Mixing with Professional Headphones

[shortyc]

I was told at a music store today, that it was better to mix with headphones?

What is this? Maybe better with good headphones as opposed to crappy ref. monitors. But they highly recommendid this to me.

Am I just plain stubborn, or is there a legitimate reason to the fact that I do not feel comfortable using headphones to mix my stuff?

I think it could help going back and forth with the two, of course. Listen to your mix in all aspects, but I'm sayin though! I felt like I was just insulted by being told to do this.

Is this something they failed to run by me in school or what?

[Lopp]

They are idiots at the store. It is better to mix with monitors.

[VOXVENDOR]

Well, when you watch a band the music generally comes from in front of you, and is panned out a bit across the front of your listening "spectrum"..

Headphones exagerate that stereo field, and put the sound beside you... and then the instruments that are panned down the center, sound like they are imbedded in your brain...

Then whatever you mix on them, translates totally different in a regular speaker based listening environment....Which creates, a screwed up mix...

[VOXVENDOR]

I do imagine a person could mix on Headphones, if he were to learn them, and figure out how the sound translates.. which would take alot of trial and error....

But, it's one of them things thats like "Why bother... Just do it right!"

[eljay]

I tried it on some very high quality headphones, and ended up with too much HIGH freq. Sounds. The headphones for the most part push the bass to hard and it's hard to tell where the balance is.

If you were mixing DJ stuff from commercial cd's yeah, those songs are already mixed down. But when recording your own goods, I would recommend the monitors.

[Chibi Nappa]

Headphones will not tell you the true story for a number of reasons. In "real life" (the non-headphone world), sound coming from the left speaker gets to mix with sound from the right speaker in the air before it gets to your ear. With headphones, the sound coming out of the left speaker never physically interacts with sound from the right speaker at all. You might have phasing issues and not know it. Furthermore, without headphones your left ear will pick up sound that is panned to the right, not matter how hard the pan is. With headphones, if it isn't coming out of the left speaker your left ear isn't hearing it. It is just not an accurate representation of what is going on and it takes "air" out of the equation and that's kind'a important. What it all comes down to is you'll get a mix that sounds great to you on your headphones. You'll take it to a set of speakers (or a different set of headphones) and it won't be so hot anymore.

[Buffalo Bob]

"I was told at a music store today, that it was better to mix with headphones?"

Go back to the "music store" and tell them that if this is true, why do engineers spend thousands of dollars for custom monitors, amps, etc? For show? Sounds like they were trying to sell you some cans!

Bob

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by shortyc
I was told at a music store today, that it was better to mix with headphones?

2 things....

1 - whoever told you that is talking out their ass

2 - don't ever listen to anything that salesperson ever tells you ever again

There are some serious morons out there selling gear... sounds like stumbled on some of them....

Bruce

[charger]

I always "check" a mix on headphones. But I also "check" it in my car, on my home stereo, as an MP3, and in mono. I wouldn't mix that way though.

Maybe he meant "track."

[VOXVENDOR]

Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
2 things....

1 - whoever told you that is talking out their ass

2 - don't ever listen to anything that salesperson ever tells you ever again

There are some serious morons out there selling gear... sounds like stumbled on some of them....

Bruce

Yeah, and some of these morons went to recording school and still dish out advice like that.... I know a few around here....

In fact, One recently told me that the Alesis Microverb 4 is alot of pro engineers secret weapon......

YEAH RIGHT!!!!!!!...

Maybe if they want a song with hissy-noisy sterile reverb....

[Wil Davis]

The sales-droids at the music store wanted to sell you a pair of headphones - it's as simple as that and that's all there is to it! What the hell did you expect? Help? Advice? Knowledge? Hints? Dream on! If the sales-personages had any brains do you really think they'd be selling stuff in some music store? (Ah, now I feel better...)

- Wil

[chessrock]

Originally posted by VOXVENDOR
I do imagine a person could mix on Headphones, if he were to learn them, and figure out how the sound translates.. which would take alot of trial and error....

You make a good point, Vox. Ideally, I think you should mix with whatever you generally listen with. If you've been listening to music your whole life 80% of the time on headphones, then I wouldn't imagine you'd have any idea what a good mix sounded like without them, and you might be totally lost using monitors.

A lot of it has to do with the music style, also. I just can't imagine some of the early Yes albums or Radio Head not mixing with cans at some point. There is just too much interesting stuff going on in the stereo spectrum that I can't see being reproduced as well without them.

While I'm not about to say you should ditch the monitors in favor of a good set of phones, I'm not about to join the "Never use headphones" school of thought either. That's just silly. You should use what you think will get you the best mix, period.

[Blue Bear Sound]

...it's not quite as simple as "learning how to translate on headphones" because everyone hears sound thru headphones differently - ie, Joe would not hear the same balance as I would if both of us were listening to the same song at the same time using the same headphones....

Headphone response is interpreted radically differently for each person listening... much more so than the difference each person might hear via monitors....!

While the mix might sound good to you on cans, I then listen to it and find all the balances off... then another might think it's too bass-heavy... yet another too sharp... even if we're all listening to the same cans! And what makes it worse is that we'd all be correct about the mix since each of us is interpreting the direct heaphone response in our own individual way....

Monitors give a much more uniform response characteristic from person to person and therefore makes the mixing job much much easier to work out...

Bruce

[clubzero]

Thanks for that last reply BB. I had no clue..

[CrimsonWarlock]

Most important thing (don't think anyone mentioned it in this discussion) is the fact that headphones cancel out phase-problems in your mix.

Every effect that operates in the time domain (delay, reverb, chorus/flangers, etc) are inserting certain phase effects into your track. Those phase effects are influencing your mix, and not just a little bit.

The best example is this: When you have a signal and add the same signal exactly 180 degrees shifted in phase, the two signals will cancel eachother out. Now when you listen to those two signals panned hard left and right on your headphones, you will both hear them as they don't interact with eachother but if you listen on speakers they will almost be inaudible.

So to be sure that there are no phase-problems in your mix, you should NEVER mix on headphones. It is of course always a good idea to listen to a mix on headphones as another test though.

Peter.

[knownuttin]

It's encouraging, ShortyC, that you felt insulted by this advice. You should feel the same listening to most politicians, especially campaign speeches. If a salesman calls you "Dude", stay not on the order of your leaving, but run for the nearest exit.

To expand on what the Crimson Warlock said, with headphones the sound waves do not travel through the air before reaching your ear. This denies you vital information such as he mentioned, the effects of phase cancellation. It is also impossible to properly judge the trails of your reverb and other time based effects.
-kent

[dobro]

I read a decent article in a recent Home Recording magazine that talked about reasons for mixing with headphones. (It also talked intelligently about the downsides.) Aside from the obvious stuff like it's useful mixing on headphones late at night when you can't crank the monitors because the neighbors will phone the police, there were about two good reasons:

1 You can pick up details like little editing clicks and pops more easily than through monitors.

2 A lot of people listen to stuff through earphones and headphones. You should run your mix through headphones and earphones to make sure it sounds good through earphones and headphones for the sake of those listeners. This is the most important reason for me. According to the article, things panned hard left and right don't come through so well on cans, because of the complete separation of left and right, so when you listen through headphones, you can pull stuff in a bit toward the center so that it can be heard just as well through headphones. The article also talked about how overuse of reverb sounds much worse through headphones, so the surest way to check if the verb levels are okay is through cans.

In the end, the article wasn't suggesting you should mix through headphones exclusively; it was strongly recommending that headphones be one of the things you listen through.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by dobro
In the end, the article wasn't suggesting you should mix through headphones exclusively; it was strongly recommending that headphones be one of the things you listen through.

Absolutely!

[VOXVENDOR]

Whoever uses monitors is just plain dumb.


It's an industry secret... You guys will learn, when you get as experienced as me.

[Boo Boo Foo]

Actually gentleman I use both and the reasons are as follows...

Monitors: Pro's and Con's - you can mix your bass and kick drums much better in your overall mix - especially if your monitors are hovering around 85db. Bass response can be misleadingly quiet in headphones and it's easy to bump it up too high. You get a very nice 'top to bottom' picture with monitors - a bit like Phil Spector's wall of sound concept. I know I'm getting my mix just dandy when it sounds like everything from top to bottom is hitting the listener like an aural assault. In particular, monitors allow you to dial in really nice tones with mid intensive instruments such as electric guitar and piano for example.

Headphones: Pro's and Con's - I just love headphones for hunting down error artifacts such as clipping and pops and clicks. I make a point of turning the volume right down low and listening for the tell tale clipping distortion sound - so in this context headphones are an invaluable quality control mechanism. The downside to headphones I find are as follows - I never actually 'mix' with them because the presence of sound within headphones is just so immediate - the speakers themselves are only 1" away from your ears after all! I find that because top flight headphones (especially enclosed headphones) are so efficient and producing silence, it's extremely easy to undermix crucial mid range sounds because our ears hear them sooooooooo easily within a headphone environment. And then we tend to overmix the lows and the highs.

In short, monitors should be used to get the quality, and headphones should be used to 'ensure' the quality.

Also, there's a really exciting moment in mixing too - after you get a killer sound on your montors - that first time you listen to the tune at normal listening volumes with your headphones is really super duper exciting I find.

Never, EVER play your headphones loud - your hearing is priceless. You can do all the quality control you need at whisper quiet volumes when you're hunting for distortion etc.

[VOXVENDOR]

Very good post.... and nice philosophy.

[Richard Monroe]

I'll confess to being no expert at mixing, but I know quite a bit about pro audio salesmen. Please, name the store, the location, and the salesman, so when I meet another like him, I can avoid him!- Richie

[chessrock]

In the end, the article wasn't suggesting you should mix through headphones exclusively; it was strongly recommending that headphones be one of the things you listen through. Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
Absolutely!

Very well put!

[shortyc]

Thanks! I don't like it when people are insulting my intelligence, especially just to sell something like a pair of cans.

I printed this whole post, and faxed it right to that music store attention to the guy that told me to use headphones.

Also, I came in the next day and bought the MOTU 828 he thought he was going to sell me. Instead, someone else sold it to me and he got half the commission.

Lesson learned!