eq'ing on monitors vs headphones

hi i understand how monitors are in most cases superior to headphones for stereo image, panning, levels..but regarding eq'ing why aren't headphones superior? good studio headphones usually have a veryy flat frequency response, whereas on monitors the response is skewed by the room, causing all kinds of dips and peaks. I know the more treated the room the better the response but even very heavily treated professional rooms usually have dips and peaks within 5-10db window. So how can i trust eqing on my monitors more than headphones when the response is not nearly as flat?
 
There are some pitfalls...though just like mixing on bad monitors in a bad room "could" work *IF* you really learn how to do it...so can working with headphones, but generally speaking, decent monitors in a decent room will potentially do a better job across many playback systems.

Also...you should not separate Mixing from EQ'ing.
IOW...you don't want to pan and set your levels with monitors...but then start EQ'ing with headphones...or vice-versa.
Pick one...stick with it. You can check with the other...but don't split it up and constantly bounce between the two....you will be chasing your tail.


Here...read this:

Mixing On Headphones
 
There are some pitfalls...though just like mixing on bad monitors in a bad room "could" work *IF* you really learn how to do it...so can working with headphones, but generally speaking, decent monitors in a decent room will potentially do a better job across many playback systems.

Also...you should not separate Mixing from EQ'ing.
IOW...you don't want to pan and set your levels with monitors...but then start EQ'ing with headphones...or vice-versa.
Pick one...stick with it. You can check with the other...but don't split it up and constantly bounce between the two....you will be chasing your tail.


Here...read this:

Mixing On Headphones

thanks, ill try to stick to one. But dont you agree that in most cases one can hear and eq more accurately on headphones? i mean i trust what i hear and if i do say a sine sweep on my good monitors in my pretty well treated room i notice the unflat response, esp the peaks jump out which means i am likely over cutting/boosting because of my room. Than i do a sine sweep on headphones i hear flat, no dipping not peaks. I understand other aspects of mixing just as important but i want my eq work to be as accurate as possible, from what i describe arent headphones more trustworthy for that aspect?
 
thanks, ill try to stick to one. But dont you agree that in most cases one can hear and eq more accurately on headphones?

I think it's deceptive because the 'phones are on your ears, and they isolate your hearing to mono-per-ear.
If your monitors and room are working hard against you...then I can see where you would feel the headphones are more true...but because you don't get the full left/right blend of the sound coming from two speakers to both ears...'phones can be tricky and deceptive.
 
You can go to pretty crazy extremes on cans and still sound "fine" -- Extremes that won't work on speakers.

Pretty nasty sounding stuff can sound perfectly reasonable on headphones. It doesn't usually work the other way around.
 
You can go to pretty crazy extremes on cans and still sound "fine" -- Extremes that won't work on speakers.

Pretty nasty sounding stuff can sound perfectly reasonable on headphones. It doesn't usually work the other way around.

great point! yes i do often notice this

Miroslav, I'm just finding out about some new software that helps with that such as waves nx. Looks like it works similar to the crossfeed function on spl phonitor. Anyone have experience with such software?
 
A good many years ago I recall reading an academic paper about how there are psycho-acoustic differences in the way the human brain processes sound close up to the ear (i.e. headphones or earbuds) compared to something more distant--even if the signals are EQ'd to be identical. I just went Googling and couldn't find it (or couldn't find the right search term) but that could be a big part of it.
 
As was said before, eqing and mixing are not separate processes. Since you are eqing something to fit into the mix, when you are listening to a skewed mix, (like with headphones) your eqing will be skewed.
 
Miroslav, I'm just finding out about some new software that helps with that such as waves nx. Looks like it works similar to the crossfeed function on spl phonitor. Anyone have experience with such software?

Download the demo and see how it is...but realize that all you are getting with that is yet another layer of "simulation" and acoustic "manipulation" to achieve a pseudo-reality of a real room.
I mean...there's a camera involved to track you head movements as though you are moving between real speakers...and probably a slew of algorithms constantly processing the audio that you are hearing in order to create that "reality".

TBH...I would rather just learn the anomalies of the headphones and work that way...but again, the demo is free to try, so it's your choice.
 
hi i understand how monitors are in most cases superior to headphones for stereo image, panning, levels..but regarding eq'ing why aren't headphones superior? good studio headphones usually have a veryy flat frequency response, whereas on monitors the response is skewed by the room, causing all kinds of dips and peaks. I know the more treated the room the better the response but even very heavily treated professional rooms usually have dips and peaks within 5-10db window. So how can i trust eqing on my monitors more than headphones when the response is not nearly as flat?

The answer is to mix with both, for the reasons each has its advantages. You should always preview the mix on a couple playback sources anyway. I think of my monitors (admittedly mediocre) as a really good/accurate playback source, but not the end-all-be-all.
 
Although it's not desireable, it IS possible to mix on headphones. The trick, as far as I'm concerned, isn't fancy EQ or software emulations but, rather, to teach yourself what things need to sound like on the headphones to be good elsewhere. Do a mix then take it and listen on as many other systems as you can--car stereo, you iPhone, hopefully 2 or 3 speaker based systems (this might cost a few bottles of wine at friends' houses. I even talked the landlord at my local English pub into letting me play things on his system. Take careful note of what you like/don't like about the mix heard elsewhere then go back and do another mix incorporating any changes you think necessary. Repeat the listening tests and keep doing it until you are happy with the mix in the outside world and know what it sounds like on your cans. Do some more mixes and test them the same way.

It can also be useful to listen to some of your favourite commercial recordings and pay careful attention to how they sound. You will eventually train your ears and brain how things need to sound on headphones to sound right elsewhere.

Note that even buying a new set of monitor speakers requires some "brain training". It just takes longer (at least for me) to adapt to a new set of headphones.
 
The trick, as far as I'm concerned, isn't fancy EQ or software emulations but, rather, to teach yourself what things need to sound like on the headphones to be good elsewhere.

That's exactly true from my experience.

I refuse to buy monitors until I mix in a good, treated room. Until then, I'm convinced good (open back/flat response) headphones are a better option and just spend a huge amount of time to get to know them well. I think the people selling gear want us to believe we need monitors. In a real studio with a great room they're probably great, but home recorders in bad rooms don't need monitors.

That being said, if I ever move into a great space, I do plan to get nice monitors. In that case, they're great.
 
It's not a sales pitch. Monitors will do things that headphones wont. Having the left and right channels isolated on each ear changes things in the stereo field, so it can be hard for headphone mixes to translate to speakers.
 
It's not a sales pitch. Monitors will do things that headphones wont. Having the left and right channels isolated on each ear changes things in the stereo field, so it can be hard for headphone mixes to translate to speakers.

I have hollow walls and record in the corner of a room where I can't even fit monitors. If I did fit them, one would be facing against a glass window and the other tucked in corner of a hollow wall facing out into a huge living room. Do you think monitors would be better than headphones in that setup?

For some people headphones will give them more accuracy.

If I move to a nice space I'll get monitors, though. I realize they have benefits. The biggest to me would be less ear fatigue/breaks.
 
Yeah...I really don't get why always on home rec forums there is so much disbelief associated with gear upgrades, and/or that it's primarily a myth driven by the sales people, and not a real necessity.

I use to mix on headphones in my younger, novice days....never gave it a second thought, it seemed like what's the dif...???

Then when I moved up to monitors, I realized the dif...but I also went cheap on the monitors...which like most home rec newbs do mainly because of low budgets. It's funny how when you don't have cash to spend, you convince yourself the cheapest alternatives are good enough, and I certainly did that. :D

Then when I finally decided to get serious about my studio...I dropped the serious cash, and I certainly saw a lot of improvement, and the more I worked with the gear, I could hear better results. I think the stuff I've been working on the last year or so is without a dounbt the best I've ever done...and I'm talking about the audio quality.

Anyway...I'm certainly not in some "great room"...it's just a space that became my studio...with some basic acoustic treatment, and the application of things I've learned.
I find now that getting a decent mix going is no longer an involved process...the gear is all working together as it should, and it all comes down to what goes in during tracking...not what I can manipulate during mixing.
I mean...if you can play commercial music on a set of speakers in your recording space...and it sounds real good, as it should...then you should be able to get decent mixes in the same space.
 
No. If you are stuck in the corner of a small glass room with trucks going by and jet airplanes landing in your front yard and sleeping babies ,etc... headphones would be a better idea. But that doesn't make the idea that mixing on monitors is better a marketing ploy based on nothing.

Hell, you don't even need that nice of a space, just one that isn't screwing you in every way imaginable, like yours.
 
Yeah...I really don't get why always on home rec forums there is so much disbelief associated with gear upgrades, and/or that it's primarily a myth driven by the sales people, and not a real necessity.
Because people always want to believe they can buck the system with their beginner gear and inexperience. They simply don't know what they don't know, but they think they know it all.

I use to mix on headphones in my younger, novice days....never gave it a second thought, it seemed like what's the dif...???

Then when I moved up to monitors, I realized the dif...but I also went cheap on the monitors...which like most home rec newbs do mainly because of low budgets. It's funny how when you don't have cash to spend, you convince yourself the cheapest alternatives are good enough, and I certainly did that. :D

Then when I finally decided to get serious about my studio...I dropped the serious cash, and I certainly saw a lot of improvement, and the more I worked with the gear, I could hear better results. I think the stuff I've been working on the last year or so is without a dounbt the best I've ever done...and I'm talking about the audio quality.

Anyway...I'm certainly not in some "great room"...it's just a space that became my studio...with some basic acoustic treatment, and the application of things I've learned.
I find now that getting a decent mix going is no longer an involved process...the gear is all working together as it should, and it all comes down to what goes in during tracking...not what I can manipulate during mixing.
I mean...if you can play commercial music on a set of speakers in your recording space...and it sounds real good, as it should...then you should be able to get decent mixes in the same space.

Truthbomb.

Well said. :thumbs up:
 
No. If you are stuck in the corner of a small glass room with trucks going by and jet airplanes landing in your front yard and sleeping babies ,etc... headphones would be a better idea. But that doesn't make the idea that mixing on monitors is better a marketing ploy based on nothing.

Hell, you don't even need that nice of a space, just one that isn't screwing you in every way imaginable, like yours.

Exactly, and no joke, the neighbor just had a baby! So for my situations headphones are better. I wish the companies selling gear to people would let them know that their room matters. That seems to be left out...that maybe just maybe headphones are a better monitor for them.

I'm not loaded or anything, but I have the money to spend on monitors, Miroslav, so you're back to wild assumptions you make a lot. but I don't b.c they'd sound bad in this corner.
And I'm not sure what the problem is b/c I said if I had a good room I'd buy monitors.

The point is that in a bad room headphones are the better option, and that might be true for many people who are blowing money on monitors that will be more inaccurate. They should be made aware of that.
 
The companies that are selling gear are selling gear, not rooms.

It's your job to figure out what you need in your situation. In my last studio, one of my sets of monitors was a pair of Urei 813c's. I had them soffit mounted, because that's how they were meant to work and they were awesome. In the room I'm mixing in now, they wouldn't work at all. (partially because they were so big that they would take up half the room) It isn't because the speaker suck, it's because the space won't support them working correctly. I don't expect the people from Urei to inform me of that.
 
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