He knows his stuff...but I find it funny that you can dig up videos of him reviewing very high-end studio monitors (not the $300 dollar ones he mentions in this video), and he never says in those videos that it might be foolish to buy the expensive monitors, and that headphones will be a better option
I think this is actually key to where he is coming from. The video is called something like "What should a studio cost ?" and he recognizes {I noticed Graham Thingummy in the recording revolution say the same thing} that the game has changed from the old days. It has changed big time. Whereas there was once a time when it was like a voice from Heaven to know someone who could show you the rudiments of recording/mixing etc, that is simply not the case anymore. There is such an abundance of information and more importantly, visual tutorial, that so many people {for good and/or ill} record in their front rooms, kitchens and bedrooms and stick their stuff out there and it gets lapped up. It forced record companies to change their approach, {people like Bowie and Townshend were among the first few to catch onto this} and now it is forcing the engine room {the studio} to mightily re~evaluate. And that means that many of the old sacred cows are being felled and turned to burger meat.
Not mixing on phones is one of them.
There was once a time when close miking a bass drum lost people their jobs at EMI. Now one might lose it if they don't close mic a bass drum.
What Warren is doing in the vid is showing people the options that are available. He never calls headphones the better option ~ he simply doesn't refer to it as the inferior option and in doing so, has to make the statement that more and more people are using them. When he says they are the future, he's not saying monitors are dead. It's just that it's been all monitors up to now {for the most part} and he thinks phones are going to be playing as big a role. It is no coincidence that he speaks of both monitors
and headphones. He doesn't dismiss one or the other, he dosn't trump one over the other. He includes both for the job and makes it clear that the job can be done with both.
it seems to be the thing by pros to always push for something new.
Because they are at the coal face more than most of us. ∴ some of them are in a position to get enthused about new things. In the hallowed 60s, it wasn't only the artists that were young and innovative in music ~ it was equally the engineers. The older set either adapted or moved on out.
I wouldn't be surprised that after everyone switches to headphones...20 years later they will bring back monitors again,
Well, that's the human way isn't it. We're extremists in many of our endeavours. Something new comes along and many of us don't incorporate
with what's already around ~ we jettison the old. Then sometimes, a while later, back comes the old. I think there'll be a balancing out. But think of the things, even from our childhoods that we grew up with but which are now hardly around or have become hard to find or niche {= expensive}.
For me...especially now that I'm building a big, proper studio space...it would be a total contradiction to go to headphones (if I even liked using them, which I don't).
The argument is not being framed as a ditching of monitors, rather, that headphones too can do the job. Some will use only monitors, some will discover headphones can do the job so they'll use those, some will take on both.
I don't think it would be a contradiction for you to go to headphones because you're going to have a great tracking and mixing space so the sky of preference is the limit for you.
You don't like headphones for mixing and all that demonstrates to me is that you are human and are part of the great diversity that exists among human beings. I find I have less and less problem as I get older, with the notion that there are many different ways of achieving the same result. Yeah, some are harder, some are well easier. But that's not the issue.
I'm a case in point. For me, I loved my 8 track cassette portastudio but after 12 years it just became too limiting for me. I moved to a 12 track digital standalone and it is the perfect halfway house for me. It's like a computer portastudio ! I don't want to use a computer because I love my Akai. But I love the music that's made on a variety of craft. As far as I'm concerned, we all co~exist. I'm where I want to be at the minute. That might change and I sometimes struggle with the new moves that crop up every now and then in music. But then I just remember that most new things are where what I've loved were at once. I don't have to go with them.
especially if "everyone" is moving to them, which I know will drive a lot of the newbs and novices to follow the crowd....but I certainly wouldn't use them just because of that.
Sure, some will just follow the crowd. But I don't care about that because it's part of their learning curve. There's something more important than that for me; many newbs will see headphone mixing as an option and will learn how to utilize that option, pretty much the same way that kids from the 80s onwards did so with computers and mobile phones. The level of computing that was taught to 14-17 year olds in the late 80s is now the level that the 7-8s are handling.
There is greater ear fatigue and it comes much faster than with monitors...plus, you can hurt your ears even more, because of the closed-in environment. You can find yourself turning up the volume more and more...same thing with monitors...but with headphones, the sound is basically injected right in your ears.
True. However, as amplification got better in the 60s and 70s {ie louder} we saw the onset of the near deaf rocker. We also saw as a response, a major push to educate people about aural health. Like so many other things that just weren't focused on in a big way when I was younger, ear protection is something many of us are so aware of now.
Believe me...I use to use them all the time...and I would get up after a 6-8 hour session and my head would be pounding and it would take a couple of hours for my hearing to seem normal after taking them off...regardless of the headphone quality.
Agreed, same here. It could be mind numbing when friends and I would be recording vocals for 4 and 5 hours. We'd go home feeling ill.
But that doesn't mean one can't mix on them.
I'm not going to drop $500-$600 for headphones that I may rarely use.
But you might if you'd use them !
I just wish I had $600 !!