IR and convolution on cans - how far we are from this?

[miroslav]

Dude, I mix some bands from the town I live in, they are happy with what I can get and I'm happy with them being happy. Thats what its all about in the end.

I cant make a living out ONLY mixing yet, but I study a lot and I pratice recording and mixing almost every weekend and there is a lot of "pro" people from here that make music sound terrible and actually thats what made me start to learn how to do all of this. Because the other engineers from around here just couldnt understand when I said: "Dude, I want to sound a little bit fucked up."

I only mix with headphones because I dont have enough money to buy a good pair of monitors. Even if Steve Albini came to me and said "dude, you aare doing it the worng way" (which I dont think he would even if he had the chance, because he is not that arrogant) it would not make me stoop what I'm doing.

Its not about ignorance and wanting to be a shithead. Its about just doing stuff with what I got.

Once again...you're making it personal, and just because you work with headphones, it still doesn't change the OP or the answer to the question...can headphones + plugin replace monitors & room...no, they can't.

It's like saying if you do all your tracking in the bathroom, and you like your mixes, therefore who needs a more proper studio rig...?
One thing has nothing to do with the other.
There are always exceptions...but thousands of home rec guys being told they don't need monitors or a room, and that they can do it all with just headphones + plugin...is just marketing BS.

 

[Greg_L]

Its about just doing stuff with what I got.

Nothing at all wrong with that. But to act like you're somehow above monitor users because you heard some bad home recordings is ignorant and delusional. You're not being artistic or creative. You're just broke and inexperienced. Of course you hear bad recordings in here. Most of them are. This site is 95% really bad music and recordings. That doesn't make anything you're doing good by default though.

 

[miroslav]

Miroslav, I wasn't talking about Djs really but pro mixers. Andrew Schepps is better than any of us, and he recently went to mixing all ITB and even did complete mixes on headphones recently (though, he does like speakers). There are many engineers doing this now. It's just the times. Laptops, people on the move, etc. They work with the gear and produce great sounds on headphones and ITB. Either way is fine and it's all about the result. I personally think monitoring is overrated because you can get it like 90% in headphones and then just A/B things, and in a bad room I wouldn't want monitors and feel headphones reduce the bad acoustics of my room.

So I guess he'll be getting rid of his highly modified Neve console and all his rack gear any day now...

 

[Nola]

So I guess he'll be getting rid of his highly modified Neve console and all his rack gear any day now...

I have no idea what he will be doing. I'm just telling you what he said. If you think he is a liar that's to take up with him.

 

[miroslav]

I'm not saying he's a liar........but he does work with Waves (I have his Scheps 73 plug), and so do many other engineers, because that's where the money is now.
They preach plugs, but never, ever seem to get rid of their studios or their hardware.
CLA is another one...pimps the plugs but uses the hardware versions in a real studio to do his work.

 

[Nola]

I'm not saying he's a liar........but he does work with Waves (I have his Scheps 73 plug), and so do many other engineers, because that's where the money is now.
They preach plugs, but never, ever seem to get rid of their studios or their hardware.
CLA is another one...pimps the plugs but uses the hardware versions in a real studio to do his work.

Yeah I dunno. Maybe he uses both or maybe he is a liar or maybe he's just selling out. I have no idea but just going off what he said.
I like hardware more than plugins tbh and tried to go down the purely plugin path and had to do a u-turn so it's not like we even disagree. i just think when it comes to monitors, I'd personally rather do the mix in headphones b/c my room sucks, and i don't want to hear it and can't afford to treat it or legally even mess with it under my lease terms. [open back] headphones mostly block it out, and I get it like 90% where I like it, then A/B it on other systems to finish the mix. For me this works, and since I can get 90% where I want to be it makes monitors the most overrated piece of gear. Someone with a good room might feel differently, but that's my situation. Over and over we hear we can't make good mixes without monitors, and I just don't think that's true. Then we hear it's not the gear, but the person using the gear. So, there is conflict in the messages. Is it the gear or the ear? I think if someone put in a lot of time refining their ear they can mix fine in headphones.

Anyway, the poor OP. His thread is now on a tangent. Sorry, OP -- the convolution/IR idea seems interesting and we'll have to see what pros and cons it brings over time.

 

[miroslav]

The real point here isn't to debate ITB VS OTB mixing.
Lots of guys mix ITB, nothing new....I've even said I could adjust to ITB mixing if there was a real need.

We're talking about heaphones + plugin replacing monitors & room.
The Scheps interview also explains why he can get great mixes even on headphones:

"So why do his mixes sound so great if he’s using the same kind of gear you and I have in our studios?
Two reasons: great raw material and some ridiculous mixing chops."

 

[mjbphotos]

Back, again, to the original post. And all the related stuff - the folks saying they use headphones - it's got nothing to do with IR plugins that will simulate good monitors - its about learning your headphones - how the mixes sound in them and how that translates - which you do by listening to reference mixes and taking your mixes to other playback systems.

 

[Steenamaroo]

A lot of unjustifiable conclusions being reached here.
Hard to know where to start.

For one, there will always be shit mixes made on monitors by people who are bad at recording/mixing, or people who are learning. That has no meaning or relevance whatsoever in the greater context of this thread.
There are shit paintings on canvas and wonderful creations made in MSpaint. Those are two separate statements. No need to start speculating that canvas is now pointless.

On top of that, there are people who could literally mix better than you could or I could, without monitors OR headphones.

I bet, for example, that Greg or RAMI could do a perfectly fine mix of a straight up punk-rock/rock recording without headphones or speakers (except for tracking purposes) purely on the basis that they know their instruments, environment, microphones, gain stages etc well enough to know what to expect.
Sure, it won't be fined tuned to their wants/needs, but it's still gonna sound good and all the levels are probably going to be in the ballpark.


Every time a headphone/monitor debate comes up people seem to miss the fundamental difference between the two.
With headphones your right ear hears pretty much nothing from the left driver and vice versa.
This is not true with speakers.

For that reason you could conceivably mix on headphones for people who intend to listen on headphones but, realistically, how that stereo image comes across on stereo speakers of any kind is pretty much always going to be a surprise to you.

 

[miroslav]

For that reason you could conceivably mix on headphones for people who intend to listen on headphones but, realistically, how that stereo image comes across on stereo speakers of any kind is pretty much always going to be a surprise to you.

I think also that a lot of newcomers to recording consider that if lots of people are using earbuds/phones to listen to music, then why not mix exclusively with phones for them...?
The reality is simple...a mix done with monitors in a room will always translate well to headphone listening...while a headphone mix will not always translate well to monitor/room listening.

Kinda the same way a mix done on hyped computer speakers will not always translate well on all other speaker systems, while a mix done on accurate studio monitors will translate better across a variety of other listening systems.

 

[Steenamaroo]

The reality is simple...a mix done with monitors in a room will always translate well to headphone listening...while a headphone mix will not always translate well to monitor/room listening.

^^.

 

[Farview]

I can understand how the plugin can compensate for the crosstalk and possibly the room, but I'm not sure how it would get around the basic tonal differences of the thousands of possible headphones that you could be monitoring on.

If the plugin told you which headphones it was dialed in with, you might be getting close.

Do when know what monitors are being emulated by the convolution?

 

[miroslav]

​

Do when know what monitors are being emulated by the convolution?

Yamaha NS-10...with tissue paper over the tweeters.

 

[ashcat_lt]

The reality is simple...a mix done with monitors in a room will always translate well to headphone listening...while a headphone mix will not always translate well to monitor/room listening.

Really? Go check out Low's Drum's and Guns album. It's the first one that comes to mind, but you could also go back to any of a number of old rock and pop records which are hard panned and weird if not unlistenable on headphones, but in a room that little bit of crosstalk makes it work.

I could go look for examples of albums mixed mostly on headphones which sound great on speakers, but I don't think it would convince anybody, so...

 

[Nola]

Really? Go check out Low's Drum's and Guns album. It's the first one that comes to mind, but you could also go back to any of a number of old rock and pop records which are hard panned and weird if not unlistenable on headphones

Hey Ashcat do you like Low? I used to like them but stopped listening to them a while back... I think b/c the songs were all pretty slow and it got repetitive. I'll have to check out that album.

I was going through my record collection the other day on headphones and listening closely, and like you say, some really popular bands made bad headphone mixes. If I named the bands people would freak out so I won't, but popular/historic bands, and I agree they are un-listenable in headphones.

Ashcat, how do you feel about my thought: if you have a bad room, mix on headphones then A/B on other systems. If you have a good room, use both. But monitors aren't required for a good mix.

I feel that's a reasonable statement and stance on it. Do monitors have any purpose in a bad room? I already have a stereo speaker system in that room that I use to A/B, so why would I benefit from monitors? That's what I'd like to know. It seems like people making the argument for monitors assume a good sounding room that's treated, but since this is a home recording forum instead of a pro-studio-inside-a-home forum, I think that's an unfair assumption.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Really? Go check out Low's Drum's and Guns album. It's the first one that comes to mind, but you could also go back to any of a number of old rock and pop records which are hard panned and weird if not unlistenable on headphones, but in a room that little bit of crosstalk makes it work.

I could go look for examples of albums mixed mostly on headphones which sound great on speakers, but I don't think it would convince anybody, so...

Just because something happened or is possible doesn't mean it should change or define the 'rules'.
A broken clock is right twice a day but it's not a reliable time piece.

There will be headphone mixes that sound great on whatever setup and there will be ones that don't.
The former comes down to either luck, or an engineer who knew exactly what he was doing.

Again, the Greg thing. I've no doubt he could make his mix on headphones because his ears would say yup..sounds fine and his eyes would say..hmm, I've never had to pan X that wide before....this can't be right.
Experience and knowledge would make the decision, I suppose.
In a bad room at least there's a debate to be had.
I had an awful room at uni and found myself monitoring very quietly and with the monitors very close. That minimised the impact of the room but was, of course, less than ideal.
You could argue that headphones would have been better in some ways (isolation from environment) or that monitors would have been better in others (reliable representation of stereo image).

That's just my view but I've always found that no matter how confident I am in a headphone mix, I always have things to tweak once I move over to speakers.
Tweaks are usually related to wide panning or volume of typically central instruments like bass and vocals.

 

[Nola]

In a bad room at least there's a debate to be had.
I had an awful room at uni and found myself monitoring very quietly and with the monitors very close. That minimised the impact of the room but was, of course, less than ideal.
You could argue that headphones would have been better in some ways (isolation from environment) or that monitors would have been better in others (reliable representation of stereo image).

Thanks for elaborating. When I said monitors were overrated gear I assumed the people on the forum were home recorders who didn't have pro studios. It seems like there's a war on people recording in bad rooms from the companies making acoustic foam and monitors -- they tell us, in so many words, we can't mix or record in bad rooms, and it would stink if hr peers started to believe that. I agree if someone has a pro level studio in their house with a great room they should use monitors paired with good open back headphones.

One more question. You say: or that monitors would have been better in others (reliable representation of stereo image).

Say I mix in headphones in the bad room, then A/B on a stereo system in the same room. How is that different than mixing on monitors in the same bad room? It might take a little longer because you have to go A/B, but it seems it would be the same result for the most part.

 

[Greg_L]

Hey Ashcat do you like Low? I used to like them but stopped listening to them a while back... I think b/c the songs were all pretty slow and it got repetitive. I'll have to check out that album.

I was going through my record collection the other day on headphones and listening closely, and like you say, some really popular bands made bad headphone mixes. If I named the bands people would freak out so I won't, but popular/historic bands, and I agree they are un-listenable in headphones.

Ashcat, how do you feel about my thought: if you have a bad room, mix on headphones then A/B on other systems. If you have a good room, use both. But monitors aren't required for a good mix.

I feel that's a reasonable statement and stance on it. Do monitors have any purpose in a bad room? I already have a stereo speaker system in that room that I use to A/B, so why would I benefit from monitors? That's what I'd like to know. It seems like people making the argument for monitors assume a good sounding room that's treated, but since this is a home recording forum instead of a pro-studio-inside-a-home forum, I think that's an unfair assumption.

You're just trying to lower the bar for everyone else to feel better about your own shortcomings.

The real beauty of mixing with monitors in a good room is you don't have to run back and forth to your fucking car and re-mix 70 times because your crappy headphones lied to you or you wore them a little crooked. Like the other guy, you've probably never mixed with monitors, so you simply just don't know what you're missing or what you're talking about. A few bass traps and some monitors isn't a "pro home studio". It's achievable and not that expensive....and your mixes will be better. This is one of those "rules" that you're better off just following because that's how it is.

And the whole "this album doesn't sound good on headphones" angle to this argument is ridiculous at best.

 

[Nola]

You're just trying to lower the bar for everyone else to feel better about your own shortcomings.

Woh.
Let's have a mix off then. Post something in the mix clinic and we can both mix the same song. You do it on monitors, and I'll use headphones.

 

[Greg_L]

Woh.
Let's have a mix off then. Post something in the mix clinic and we can both mix the same song.

Lol for real. Just stop dude.