love how simple Joe's way of teaching is. He can get a fly to learn audio 🤣🤣 definitely caught me with this level increase. I first thought it was only a level change, but then thought it was some sort of compression that had happened. It's crazy how any slight change to an audio signal can make such a different feel.
After listening to 1 pass, it sounds like there's a bit of stereo width added to the 2nd track. However, there's a few things that could cause that effect other than just widening the master bus, such as compression or saturation. EDIT: or you know, 2nd is louder lol
Listening on my laptop, the 2nd sounded slightly wider to be as well. I've seen Joe do similar tests, so I knew it wasn't actually any kind of widening, but still sounded like it 😅
Thanks for the video - I appreciate the opportunity to learn. I listened in a very “real world” setting… on apple AirPods with a fan on in the background. I couldn’t hear a difference, even listening twice.
I am trying to get my music to sound as good as I can- getting it right at the source, etc… recording in a closet with bath mats dampening the echoey-ness…. But the more I think about it - people are probably listening to my music on their phone, in the car, etc. I don’t imagine someone in a perfectly acoustically treated room, listening on a super hi-fi stereo system…
I guess I’m trying to balance “good enough” with continual improvement. In the past I haven’t released a lot of music because I’ve felt insecure about the quality not being good enough…
So I appreciate recording rev teaching me more…
I’m going to say compression. It seems a bit more dynamic and clearer to my ears. And plus, the wave shape seems to tell me that as well. It’s either that or saturation.
Nice - thank you!!!
track 2 seems like a dB louder but also the kick seems louder or has more attack and also there is less low end rumble through my subwoofer so maybe the kick is just high passed on track 2 or has more compression on the drums but with slower attack to get the kick punch through more. So my short answer is that the drums are compressed more and peak higher than on track 1.
I thought for sure that the green track had the kick drum more compressed and a boost in the highs. Maybe the 1db louder made it hit the limiter harder?
Thank you Joe! beautiful song heard from the smartphone .. I hear more echo on the voice of the fourth blue track block 😅

Interesting. So, in the end if we have a nice mix and everything is EQ'd properly, it makes sense that +1 single dB makes the difference because we are lifting up every single post-EQ frequency of the mix, If we have that room, it sounds richer. Thanks for the tip!
Hey Joe, great demo. I am new to mixing so the question I have is, static mixing, are you saying before, adding any effects is just setting the levels of the tracks. Would there be some sort of starting guide for track level four different types of instruments in vocals. Thanks, looking forward to more.
That's usually people's starting point, gain staging so you have decent levels with all the faders at nominal. then usually bussing and finally the fun part with the effects and little level adjustments and automation and all that
Could you teach us to gain stage and static mix properly, please?
I am absolutely 100% sure there was no difference... but I destroyed my eardrums in my 20's so I had my doubts, but since I learned only the volume changed, it was a bit of a relief. my hearing is still ok.
I suspect gentle saturation and/or boosting the higt end, alterantivelz getting rid of some mud with the EQ
Mid/side EQ? Green clips has more centered or mono low end…
Since I've seen you do this before I believe....I'll go with 1db louder on 2nd one.
To me it gets a tiny bit louder on the 2nd or green ...like a limiter on the master bus. Or compression..
Could be blending in a parallel bus that drums, vocals etc are subtly sending to? Or maybe +3dB ish on Hi and Lo shelving Mixbus EQ?
It sounds like there is a slight boost in the bottom end potentially from a saturation or colouration plugin.
Edit after the fact: 1db louder.....interesting indeed!! Good stuff.
Did you relax the high pass on the low end, maybe just the bass? Well, I missed that one. I doubt I can hear that with my near fields where I listen. I'll replay it later on my mains, but I might have missed that anyway. Great test, thanks Joe.
i think a hear a liiiitle more excitement and 3d projection, a little more punch and separation. so maybe a little tube saturation. but it's extremely subtle.
Not sure due to no real mixing experience. It sounds like an EQ change that affect 2 things the most: the kick drum tightens and has more slap (so guessing either low cut under 100hz, boost 1-2khz, or both), and the vocal has more "fry" and sounds more focused & up front to me (so guessing possible mid-low cut on vocals, boost 4-5khz, or both). A light compression at 5:1 or 7:1 ratio with a reasonable threshold might also do this to kick & vocals? Also, a low cut on the bass guitar might tighten up the perception of the kick. But since the two passage colors don't sound wildly different, i'm guessing only one change instead of a complicated blend of changes. Final answer: low cut under 100hz on kick/bass, and mid-cut on vocals maybe 600-800hz. Now let's see how horribly wrong this is... hahah. Great channel, glad to see the return;)
Without reading everyone else's comments (since I'm a day late), my amateur guess is there is subtle glue compression happening, possibly a 1.5:1 ratio on the mix bus.
My guess is the bass frequencies are moved more to the mid channel. BRB. Well.... I was wrong and that was surprising. Nice one Joe.
Did you high pass the guitars on the 2nd one?
Very clever.
Just listening on my iPhone, I think I’m hearing a tiny difference between the versions. Version two sounds like I’m hearing some of the details better, maybe some things are a bit louder or there’s some subtle harmonic distortion?
The difference that I hear is that when the track is on green is that the presentation of the percusion or beat is more solid and dense,
I'm guessing after listening a couple times and not moving forward in the vid. My guess is the kick is out of phase on the 2nd one? Seems like the kick is slightly fuller on the first, then looses a little umph on the 2nd. Having a sub helps notice it. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong though :) **Update without spoiling** BAH! Fell for this trick again! Got me, and I should've known better.
Slight echo difference or reverb difference
I’m torn between thinking it has to do with the stereo width of the low end or phasing issues
I have no clue what was different. I couldn't hear any difference listening to it at normal watching volume, nor mixing volume, nor in my headphones or IEMs. I will listen again after i hear what you did and see if i can spot the difference then.
*** edit... I turned it up even more and really listened a couple more times and i could barely hear the difference, but it was there, just very, very SUBTLE. I guess i am not able to differentiate 1deicbel level differences very well.
It sounded like the first portion the blue has a slight open, or echoey and the green, second portion sounds a little muted.
My guess: Track 2 has a mix buss compressor OR is just something like 0.5 db louder!
My guess would be some type of tape saturation on track to
Great trick Joe..I was wrong ..that's weird that 1db made the low end difference
The Cymbals and Kick seemed a bit more forward. Maybe slight Smiley EQ. But sooo sutle.
Did you apply a low pass filter to one and a high shelf to two?
compressed the mono signal to get more width?
Oooh! I do like this kind of test. Really cool idea :)
I can't 100% put my finger on it, but there's a noticeable bass boost and some more room on the bass drum.
My entry is: you increased the bass drums output to a reverb bus. Maybe added a little low boost
Wow! Absolutely blown away. Did someone else get the impression the bass was more reverberating?
Hah, please do more of those. It's like a community sourced sound gym. Thanks a lot!
Edit II: Just to clear that up. You only changed volume on the master?
I'm wondering what does the listener do to that by changing the volume and to be hyperbolic for a moment, doesn't that lead to the thought of gain staging the whole thing superfluous?
To your second edit: I think he just changed the volume on the master only to prove the point that a volume difference can affect the way we perceive the mix. So the lesson here is not necessarily that we should boost our overall mix, but that the volumes/faders of each of our individual tracks matter even more than we may have thought they did. Getting those just right will churn out a much better mix even before we do things like eq and compression. And while it's true that the end user will eventually just use whatever listening volume that they want, the better our mixes are to begin with, the better the mix will sound across a range or different volumes too.
@@kenbouchard834 Yeah, that makes sense, I think so too, thanks for the clarification.
Oh of course! I do get the point and it makes total sense that a better mix will always be better than a worse one. Okay, obvious :D
It was more of a diabolical way of realising how much listening volume effects the mix. It's crazy to think a listener hears a "different mix" just by raising the volume too far.
I'm also very surprised that I never realised that before, having adjusted listening volumes in all sorts of scenarios.
But it goes to show again, where your mind isn't your ears won't be either :)
Overall very informative!
Yeah it totally sounds like it's more compressed or something. 😂 And I've even heard that story before and knew the answer!
Green seems wider. Also seems like a low mid boost. Purple seems a bit nasally. So maybe you cut some high miss in the mix bus?
I've taken your mixing course :) So I think you simply gain-staged!
Is the drums louder? sounds maybe a high and low shelf boost too maybe too.
close but no cigar as they say :(
1:39 sounds like you evened the mids like a slight compression on the vocals.
In my perfect full fidelity notebook speaker I can confirm they are the same 😅
Sounds like an exciter on track 2.
It sounds like it was an ITB (green) vs analog summing (purple)… flat vs open
To me, the drums sound a little bit “bigger” on the second one (the Green track).
low end is less wide in first?
Added a slight hall sounding reverb to the vocals on the green track?
Ah interesting! I haven't had audio engineering training but I decided to play around with my band's recordings to mix them before we put them out to the world. And that was the first thing I did, edited the levels of each instrument.
Cool to know that maybe I did it right! 😅
I think the difference is mainly track volumes and panning
More compression?
well, to my ear it sounds like a compression, right? maybe saturation also, so it sounds like you mixed in the WET compressor knob in with the original signal and now it sounds fuller/closer.. anyway, that's my guess after 2:24..
(after the reveal) NO WAAAY!!!!! omg, it was good ol' loudness trick!!?
The snare in the green one sounds more bright to me and with a bit more sustain... Hard one !
--> after the answer : ahah ! :D
Oh wow, I knew I should have recorded my guess!!!! I was going to say that clip 2 was 2db louder!! Thanks. Very cool!
Hey, my nearly 70 year old ears are still working....
Initially, I couldn't hear a difference, but after a few listens, it sounds like the difference is a high pass filter to cut out some of the low frequencies.
I'm listening while driving, but I just stopped for gas and took the time for some"critical listening" through my car speakers... if you can call it that. Lol
i can never hear subtle changes. they both sounded exactly the same to me (even once I know the answer)
Are those big spikes in the waveform normal??
Changed reverb
I couldn't tell what the difference was, except, track 2 sounded better to me. I thought it was a minor EQ
Is it panning?
I hear the difference in mid/side in low end, so mid/side bandwidth compression maybe.
P.S. Lol
I think it's parallel compression
This concept was also the foundation on which the loud wars started
Low-mid love on the green version?
Oof got me😅
The Green feels wider, the blue feels slightly confined
Damn, it was just 1.... Interesting how doing something like that can have an effect on your ears
Saturation, delay, or reverb... My guess is less reverb ... But I'm listening on my phone
Compressed the drum shells
Saturation?
How would you do that with a two track
It has to be something in the master then not individual tracks I was thinking
Sounds like a bit of saturation?
used stereo spread
Sound selection
Parallel comp(mono?) and saturation. P.S. Wow, that’s surprising
OK, so I heard a slight bit more low end, but also seemed to hear more spatial spread. (But obviously was wrong LOL)
Compressor on the mix buss?
Omg I can't believe what it was.
Compression?
spread drum High width
I hear some subtle compression and saturation.
1dB… wow!
Removed some of the low end rumble. I got it wrong!
i found the snare a little brighter
The kick or drums in general were loud
I mean idk why but yea
The second is louder?
yep)
I was way off 😂 I was listening through my phone. I thought the reverb was different.
The Drums
I can convince myself that the vocals is bit louder on green.
Bottom one is louder?
Ah, yup. Happens to me all the time. This is why level matching the input/output of a plugin is very important to make sure we're not being fooled by a level diference.
It's louder, just a tad :)
clip 2 is louder
The bass seemed warmer 🤔
I could be wrong, but I'm gonna take a guess that you did NOTHING. I'm wondering if this is a trick to see if we're really listening and hearing a difference, or just ASSUMING there's a difference because you said so. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that one track is purple and the other is green, haha!
EDIT: Well, I was "almost" right, haha; you didn't add any plugins, you just adjusted the volume. Fun test!
Drums,, snare difference is what I hear 😮🤔
The green one is louder, I think
Bass / Bass Drum ducking?
the second one is 1db louder
The lower track has a more ”bassy” sound on my headphones but I am a rookie so I don ’t have a clue what has been done😂….
Interesting thoughts now when I know. Good input!