I originally thought that I had a decent mix until I was listening to my track in consumer earphones at a high volume. Suddenly the kick had way too much "punch" and the highs became way too harsh on my ears. At medium volume It wasn't as bad but it just occured to me that listening at different volume levels changes my perspective of the mix.

Now I'm going back to work on these mixing errors but I feel a bit annoyed that I wasn't able to pick up these errors until I relistened to my track on these consumer earphones with the volume played on high. How can I prevent this in the future? Do you guys generally mix at one volume level or do you switch back and forth between quiet, medium, and loud during your sessions?

While you're composing / mixing:

1. Monitor on different sets of speakers. I switch between two sets of monitors and a set of cheap midrange-heavy speakers, plus some headphones. Everything has to sound good on the cheap speakers or else I know it will be a problem.

2. Try mixing at low volume. On your monitors, or even this consumer earphones, turn the volume down until you can barely hear all of the instruments in a reference track. Mix your track at that volume - that really makes the bad parts stand out. For instance, if I play at low volume and all I hear are kicks, I know the kicks are too loud. If I feel like "It sounds great, I wish it was louder" I know I've got it right.

What I've found is that the monitors are good for hearing every little thing--important when you're trying to make subtle changes-- but the cheap speakers might be better for mixing. My last step for each section of a track is to play it through the cheap speakers and adjust the mix. Once it sounds good there it will sound good everywhere. Even if it sounds better on my monitors to do it a certain way, I'll do whatever sounds best on the cheap speakers. Then I flip back to the monitors and it sounds great. More importantly it will sound good in cars, on laptop speakers, and so on.

My cheap speakers are a pair of these running with this amp. They're little 4" midrange-heavy speakers with no bottom end and no tweeters. This $50 combo seriously improved my mixes more than my $500 monitors or $200 headphones. Professionals often use Auratones or similar speakers--these are the same idea, just a simple speaker that focuses on mids. You could get the same effect with a laptop speaker or one of those $10 bluetooth mono speakers they sell for iPhones.

Don't use them to mix sub-bass, though.