3 Reasons to Mix in Mono: Part III

Here's the third and final reason I keep my session in mono for the vast majority of the time I spend mixing a song:

Our bodies are not perfectly symmetrical. Especially as you age, your hearing will change, maybe even more so on one side or the other. Maybe you were born with a hearing disability on one side or the other. The fact is, no two ears are the same, even on the same head.

If you rely on your ears to interpret what you’re hearing exactly the same as one another, you can fool yourself into making mix moves, particularly regarding the stereo field, that are not good for the song.

For instance, if your hearing is slightly muted in one ear, you might overcompensate and make tracks that are panned to that side louder than you otherwise would. When other people listen to your mix, they’ll hear that those tracks are too loud, even if you don’t.

Mixing in mono takes into account the fact that your ears might not be as equally reliable as you would like them to be. Because you’re hearing the same mix with both ears, you won’t make mixing mistakes with a track that is panned to one side or the other due to a difference in hearing between your ears.

Ideally, of course, your ears do hear equally well, which is why you'll want to try to take care of them and preserve your hearing by mixing at reasonable levels (especially when using headphones) and using ear protection whenever you're in a loud, live setting.

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To boil this blog series down, if you want to both make the most of the stereo field and have your song translate to a variety of speakers, you'll want to follow these 3 rules:

1. Pan your tracks before you do any serious mixing.

2. Mix in mono.

3. Listen to the song in stereo to check your work.