Death not an option - mix in headphones or a crappy room?

Dzilla,

This is the time to use multiple methods and spaces. Don't try to optimize for any of them until you've listened, and taken detailed notes, on at least 4 playback scenarios: the room with the volume turned way down, the headphones, a consumer system like perhaps an ipod docking station or the CD player you use for general listening in the living room, and finally, the car.

That last one is my true litmus. I know most people will be listening to our music in the car, so if it doesn't sound good there, it fails.

Compare the notes from all 4 sessions and note where you have the same comments. Make corrections to those first. Then start the process all over again.

This is obviously not ideal, but without a good room on good monitors, this is the best bet for the best mix in my opinion.

Cheers!

Jake
 
Everyone, thanks for all the info and advice. I am starting to look into some studio monitors to add another (primary) way to monitor mixes.

Jake, I actually do a lot of that already - listening to my mixes on my cans, on my somewhat crappy computer speakers (a 2.1 system), on my home theater/stereo system and in my car. Fortunately, I have a USB port in my car, and I can temporarily run cables to my home theater/stereo from my computer so I am not wasting a lot of time burning CDs.
 
Stupid theory I know, but music is generally of poor quality anyway. We record in high formats, and then dumb it down to mp3, then the VAST majority of listeners are listening to apple, or cheap stock phones or car stereos. the theory is that if you mix in an acousticly flat room then everything will sound good everywhere, couldnt you do the exact opposite?

stupid points aside, if your wondering about phones have you seen that new focusrite thing? that simulates different monitors and rooms through phones, From what Ive read, it aint a replacement for the good mon's and room, but does the job for what it is.
 
Auralex Acoustics - Product Application Support

I'm doing this now. I've had some room issues, but I'm in the process of making a modification to the room (adding bookshelves) that is going to affect the acoustics. So when you submit your room for analysis, make sure you add those things in so they can spec the room properly. You might only need a set of bass traps. If you're going to do this, it will be worth the money.

Even that Focusrite thing requires a flat pair of cans. Good cans can be $$$.
 
I use both. I primarily use monitors but then double check with phones just to see how everything translates. If it sounds good through my monitors AND my phones...I say it's good to go then. Thats just me though, lol.
 
I'm amazed at everyone saying mix in the crap room. I'd always choose the headphones!

haha! I'm genuinely amazed. I do almost exactly opposite to you guys, I generally mix on headphones first and double check imaging etc on speakers. Maybe half and half in my studio. How interesting!

See in my humble opinion there is always danger when mixing in a crap room that the natural acoustics of the space set up standing waves. By their inherent nature, these interfere with the sound of your mix, they can cancel out or reinforce specific frequencies without you even realising it. If you happen to miss it, then when the mix is played back in a different room and the frequency that just wasn't present in the mix you did at home might not be cancelled out by a standing wave in the new room (as it would have to be identical), and all of a sudden your track sounds really boomy.

So you see what I mean? I just thought headphones were getting slated and had to stick up for them.
But then I'm from a location recording background so have mixed and recorded in more than my fair share of different crap rooms, which is why even in rooms that I know well, I still at least reference every single mix on my trusty pair of HD 650's because I know them absolutely inside out. Pop, classical, rock, funk, soul, opera, chamber music, it makes no difference. I know that there is nothing to interfere between the sound coming out the drive units and my ears, because they are millimetres apart, and they are of course consistent every single time.

Of course, it's not such a problem in a proper mix suite where it's acoustically treated etc. But, headphones mean you can move up and down the mixing desk without the image changing location relative to your ears, which can make for some tricky panning. HD600's and HD650's are industry standard at places like Abbey Road Studios, and they cost about £250 new. A pair of speakers that actually deliver that level of quality can cost three-four times that.

just thought someone should mention the other side of the coin.
 
If you mix with headphones, you're still in a crappy room! just kidding. But seriously, I would probably mix with headphones over a bad room. You have to take phase issues, response, and the response at different levels (because MUSIC is DYNAMIC). The room I mix in, and my monitors are the most important part of my mixing room.
 
Two things: Mix with monitors. Check the mix on 'phones if you like. Listen to it everywhere, and you'll start to figure out what is wrong with your room (i.e: None of my mixes have any bass, but when I listen in the car, I can't hear anything except bass). After a while, you can learn the room and the speakers.

Also: I <3 RAMI :D

In the meantime, treat your room. Your ears will thank you.
 
Supercreep said:
After a while, you can learn the room and the speakers.
Click to expand...

This is of course true, and is excellent advice, however the issue I mean is that there is the possibility of there just not being any of (or too much of) any particular frequency because of the acoustics of the room. So, it's very hard to distinguish between a cancelled out frequency, and one that was never there to start with. That's not something you can learn reliably. The only solution really is to move around the room to check what's being cancelled out or reinforced in other places and compensate.
That does make your job harder though, because you not only have to learn the room at your mix position (which takes long enough anyway) but also the rest of the room, and kind of anticipate a balance between the two.

Do you see what I mean though?

That's why I mix mostly on headphones .. no not exclusively that wouldn't be ideal at all either.
Offer me a full-range pair of speakers in a neutral room any day of the week and I'll bite your hand off, but until I can afford the thousands myself for that to be reliable, accurate and consistent...... ummmmm........ any donations?
 
cobaltaudio said:
This is of course true, and is excellent advice, however the issue I mean is that there is the possibility of there just not being any of (or too much of) any particular frequency because of the acoustics of the room. So, it's very hard to distinguish between a cancelled out frequency, and one that was never there to start with. That's not something you can learn reliably.
Click to expand...

Sure it is. You listen in other environments, and note the problems with the mix. There will inevitably be problems, because you will have tried to compensate for the room's acoustics. Listening in another environment - I prefer my car - you can hear the problems in the mix, and determine what you will do to address them. After a while, you already "know" what you need to do for your mixes to translate, even if you can't hear the problems in your room.
 
There are advantages and disadvantages to either option, as some have mentioned. The kick-ass thing about headphones is that, for the most part, they'll sound exactly the same no matter which way you turn your head, which room you're in, etc. The reliable repeatability and inherent portability are two important factors, as well as the fact that a decently-isolated closed pair of headphones will allow you to mix both quieter and louder than speakers might allow in a residential situation, and at any time, due to the super-low noise floor (compared to most apartments, houses with kids, etc.

The disadvantages, however, are really impossible to ignore. The biggest issues are the warped sound stage and difference in detail and ambience levels that come with having foam-surrounded speakers bolted right next to your ears. The reality is that most people listen to music using speakers, either at home, or in their cars, or between bands at a concert, or on a "boom box" in their kitchen, or whatever, and these speakers are often in a noisy environment with its own built-in ambience, and are non-optimally placed. Using reference monitors in a room will allow you to listen to and make critical decisions about your mix in an environment much more similar to how your audience will be listening 90% of the time. The reason PROPER room treatments matter, is because if you mix using reference monitors in a non-treated or poorly-treated room, you'll end up listening in an environment that's not representative in a general enough way, and so you run the very real risk of making a record that sounds great at home and on headphones, but inconsistent (at best) or shitty (likely) in many other environments.

As for room treatment, the simplest things to address & understand are also (conveniently) the most important. As there are a shit-whack of fantastic resources out there giving you the specifics of room treatment, I'll give you an incredibly over-simplified version that anyone can understand:

#1 - Just like reference monitors or headphones, a flat response (no super-quiet bass or super-loud mids or anything) is generally what you're going for.

#2 -Small rooms (bedrooms, dens, etc.) sound like shit because the sound waves coming out of your speakers are bouncing all over the fucking place and knocking into each other, canceling each other out or combining into a vortex of sound-vomit. Think of it like two kids bouncing around in a small pool, and your audio is the surface of the water. This is particularly a problem at low frequencies, which is why most home recordings have a shitty/odd low end.

#3 - To fix the low-end, put bass traps into essentially every corner you can fit them in. It's difficult-to-impossible to put too many bass traps into corners (meaning: where your walls meet, where your ceiling meets your walls, where your floor meets your walls, and where all three meet). Even two or three is WAY better than none.

#4 - High-frequency sound bounces all over shit. Want to have a fun experiment that will illustrate this perfectly? Get a ~1'x1' mirror or a piece of glass (CAREFUL!), turn some music on, and move the mirror/glass around near your ear. Crazy stuff.

#5 - When high-frequency sound is bouncing all over shit (y'know, like your walls and ceiling), your imaging gets all shitty and bad. Get that mirror from #4 and have a friend move it along the walls between you and your speakers. Wherever you see your speakers in the mirror, that's where you'll want to put some mid/high-frequency absorbers up. Good foam works pretty well, actual rigid fiberglass traps work better. Make 6 of 'em and put them on either wall, and on the ceiling, and on the wall behind you, in the spots where you could see your speakers in the mirror.


This will get you 75% there, and in a WAY better environment for mixing, and it shouldn't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks.

Friendly Tip: Don't put moving blankets, egg cartons, or too much foam all over the walls, 'cause you'll end up with a dead-sounding room at best, and a smeary confusing turd mess at worse (likely).


Hope this helps!
 
Try mixing in both...see which one gives you better initial results then use the other one to check your mixes against...
 
The other interesting thing that might be worth mentioning is that a lot of the time, people will listen will listen to your music on headphones, like the ipod ones. Not only that, but at a much lower bit-rate. So, the practice of mixing on headphones in the first instance is becoming more popular.
AND also, listening on things like DAB radios where the speakers are sometimes so close together that you might as well be listening in mono. But who mixes in mono? Not very many people.

Just thought it was interesting to point out the different ways that all your hard work that you put into a beautiful stereo mix can be disrupted by the end user. Ungrateful sods.
 
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