Microphone Picking Up Audio From Headphones

E

erbeckett

New member
I have a condenser mic with closed back headphones and when i record, my instrumental leaks sound and the mic picks it up. I can't turn the volume down or I wont be able to hear it and even though I turn it down, I can still hear it.

How can i isolate my vice but still hear the track in my headphones without it leaking or turning the volume down.

By the way i'm using audacity.

Thanks
 
Closed back headphones, turns it way down and still hears it.

Are you sure it's coming from your headphones and not from bad routing or from using a mixer as an interface??
 
Yes what kind of headphones? And how loud are you pumping the signal through the headphones?
 
Could be the 'phones....you guys may not believe this, but the pickups in my guitars pick up the sound from my 'phones when I'm recording....honestly.....I'm using a cheap set of Sony MDR-V150's the old lady got somewhere for me about 4-5 years ago for $20....so, it could be the 'phones or a combination of the two....
 
Some closed back headphones provide more isolation than others, hence everyone asking what you use.

However, unless your voice is very, very quiet, even the worst cheap closed back headphones can provide enough isolation that they're not picked up by a condenser mic.

...which leads me to worry that (as others have said) the problem is a signal routing issue, not the 'phones) or that your monitoring levels are extremely high, certainly high enough to do permanent damage to your hearing. In this age of iPods and ear buds, I've met huge numbers of young people who have pooched their hearing by their late teens or early twenties. The trouble is, this becomes an "every decreasing circle" in that the more you turn up the volume to compensate for hearing problems, the more additional damage you're doing to your ears.

If you can't find a problem in routing and/or your headphones turn out to be ones that should be okay, I strongly suggest you book a hearing test through your GP to see if anything nasty is happening.
 
If your guitar pickups are picking up the headphone sound, it's not the headphones, it's possible routing issue, or bleed-through. What are you using for an audio interface?
 
Headphone bleed isn't really all that unusual, and it's usually not a huge deal. The warnings about hearing damage are well intentioned, but we're all adults here, and this is rock n roll (or whatever) and if loud headphones is what it takes to get a decent performance...

The important question is what's the ratio of bleed to vocal? Like, give us some db readings off the meters, man! The vocal peaks at X and the bleed sits around Y. If the difference is big enough, and unless you're really going to crush the vocal with insane amounts of compression or distort it, you shouldn't be able to hear the bleed in the context of the mix.

Of course, that assumes that the mix that's bleeding from the headphones is relatively similar to what the final mix will be. Where headphone bleed can be a problem is in situations where you're laying a vocal over a basic click track that will be removed from the final track, or like a drummer listening to a "beep track" which might bleed into some of the drum mics, or things like that where there wont be anything in the final to mask whatever's bleeding through.

Sometimes that bleed is all treble. If you can roll off some of that treble going to the headphones and still stand to sing to it, it will be less in the mic.

Something that might work if every other damn thing is just right and you're very lucky - monoize the headphone mix, and flip polarity on one side. Theoretically if you approach the mic such that each of the two speakers is exactly the same distance from the mic the bleed will cancel completely. It can't possibly be perfect IRL, and it'll probably feel like your brain is being sucked out of your ears, but if you really cant live with the bleed, it might be worth a try.
 
ashcat_lt said:
Headphone bleed isn't really all that unusual, and it's usually not a huge deal. The warnings about hearing damage are well intentioned, but we're all adults here, and this is rock n roll (or whatever) and if loud headphones is what it takes to get a decent performance...
Click to expand...

Well intentioned, yes, but also serious. Is your rock and roll lifestyle really worth having the hearing of a 70 year old when you're 20?

Perhaps I'm biased because I've spent the last 40 years of my life making a living where my hearing is the most important part of my tool kit but it came as a shock to me some years back when I did a rough hearing test of myself and my then-18 year old son and found that I had better HF hearing (up to about 16K in my 50s) than my earbud-wearing son and his friends who were already rolling off at around 12K. Goodness knows what their hearing will be like when they hit MY age!

Anyhow, it's everyone's personal choice--but I think people should know the facts. As soon as you use headphones to drown out a loud environment, you're doing permanent damage to your hearing. By "loud environment" I mean even basic things like city streets or the inside of a train.
 
I get headphone bleed all the time because my main singer likes to have a bit of volume in the cans. I don't like as much, but it can still be there.

The question is whether it's enough to worry about... and (bearing in mind that I do sort of acoustic stuff and not hard noisy rawwwwk) I've never found it to be an issue... although I do go snipping off dead air in between phrases just to ensure it's not there at all when there's no singing.

YMMV
 
Typical bleed for me in studio with really loud headphones. Not an issue...
 

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The OP hasn't come back to this yet, but you guys missed the part about the guitar pickups picking up the sound - is that even possible with headphone bleed?
 
mjbphotos said:
The OP hasn't come back to this yet, but you guys missed the part about the guitar pickups picking up the sound - is that even possible with headphone bleed?
Click to expand...
That's a different dude, dude.

I don't even know where to start on that.
 
Yes I have seen guitar pickups, pickup electromagnetically the headphone mix. Usually it noticeable when the amp is cranked.
It's not that uncommon. I usually ask the guitar player to put the headphone cord over his shoulder so it runs down his/her back.
It helps but doesn't always eliminate it. Keep the guitar cord away from the headphone cue box cables as well.
 
BradL8068 said:
Yes I have seen guitar pickups, pickup electromagnetically the headphone mix. Usually it noticeable when the amp is cranked.
It's not that uncommon. I usually ask the guitar player to put the headphone cord over his shoulder so it runs down his/her back.
It helps but doesn't always eliminate it. Keep the guitar cord away from the headphone cue box cables as well.
Click to expand...
Never experienced it myself, but I can see where it's possible. The shield on the headphone cable should keep its signal inside, but of course it can't be 100%. The pickups are basically just big antennae, of course. I'd expect humbuckers would reject this like anything else, with single coils much more susceptible.

Capacitive coupling can cause cross talk in a lot of situations, and of course distortion will help to make even the quietest of noise signals that much louder in comparison to the desired signal.
 
Although they're closed back, they don't seal very well if you have normal ears, so the leakage, compared with say, DT-100s is certainly enough to be heard. On ebay you can pick up drummer headphones. They are cheap, cover your ears, and although the feel like your head is in a clamp, and don't sound exceptional, they do keep sound in/out.
 
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