best way to mix using headphones.

[gilwe]

I don't have any studio monitors so what I was doing so far is compensating between the headphones (sony MDR-CD850) and my home audio system (Old Kenwood amp, Mission 702 speakers).

My audio system is considered very "hi-fi", well music just sounds very "real" on them, but I still cannot get any good mix when I use them as reference. For example, the last mix I've done sounded "acceptalbe" on the audio system, but on the headophones the vocals are too loud, so I remixed agained, this time using only the headphones, and than checked on the audio system and realized the vocals were too low and there was too much low bass fequencies from the drums and bass,

Well, if I'll just pickup up a new set of headphones, which are not the best level but only deliver flat sound, how good can the mix get ? or do I not have any choise but to have a pair of good studio monitors ?

Thanks

 

[Sennheiser]

You answered your own question right at the end.

 

[barefoot]

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say a Kenwood/Mission combo is "very hi-fi", but you’re certainly better off mixing with that system than with headphones.

When I first got into home recording a couple years ago I thought maybe I could get headphones to work for me. I even design and build studio monitors, but just the fact that everyone was saying it couldn’t be done made me determined to convince them wrong. Can you guess what? They were right.

I tried everything – mixing in mono, diffuse field equalization, custom equalization using A/B comparisons, auralizer plugins, etc. I even went so far as creating my own HRTF (head related transfer function) using Sonic Foundry’s Acoustic Mirror. Nothing works.

I spend my train commute to and from work composing electronica with a laptop and headphones. The headphones are fine for working out rhythms and melody, but I can’t trust the sound timbres at all. Even after doing this laptop headphone thing for six months now, all sound selections and mixing levels ultimately have to wait until I get home to my monitors. I haven’t found any good way to “compensate”. Each mix is different and headphones just don’t translate at all.

Hope this saves you from any fruitless experimentation.

barefoot

 

[SLuiCe]

no doubt.

 

[The Green Hornet]

As Bruce would say, "...Mix with monitors not cans...."

The GREEN HORNET says the same thing.

However, if you finagle, fondel, finesse, and fool around long enough, you might get a decent mix using cans -- but, the sound you hear in the cans won't be what you get in the mix....but, why not experiment and prove it might be done. [I doubt it though.]

Green Hornet