headphones for mixing

  • Thread starter Thread starter dolecekq
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guitarded2 said:
if you do some research you will find that some professionals do use headphones for mixing.
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I don't need to do research, I know SOME (as in such a small percentage that it's not worth using as an example) mix with headphones, and I know that almost everyone uses headphones to check certain details in a mix, but that's not the same thing. The headphones we're talking about here are probably worth more than mine and your entire studios, alon with everything else they use. We're not talking about $100 headphones in an un-treated room with analyzers to to tell them what they can't hear.

Alright Im out its friday night
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Hope you had a good one. :)
 
I've spent many years and tons of money trying to mix on headphones. Living in apartments, being married, kid asleep down the hall, and all the other reasons people who mix on headphones have for doing it, forced me into it. I've tried them all from cheap to expensive no matter which way you slice it and dice it, it sucks.

The bass is too heavy in a final mix and dominates everything. Or the high end is so shrill with mid range that is almost non existent. It never comes out right. I've tried open back, semi open back, and closed back headphones. I've tried no eq, mild eq, and heavy eq. Some things worked better then others.

All in all I say get a decent pair of closed back, Like the Sennheiser HD 280's for tracking and editing. Then get yourself a small pair of monitors like some Alesis M1 320's and you'll be better off. The Sennheiser headphones are a nice jumping off point, if you've never bought headphones for recording before. The Alesis monitors aren't going to fool anybody into thinking you run a pro studio but, they will let you hear your stuff out loud for a small amount of money.

I've had both and as an entry level, get you going solution, that is what I would recommend. Thing is no matter what you buy, your going to have to learn to mix on it. I've owned KRK monitors that sounded nothing like my Mackie monitors, which sounded nothing like my Event monitors which all sounded different to some degree, if I moved them to another room. Even if both rooms were acoustically treated.

More to the point it doesn't really matter what you buy now. As matter of pure curiosity and desire to see if the grass really is greener on the other side you will eventually try other headphones and/or monitors anyway. Just buy what you can afford learn to do the best job you can with what you have and, when your ready try to buy something better then you did the last time.
 
Sennheiser HD 650s are pretty standard, a little bass light. I have some Sennheiser HD 595s and I found them to be bass light too. The mids and highs sounded very nice though. I am using AKG K240s (they sound fantastic for $80), but I mix about 50/50 headphones/monitors.
 
I would stick with monitors from past experience, don't make the same mistake I did :( smh.
 
I think it depends on what genre you are mixing. If you need to mix a lot of bass sounds, I think it's difficult to find headphones upto the job.
 
I use headphones all the time

Look, obviously monitors will give you the best mix, but if you think about it, where do people listen to music now-a-days? on a home stereo system? yeah, right. lol. its on crap ipod headphones or in their car. Especially if your market is 13-30 year old people.

Stereo imaging sounds way different on headphones than on monitors. If you are working on pseudo-3D imaging as well, headphones is the way to go. you can hear the ups/downs and lefts/rights better.

You should always cross-reference on multiple listening systems to make sure things translate well. Also, you will have to cross reference your tunes on bigger speakers, no matter what headphones you use. Therefore, don't spend more than like 100-150 bucks on a pair of phones... you'll still have to cross reference, even if you paid for 300 dollar 'phones. Also, headphones are great for portable mixing. Sometimes if I'm traveling and I get bored I'll just whip out the headphones and tweak a mix or get some synthetic stuff together.

I use audio-technica ATH-M45, got em for like 100 bucks at guitar center, works like a charm. Frequency range of 8hz-27khz. Very balanced. I found I over-do the treble on em, but I think thats cause so many listening devices are treble biased... my ear wasn't trained to listen to flat mixes until recently. You just need to get to know your headphones.

You really want a great test of your mix tho? Plug in those crappy ipod headphones. If it still sounds good, you probably did it right.
Just... don't mix on them :D
 
deadtolove said:
I've spent many years and tons of money trying to mix on headphones. Living in apartments, being married, kid asleep down the hall, and all the other reasons people who mix on headphones have for doing it, forced me into it. I've tried them all from cheap to expensive no matter which way you slice it and dice it, it sucks.

The bass is too heavy in a final mix and dominates everything. Or the high end is so shrill with mid range that is almost non existent. It never comes out right. I've tried open back, semi open back, and closed back headphones. I've tried no eq, mild eq, and heavy eq. Some things worked better then others.
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^^^^This^^^^ sums up my experiences and feelings towards mixing on headphones. I mixed on headphones for the same reason that many HR's decide to mix on headphones for about 4 years and my mixes.....well.... they didn't totally suck, but i knew they could be better and the amount of extra tweaking and referencing i had to do made the process a real ball ache!

When i finally sorted out my home "studio" space i instantly grabbed my hi-fi speakers from down stairs and started using those to mix on. the difference; HUGE!. A well treated room with average hi-fi speakers helped me create better mixes than headphones ever had. Since then, i've invested in some monitors and have never looked back.

I still turn to my headphones every now and then but more and more it's purely to check how the mixes translate onto headphones
 
I've mixed with headphones for about three years now. Started out learning what worked...and what didn't simply by mixing down my music, burning to disc and listening on various systems and speaker types. Came down to a set of Pioneer's with 5 hz to 30,000 hz freq. response. They have very good built in speakers and are fairly comfortable to wear. I think it's the Freq. response and good speakers ion the cans that make them good though. Any fitting that should work well. You do have some proximity effect, but like I said, trial and error with a few mixes, listening on different speaker systems, you'll get it! Even on Monitors, as Mr. Katz says, you have to listen to it on other systems to get the final tweaks!
 
What makes them work for you is the experimenting you did to see how things have to sound in the headphones to sound good on other systems. Frankly, you can mix on almost anything if you take the time to "learn" your system.

However, sorry to say the a frequency response of 5Hz to 30,000Hz is totally pointless (and probably a lie unless it includes a modifier like "+/- 3dB". Nobody, except maybe a bat, can hear above 20,000Hz and you'd need very specialist gear to even measure up to 30kHz--most measurement mics stop at 20kHz or just above. Similarly, take your finger and tap your desk five times as fast as you can. If you're like me, you can likely get five taps in a second--that's 5Hz. If you can hear the individual peaks, it's not exactly useful in music making!

The (surmountable) problems in mixing on headphones are much more to do with the physics of sound and the physiology of the ear than the frequency response of your cans. The ear simply reacts differently to sounds input directly to the ear that to sounds travelling through open air. There are lots of scientific articles about how/why this works--but the "ear training" you did was exactly the right thing.
 
Head phones are alright for mixing but when it comes to the finnishing touch always turn on the monitors. and if you have the money get a SUB also for all you low end frequnceys. the sub makes the biggest difference if your doing pop,rap,hip hop or anything that could be listend to in the club or a banging stereo.
 
What is your opion on the DR.DRE BEATS STUDIO HEADPHONE MONITORS. have you used them ? feedback would be great
 
Like most headphones -- Fun to listen on, crap to work with (slightly extra crappy in that specific case - They're quite hyped).
 
Headphones for mixing

Hi all,

In my opinion, this ia a matter of money vs quality, and also a matter of acoustics.
1. If you have cheap monitors in a room without any acoustic treatment you'll not have any good results. You'll need to do "trial and error" for many times until you'll have a good mix, in order to compensate the bad reflections in the room.
2. If you have expensive monitors in a room without any acoustic treatment you'll have almost the same result.
3. If you cannot spend on acoustic treatment, you can buy a pair of JBL monitors with automatic room compensation, but those are $1,600 a pair.
4. If you cannot afford good monitors and do some acoustic treatment, there is another option.
Some good headphones used with a plug-in on master-bus that will simulate pretty well a room and speaker placements.
This kind of plug-in will move the soundstage from an indeterminate location inside your head (with headphones) towards a clearly defined location in front of you, and the sound will be not so bright, so you don't have to push the bass in the mix to hear it. I used to work sometimes with a Beyerdymanic 990 Pro open headphones, with a plug-in called RedLine Monitor, and a good headphones amplifier, and I was amazed about the quality of my mixes.
Of course, it's not like having expensive monitors in a good room, but it will decrease the number of "trial and error" until you'll have a good mix.

I hope this will help.
Mike
 
Give the Audio Technica AT-M50 a try and thank me later. One of most accurate headphones for mixing and doesn't cost a fortune.
 
It's worth noting that, no matter how accurate the headphone, the physical and psychoacoustic differences between sound travelling through the air vs. a sound source press up against your ear always means you have to "learn" the sound and how to mix via 'phones.
 
Bobbsy said:
It's worth noting that, no matter how accurate the headphone, the physical and psychoacoustic differences between sound travelling through the air vs. a sound source press up against your ear always means you have to "learn" the sound and how to mix via 'phones.
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Exactly.

What you also miss out on is the Left Hand signal appearing slightly delayed at your right ear and vice versa.
 
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