Maybe dumb question about Beyerdynamic DT770s

Your DT770's are what are known as a 'closed back' design. The AKG K240's are 'semi-open' design. They will sound a bit different. The semi-open type will let some room sound through to your ears and sound more 'open', and conversely will let the sound of the headphones leak out into the room. If you tend to track your voice overs with headphones, the semi-open could leak sound back to the mic. Generally best while tracking to use a closed back type of headphones to reduce/prevent audio leakage.

 
Your DT770's are what are known as a 'closed back' design. The AKG K240's are 'semi-open' design. They will sound a bit different. The semi-open type will let some room sound through to your ears and sound more 'open', and conversely will let the sound of the headphones leak out into the room. If you tend to track your voice overs with headphones, the semi-open could leak sound back to the mic. Generally best while tracking to use a closed back type of headphones to reduce/prevent audio leakage.

Q RfC
uhhhgggg you're right

sigh

What would you guys recommend under $200 that aren't the DTT770s? I've seen a lot of recommendations for Sennheiser HD280PRO but I see a lot of reviews saying the right channel failed within a year.
 
What would you guys recommend under $200 that aren't the DTT770s? I've seen a lot of recommendations for Sennheiser HD280PRO but I see a lot of reviews saying the right channel failed within a year.
The HD280Pro's are a closed back design like the DT770's. Both good for tracking with the closed back design. I have had a pair of the HD280Pro's for a number of years and have not had a problem with them, but I do use them less than my preferred Sony MDR-7506's and AT ATH-M50X's. Use your DT770's for tracking and see which you prefer between those and the K240's for 'mixing'/listening back to what you've recorded.
 
Yup....as arcaxis says.......if you're happy with your K240's use them for general listening and mixing.......and use the DT770's for tracking.

If you're determined to get rid of your DT770's....I get it. Try the Audio-Technica ATH M-50X. They have tons of great reviews....are well in your price range.....and will be excellent for tracking and IMO slightly better than the HD280's. They have no issues with durability. You also have the ATH-M40X as an alternate to the M50x......though not quite as good.

My 2 cents worth of......keep at it....good luck.....and don't worry....you'll get there.

Mick
 
The HD280Pro's are a closed back design like the DT770's. Both good for tracking with the closed back design. I have had a pair of the HD280Pro's for a number of years and have not had a problem with them, but I do use them less than my preferred Sony MDR-7506's and AT ATH-M50X's. Use your DT770's for tracking and see which you prefer between those and the K240's for 'mixing'/listening back to what you've recorded.
Thanks for the suggestions, maybe I'll give the Sonys a try. I hear Audio Technica headphones are really nice, but I'm trying to avoid collapsable headphones (my cheap pair are collapsable and part of the reason I started looking into upgrade is because the hinge started to squeak and bleed into my recording. Probably not as much of a problem with nice headphones, but I'm scared to buy a pair and have the hinge start squeaking.)

Just due to cost, I can't keep both the DT770s for tracking and then the K240s for mixing unfortunately. I do like the K240s a lot though, after working with them for mixing for most of last night. I would keep them if it weren't for the semi-open back. The DT770s are growing on me a little bit, but I just know that I'm going to overcompensate in my editing and over EQ if I use them for mixing.

Thanks again everyone for helping me :)
 
Ok I'm back to fully hating the 770s

Im QCing an audiobook that I mixed the first half with the 770s. For audiobooks, being able to monitor the background noise is extremely important because it has to be consistent to be accepted by ACX and I'm now spending over an hour fixing the things that I literally couldn't hear with the 770s. quiet mouth pops, parts where the background noise goes silent... couldn't hear at all with the 80 ohm 770s fully cranked up. These suck. I don't get the hype.
 
But why arent you seeing these in your editor...... Reaper?
By default, many DAW meters only go down to -60dB fs and so seeing low level but still audio artifacts can be difficult. However, most DAWs allow the meter scale to be expanded. Samplitude goes to -90dB but give a numerical readout beyond that. I am sure Reaper can be so set? If not Audacity certainly can be.

It is also instructive to send a track to Right Mark Analyser (free). Has to be 16 bits .wav but that is still good enough to pick up inaudible hum and ticks.

Dave.
 
for one I’m using audacity and audition, and yes, the artifacts are so small they aren’t making a blip.

but if it’s there and you can hear it on every other pair of headphones I own but not these....then these aren’t good headphones. I shouldn’t have to rely on sight for things I should be able to hear in almost $200 headphones. Even if I could see and not hear it...what am I supposed to do? Deafly guess how to fix it and hope it sounds good to everyone else? Idk guys these headphones are a major disappointment all around.

I also discovered that the monitoring capabilities is not loud enough for me to hear when something bleeds into my recording. For example I’m finding that the plumbing pipes in my walls make noises but I wasn’t able to hear them in the headphones while recording, though I can on other headphones, so whole portions of my recording had to be redone.

Being able to monitor my audio is the whole point of having them. These are literally useless I have no idea why people like these.
 
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My favourite headphones for listening are Sennheiser HD480s - from the 90s - never beaten in my humble opinion. They make the dullest recordings sound wonderful and that's the snag - my favourite headphones for making decisions on are DT100's - the most unflattering and boring headphones. However - you can turn them up loud, you can abuse them and they reveal all kinds of things. If you make a mix sound good on DT100s, then speakers and headphone listening on almost anything is safe. The HD480s are unreliable for this. A half-way between the two would be HD-25's. The DT100s also shut out virtually all the room sound which often gets through into the other two because the sealing is less, and you hear the kick and think it's too loud, but it's too loud in the room, and you get confused.
 
FYI......The Sony 7506 are collapsing headphones. As well....they are known to have an inherent "thin" mid-range. Now....yes....there's little doubt that they'll reveal upper frequency noises that many other phones won't catch. They're famous for that and are a good reason why many producers use them in live application recording and for monitoring. Many use them for mixing as well.

2 cents worth of morning chatter........

Mick
 
for one I’m using audacity and audition, and yes, the artifacts are so small they aren’t making a blip.

but if it’s there and you can hear it on every other pair of headphones I own but not these....then these aren’t good headphones. I shouldn’t have to rely on sight for things I should be able to hear in almost $200 headphones. Even if I could see and not hear it...what am I supposed to do? Deafly guess how to fix it and hope it sounds good to everyone else? Idk guys these headphones are a major disappointment all around.

I also discovered that the monitoring capabilities is not loud enough for me to hear when something bleeds into my recording. For example I’m finding that the plumbing pipes in my walls make noises but I wasn’t able to hear them in the headphones while recording, though I can on other headphones, so whole portions of my recording had to be redone.

Being able to monitor my audio is the whole point of having them. These are literally useless I have no idea why people like these.
Hold up a bit there Baz', you say you cannot SEE any artifacts in Audacity? I do not wish to question the resolution of your hearing but I doubt you can hear things down at -90dB fs assuming the 'meat' of your signal is at -18, -20ish?

Dave.
 
Hold up a bit there Baz', you say you cannot SEE any artifacts in Audacity? I do not wish to question the resolution of your hearing but I doubt you can hear things down at -90dB fs assuming the 'meat' of your signal is at -18, -20ish?

Dave.

I can see like mouth noises for the most part, but for example, I made the mistake of using Waves Debreath which is supposed to be able to replace the breath with room noise and with the 770s I wasn't able to hear that it wasn't replacing it was room noise, it was replacing it with silence, so the room noise on the track was inconsistent and I had to go back and manually put room noise back into the spaces. Definitely something ACX would have kicked back the files for.
 
I have HD280s and DT770s. I know what you mean, calling the 770s thin. I always described them as having more pronounced high end but I guess that's about the same thing.
The HD280s are not like that at all and going between the two takes a bit of getting used to.
If you find the 770s bright/thin then the 280s might be for you, but they are quite a bit heavier and not as comfortable for longer sessions.
If it matters I find the 280s much better for isolation, too.
 
I'm amazed! I'm of an age and state of my audio career that I seriously wonder about the amount of plugins that are not just available but that people use. If I have a singer who does the between word breath thing, it's a snip, and a fade out or fade in - or at worst a manual insert and crossfade of a bit of silence. I just can't imagine leaving these things to a plugin. I'm sure they do a great job, but I'd rather use my ears and I only ever 'close the gaps' if it's exposed. In fact - I leave most breaths in, and just reduce them in level as it's more realistic.
 
for one I’m using audacity and audition, and yes, the artifacts are so small they aren’t making a blip.

but if it’s there and you can hear it on every other pair of headphones I own but not these....then these aren’t good headphones. I shouldn’t have to rely on sight for things I should be able to hear in almost $200 headphones. Even if I could see and not hear it...what am I supposed to do? Deafly guess how to fix it and hope it sounds good to everyone else? Idk guys these headphones are a major disappointment all around.

I also discovered that the monitoring capabilities is not loud enough for me to hear when something bleeds into my recording. For example I’m finding that the plumbing pipes in my walls make noises but I wasn’t able to hear them in the headphones while recording, though I can on other headphones, so whole portions of my recording had to be redone.

Being able to monitor my audio is the whole point of having them. These are literally useless I have no idea why people like these.
Headphones are designed for certain markets, purposes, price points, etc. I see the DT770s used primarily in recording and streaming, where a comfortable, sealed, closed back set of headphones is most important. And, personally, I think they are very nice for listening to some types of music. But I've repeated here that I don't think they are good for mixing. The advice I've heard and tried to heed is like @rob aylestone said (if I haven't mangled/misread) - something unflattering and revealing is what you want, not something that makes it sound good, particularly. Then learning to listen to how the mix translates on other devices, and take that experience back to listen on your mixing headphones or speakers, to understand how you need to adjust your hearing so you can better use them. Nothing is going to magically fix the mix - it's going to be a combination of learning to listen, adjusting technique, fixing room problems, wash, rinse, repeat.

If you want to tackle all those things like background noise, mouth-clicks, etc. then I'd recommend ponying up the bucks for iZotope RX Standard and learn to use it surgically, though the general noise reduction an be applied by learning from the "silent" section at the beginning and is really good at not leaving to many footprints around IMO. The little noises here and there are best tackled with something that really knows what to do to repair and replace if needed, but not applied globally.

RX 8 Standard is $300. Not wasted money. There may be other options, but it's very good, and has the ability to use other plugins you may have in your DAW, as well as adjust levels, report stats, e.g., to set compression limiting and finalize the LUFS of a recording.

 
I'm amazed! I'm of an age and state of my audio career that I seriously wonder about the amount of plugins that are not just available but that people use. If I have a singer who does the between word breath thing, it's a snip, and a fade out or fade in - or at worst a manual insert and crossfade of a bit of silence. I just can't imagine leaving these things to a plugin. I'm sure they do a great job, but I'd rather use my ears and I only ever 'close the gaps' if it's exposed. In fact - I leave most breaths in, and just reduce them in level as it's more realistic.

Yeah manually editing has the best results, but when you have 5-6 hours to edit it can get sooo tedious. For other projects the debreather works ok; what I do is duplicate my audio and then run the debreather and then I just copy and paste from the duplicate if it cuts off any words, which is also tedious but much faster. Unfortunately, ACX likes there to be a good amount of room noise so it does not work very well at all under those circumstances.
 
Headphones are designed for certain markets, purposes, price points, etc. I see the DT770s used primarily in recording and streaming, where a comfortable, sealed, closed back set of headphones is most important. And, personally, I think they are very nice for listening to some types of music. But I've repeated here that I don't think they are good for mixing. The advice I've heard and tried to heed is like @rob aylestone said (if I haven't mangled/misread) - something unflattering and revealing is what you want, not something that makes it sound good, particularly. Then learning to listen to how the mix translates on other devices, and take that experience back to listen on your mixing headphones or speakers, to understand how you need to adjust your hearing so you can better use them. Nothing is going to magically fix the mix - it's going to be a combination of learning to listen, adjusting technique, fixing room problems, wash, rinse, repeat.

If you want to tackle all those things like background noise, mouth-clicks, etc. then I'd recommend ponying up the bucks for iZotope RX Standard and learn to use it surgically, though the general noise reduction an be applied by learning from the "silent" section at the beginning and is really good at not leaving to many footprints around IMO. The little noises here and there are best tackled with something that really knows what to do to repair and replace if needed, but not applied globally.

RX 8 Standard is $300. Not wasted money. There may be other options, but it's very good, and has the ability to use other plugins you may have in your DAW, as well as adjust levels, report stats, e.g., to set compression limiting and finalize the LUFS of a recording.

I bought their cheapest option that has de-noise, de-hum, de-click and de-clip.... I am interested in upgrading to the full package... what features specifically do you think would benefit voice editing? I'll youtube some videos to see if they convince me to pull the trigger ;)
 
I'm odd. I don't record hums, and my recordings don't click or clip. None are noisy at a level it's annoying? I firmly believe in mixing out in the mix being a terrible way to work - I fix it BEFORE I press record?
 
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