Headphone leakage problem!

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DAS19

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Hey guys I am going to record a 5 song ep and I want the songs to sound perfect! Or at least as perfect as I can possibly make them. So I know that I sometimes have a problem with my Cubase click track leaking into the mikes especially when doing acoustic guitars. So I was wondering what you guys do for this problem or if there is headphones that dont leak at all that I can buy that arent expensive?

Thanks for the help.
Dave
 
I can't help on the 'phones but you could EQ your click to cut treble and upper-mid to reduce leakage.
 
If you can't afford to turn the clicks down, or change the metronome to a different, lower-pitched sound, check out the MoreMe headphones. Totally acceptable for tracking. Keep a pretty tight seal around your ears and can be cranked a bit without leakage.

Of couse, if you're willing to spend over 50 bucks, I'd go with a pair of HD-280s or the Sony equivalent.
 
the Sennheiser HD280's are excellent at isolation for $100. however, with a really loud (and high pitched) click--think like the kind you'd need for a drummer, they will still bleed into the mics.

the best solution is either to turn it down or pitch it down.

another thing to keep in mind is that, depending on the instruments/arrangements/production of the song, a minor amount of click track bleed on the acoustic guitar track may not be noticible once the rest of the instruments are tracked and mixed.

and even so, there are still a lot of modern commercial releases where click is audible (for better or worse). YMMV.


cheers,
wade
 
as stated above... plus... make sure the phones are closed back in design... also known as full ear...
 
If you have Shure EC-2 in ear monitors, or some other brand/model of in ear monitors, they will work. I tried this the other day and there was no bleed at all. I sat in front of the mic with the click in my ear plenty loud, and recorded without playing the instrument, and I couldn't hear the click at all on playback.

You'll like them too for general listening to an iPod or portable music player in noisy places. It knocks out a lot of outside noise and the sound is very clear--maybe not as much bass as regular phones.

The only drawback is you have to clean your ears. :D
 
I've seen a few people mention using some cheap in ear earphones and then put a set of closed backs(with no audio obviously)over them to help keep sound from bleeding thru. Seems like it might work.
 
I like rcanes inear monitors idea ive seen them and they seem like thats more of the solution although it seems weird to use ear headphones when tracking. Maybe ill try it.

JonnyC ive tried your way and although it probably does work it just isnt what im looking for.
 
You could also put on a wool cap over the phones to get a tighter seal.
 
I'm used to the in ear phones from playing with them live. When the sound is right in your ear, it doesn't have to be very loud either. Once you get used to them, I think you'll really like them. They do take a little getting used to and you'll need to do some experimenting to get the right sized insert on them to fit correctly in your ear so they seal up like they're supposed to.
 
A cool trick I picked up from somewhere or someone:

Have the mono click track sent as a stereo feed to the headphones, making sure you phase-invert one side of the signal. That way the leaked click waveform is partly-cancelled out when it reaches the mic. It makes the click seem wider and actually easier to listen to in the headphones (despite my ears being easily disturbed by listening to out-of-phase audio, for some reason it doesn't matter in this case... I guess because they are short percussive sounds rather than a lengthy sound).

Of course it won't completely cancel the leakage, but I find it makes it up to half as loud, depending on the angles between the headphones and the mic...

That trick combined with all the usual methods (roll off the highs, use decent headphones etc) makes the problem a lot smaller
 
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