Vocals sound great through headphones but fall flat through computer speakers?

musicgirl14

New member
So I've encountered this problem many times.
My vocals will sound great through headphones, tone is great, every note is right on pitch. But when I unplug the headphones to listen through what most people will listen to my music through (just regular computer and phone speakers) my vocals completely suck and the tone of my voice changes drastically and I feel as if they fall flat! I listen to other people's demos through computer speakers and they sound similar to the sound in the headphones. It's making me very frustrated and making me feel as though I can't sing! I use a Blue Snowball Ice to record. What do you think the problem is?
 
Vocals are not as easy as people think. First, you have to like the tone of the vocals. Then you have to like the mix of the vocals, then you have to like the pitch of the vocals. Then, to make matters worse, you have to get use to your vocals hearing them as others do, which you are probably not use to hearing.

IMO, make sure you have the tone you want. Then make sure your have the fit in the mix you want. Then, make sure yo have the pitch you want. Those are not in order.

When you hear others, you are not as critical of them as you are of your own vocals. It is hard, but stick with it and make sure you are getting all of the elements the way you want them. Then you have to face the facts of accepting your vocals. Keep with it, if yo are a decent singer, then it will come as you work to make them better.
 
Again, my vocals sound great through my headphones. I like the tone, I like the pitch, I like everything about them. It's just when played through speakers on my computer or phone they sound terrible. Not sure why.
 
Mixing on monitors instead of headphones is my first recommendation. And, I’d get some tuning plugin to actually check your vocal track to make sure you’re really on pitch and not somehow hearing it incorrectly in those cans.
 
So lets clarify because as stated what you are saying is not possible...You're either on pitch or your not and no headphones or speakers are going to change that...now the quality of the "sound" absolutely even between two sets of headphones it can be a world of difference...but it isn't going to change the pitch....so

My question is this...Are you saying when you "play back" the recording listening through headphones it sounds great but not when listened through monitors...or ..are you saying when you are recording the vocal with the headphones on it sounds great but when you listen back through the monitors afterwords it's is not to your liking..

The "doesn't sound the same" is understandable...out of pitch.... nope can't imagine how that could occur
 
When I'm listening to the recording through headphones it sounds great but played through speakers it doesn't sound great. And I'm 95% sure I'm not out of tune singing. It sounds in tune through headphones, I make sure of that. My tone sounds completely different played through headphones than it does through speakers and I'm guessing that's what makes it sound flat.
 
Words! Careful how you use them! In a musical context they can be confused with everyday meanings.

"Flat": In music, out of tune with the backing or rest of the melody line by being LOWER in "pitch" (aka "frequency")

"Sharp" In mus<script id="gpt-impl-0.8807841155632547" src="https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gpt/pubads_impl_185.js"></script>ic, out of tune higher in pitch... But "flat" in a "critical" sense can mean devoid of "life", not exciting or stimulating. "Sharp" can mean abrupt or spikey, an "assault" on the ear.

"Tone": How long have you got?! "The quality of a speaker, voice, instrument. Painters mean colour shades. Lektrik guitar widdlers use "tone suck" to mean loss of high frequencies..BUT! Sometimes peeps mean poor pitch control or poor intonation (of a guitar especially where notes are out of tune at various points on the fretboard) . And, FWIIW, many people find it impossible to tune a guitar using cans?

There is a basic principle in sound recording/repro. "You cannot judge a silk purse with a sow's ear". That tortured phrase means YOU CANNOT KNOW what you have unless you monitor it on very good speakers!
It does NOT matter that The World and his sister will listen on the equivalent of bean cans on string! YOU have to have the ability to reproduce as accurately as you can THE sound in your DAW.

Of course, there are poor monitors, good monitors and truly great monitors and the $$s go up alarmingly for the last but if you are primarily interested in voice repro and don't need Jericho wrecking bass, a pair of the smallest but good monitors should suit you. Indeed, small monitors with a restricted bass response will be better in a (small?) untreated* room.

So, you need decent monitors and when your 'stuff' sounds good on those, THEN try it on "grott box" systems. It is never going to sound brilliant through laptop squawkers!

*Do that as soon as you can but really that affects stereo 'imaging' and LF response more than the human voice. Unless of course your room has a massive "honk"!

Post some clips (attach 320k MP3s for me)

Dave.
 
"mus<script id="gpt-impl-0.8807841155632547" src="https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gpt/pubads_impl_185.js"></script>ic"

What the HELL happened there Steens?!

Dave.
 
But when I unplug the headphones to listen through what most people will listen to my music through (just regular computer and phone speakers)
Do they?
Not dismissing the problem you perceive (and while mixing through phones is frowned upon by many, I've hit US charts and UK radio many times with mixes using phones) I question the basis of why it worries you.
Most people these days listen to music on tiny buds, earphones, etc.
How does your music sound on those.
Certainly mixing on monitors MIGHT help. Or it might not and you may hate the mixes you do there.
TRial and error, I'm afraid, but do try your mixes through your phone buds.
 
Do they?
Not dismissing the problem you perceive (and while mixing through phones is frowned upon by many, I've hit US charts and UK radio many times with mixes using phones) I question the basis of why it worries you.
Most people these days listen to music on tiny buds, earphones, etc.
How does your music sound on those.
Certainly mixing on monitors MIGHT help. Or it might not and you may hate the mixes you do there.
TRial and error, I'm afraid, but do try your mixes through your phone buds.

This is normal. The HP i3 laptop I am now typing on sounds great feeding Radio3 through my AKG K92 headphones but if I unplug them and listen to the speakers? Bee in a tin!

Dave.
 
EC pointed out semantics in the use of words...

I think the best thing to do is determine the problem. Post an mp3 of the recording in the MP3 clinic and ask for opinions advice...Or you could also post in the "Can I sing" section where you will get honest opinions of if you are singing well or not... There's a lot of things one can do to make vocals sound better but other than things like autotune there's nothing between a headset and a speaker that is going to make your vocals go off pitch other than the original recording IS off pitch....though the degree of on or off varies in the end you're either on or you 're not.
 
...You're either on pitch or your not and no headphones or speakers are going to change that...now the quality of the "sound" absolutely even between two sets of headphones it can be a world of difference...but it isn't going to change the pitch....so

...

The "doesn't sound the same" is understandable...out of pitch.... nope can't imagine how that could occur

I can think of two reasons. Pitch has a subjective component (it is not purely the same as frequency).

Frequency may be objective, but some equipment have poor linearity. It took me quite a while to figure out why, sometimes, a clip of my vocals would sound in tune one day, but not the next. Eventually, I figured out it was the headphones I was using! The frequency drifted slightly when the volume changed!

So, not only can the frequency itself change when switching between analogue instruments, but the pitch (or subjective perception of the frequency) can change, too, with the overall sound.
 
I can think of two reasons. Pitch has a subjective component (it is not purely the same as frequency).

Frequency may be objective, but some equipment have poor linearity. It took me quite a while to figure out why, sometimes, a clip of my vocals would sound in tune one day, but not the next. Eventually, I figured out it was the headphones I was using! The frequency drifted slightly when the volume changed!

So, not only can the frequency itself change when switching between analogue instruments, but the pitch (or subjective perception of the frequency) can change, too, with the overall sound.


I've never heard of such a thing where the speakers or headphones put something out of tune with the raising or lowering of the volume but I can't say it couldn't happen.

In the OP's case she is saying that when she listens to the recording through her headphones the vocals sound great but when she listens to them through her speakers it sucks...dramatic difference. Her actual word were "my vocals completely suck and the tone of my voice changes drastically and I feel as if they fall flat! With that said and her reference to pitch earlier in her post I assumed she was saying that her vocals actually went out of tune...Now re-reading it I suspect as EC mentioned it is the use of words like Pitch, Tone and Flat that got me off track.... I totally understand the phenomenon of headphone sound vs speaker sound .....when I play my MOX8 keyboard through my headphones direct my piano sounds are amazing but when I play the same sounds through monitors or a PA it is substantially not as sweet to my ears no matter how much I try and EQ it....The Tone / Color changes but the notes don't change pitch in any way shape or form. I suspect the same of the OP...she's just not liking the substantial difference between the sweet headphone sound and the speakers sound , finding a happy medium is what it is all about. I'm a can man way more than a monitor man for a lot of reasons. Not bothering the neighbors or family being a big one. In the end if by chance the song is played worldwide it is going to be heard through a myriad of speakers from 99 cent cheapies to multi thousand dollar systems...At least for me if it sound good though a few different sets of headphones it is good enough to move on and not sweat how it sounds to the world.....Again as I personally perceive it at this point in my life in order of importance / priorities...The song is #1, the performance of the song is #2 and how it is recorded is #3 ....A great tune is a great tune, a great performance is a great performance and a shitty recording of it won't hide that. Conversely, A lousy song and a crappy performance recorded in the most awesome studio in the world by the greatest living recording engineers can not hide the fact that it is NOT a great song or a great performance.
 
The headphones vs computer speakers thing is understandable. Probably cause by the lack of low end changing how your voice sits in the music. Just about anyone's voice will sound strange if it is too far in front of the mix.

If you are saying that the recording of your voice sounds on pitch in the headphones, but out of pitch on the speakers, that really isn't possible.

It is possible for you to think you are singing on pitch but being off on playback. It is possible to have the headphones up so loud that it changes your perception of pitch. (Happens more with in-ears than headphones)

You said "falls flat". If you meant "not exciting", then that makes sense. If you meant flat, as in the opposite of sharp, speakers can't do that.
 
I'm always very aware of what i's going to happen when people put on headphones, or worse sometimes, in-ears. T I'm uning suffers in about 50% of cases. people who sin g perfectly in tune can be sharp or flat and not notice! I have terrible trouble with this on stage playing bass. I absolutely cannot play my fretless at all, which I'm fine on using floor wedge. Stick it in my ears and I can be a semi-tone float or sharp and not notice - and worse still, it's a consistent flatness - so I can actually play a few bars perfectly out of tune until I play an octave up, when something seems to kick in and I panic. Oddly, for me I can sing in tune up top, but play out of tune on my bass at the same time. For people I'm recording, if they sing out of tune, I'll suggest they try one ear - which usually cures it.

Other people seem to need a very precise mix in their headphones or they lose it - on speakers they can seem to hear what they need better?

As for voice quality and tone - any adjustment decisions made on headphones will be wrong, and I think it's because we don't just hear with our ears, but bone conduction too. I've noted that when you hand untrained/inexperienced people a microphone, the different voice they hear makes them sometimes stop speaking or singing when they suddenly hear themselves. I suspect that we are just not used to what comes out of the monitor speakers being a representation of what they really sound like - the sound everyone else hears, but you never do yourself?

I don't know if you've ever tried the delay trick. We used to do it with off tape monitoring in the analogue reel to reel days, but it's easy to simulate with an electronic delay. Feed somebody through headphones NO direct sound, and 100% delayed sound. It only has to be a short delay - not even half a second sometimes and they cannot speak. When they try, they sound drunk, and slur their words terribly. We used to use this to demonstrate how hearing helps you form words properly. A doctor friend suggested that this is also why people who have had strokes speak strangely - they hear their voice via different neural pathways, and after years of hearing out one day, the tiny delays wreck speech. Deaf people don't have this feedback and their speech is sometime remarkably similar to what happens with delays.

Some people can still sing properly with both ears covered, some people can manage one-eared, but a few cannot cope with near field monitoring at all if it blots out the room.

I've always had a rule. Mix on headphones if the audience listen on headphones, if they will use speakers - even bad ones, mix on speakers. On speakers, pan helps spacial location by linking to time - so delay and reverb effects have a big impact that are different on phones.
 
Last edited:
The headphones vs computer speakers thing is understandable. Probably cause by the lack of low end changing how your voice sits in the music. Just about anyone's voice will sound strange if it is too far in front of the mix.

If you are saying that the recording of your voice sounds on pitch in the headphones, but out of pitch on the speakers, that really isn't possible.

It is possible for you to think you are singing on pitch but being off on playback. It is possible to have the headphones up so loud that it changes your perception of pitch. (Happens more with in-ears than headphones)

You said "falls flat". If you meant "not exciting", then that makes sense. If you meant flat, as in the opposite of sharp, speakers can't do that.

Yeah what Jay said!
 
I am sure I read "flat" as "you're singing off pitch" because I can end up singing an entire song off pitch when tracking! I think it's because I end up listening to the voice in my head instead of the one in the headphones (working on that).

So, if OP meant just lifeless/dull, then the tuning software would be unnecessary, but I still recommend mixing on speakers to start. Headphones almost always sound better, but to mix with them takes time to learn and the right set of headphones, too (all IMO, of course).

Regardless, the lesson of "transferability" or whatever you want to call it is something we all have to figure out. I don't ever assume that I know how stuff will be listened to, so even though I feel like I'm doing a better job of mixing so things do play better in more places, it's still necessary to spot check, and expect to be surprised...
 
Back
Top