Recording with headphones over only 1 ear

C

Chris K

New member
Whenever I'm laying down vocals or sometimes even when recording instruments, I like to wear my headphones with one side open (as in just resting on my head, behind my ear). I can hear myself so much better that way and frankly can't imagine doing it any other way. Singing with headphones on both ears sounds muffled and makes me completely lose control of my voice. Am I just weird, or is this common practice?
 
Its not uncommon - but if you have your monitoring set up correctly, you should hear yoru voice in the headphones as well as the tracks you are singing to.
 
It's pretty common. Some people just have an easier time that way, myself included. If you have a vocalist using both sides of the cans, it's important to get the monitor level of the vocal to sit well with the rest of the tracks. By bringing the vocal level slightly forward or backward in the mix you can adjust the pitch of the vocalist sometimes. Putting a bit of reverb on the vocals can help too.

The one ear method works well for me, as well as the no headphones method.
 
I was watching a video of a tracking session of a small chamber group and the musicians were all given single earpiece headphones. So it's not weird cuz they actually make phones specifically to do one ear monitoring
 
I use IEMs on stage with my bass, and I have real issues with tuning with them. Pull one out and frequency accuracy comes back. It means I cannot play my double bass with IEMs. I just play out of tune. With frets, it's doable if I play the notes and ignore what I hear. I've been told that I can relearn accuracy of pitch with practice, but it really IS a struggle. Others though, seem to be able to cope really well. probably a brain thing!
 
Chris K said:
Whenever I'm laying down vocals or sometimes even when recording instruments, I like to wear my headphones with one side open
Click to expand...

I do this too, all the time. Instead of stopping the flow to adjust the monitor mix, which might take 15 minutes, maybe, I just pull one ear open slowly until the balance is where I want it.
 
1-ear monitoring all the way!

I really prefer the isolation of 1 ear hearing the other tracks, and the other hearing the instrument I'm playing. Then you can adjust each as you need to.

The vocalist in my glam band prefers to have the mix all in headphones, and it's a huge pain since my interface plays the computer's level back way louder than the inputs.
 
Um I will just throw out there a vote for two ear monitoring for drums to protect ears. With closed back phones a drummer can play as loud or quiet as needed and yet have a reasonable volume in the cans. For vocals and melodic instruments one ear is fine.
 
I like to record with one shoe off. ;)

You can also try semi-open back headphones for a more natural sound with both ears cupped...BUT...if you monitor real loud, and your mic gain is up, you could get some headphone bleed into the mic, but again, things would have to be cranked up. I've used semi-open a lot of times for vocal recording, and never had any headphone bleed issues that mattered...but I've had some people who needed ridiculously loud levels when they sang...so for them I had to go with closed headphones.

I think also a lot of it is simply getting use to the difference in how things sound with headphones on. Some folks just never get too comfortable with them.
 
I friggen hate headphones with a passion...

But a necessary need when isolating or even recording in time. I find even guitar players that like to be in the middle of the control room (10 to 15 feet back) have enough delay that they are not on top of their performance. And who wants to cuddle next to me right in front of the monitors? Guessing only a few. lol
 
I love the Vic Firth cans for drum tracking. Fairly shitty sounding headphones, but they're part headphones and part hearing protection. You don't need the monitor mix to be screaming loud and the bleed is pretty much nil.

I've never used in-ear monitors. Might be interesting to see what that's all about. A friend of mine started using them for live shows recently and says they're great. I guess it would depend a lot on the quality of the monitor mix. (They use a splitter and a separate mixer for the in-ears.) Not sure if that would be the same as headphones.
 
The only reason (other than drums) IMHO to use headphones is feedback iso and/or to hear everything but yourself playing/singing with the added benefit of a singer hearing a with fx version of themselves if it improves the performance. When recording myself I use one in ear or can or if doing vocal, and occasionally, acoustic guitar(just to keep track of not moving out of the sweet spot when getting into playing). Bass, guitars, keyboards, etc - no phones usually. Of course these are just general usage, when needed I do whatever. Note: this is for recording track at a time, for recording multiple musicians it's different as each person is trying to hear themselves as well as every one else obviously.
 
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