Mixing, the battle between headphones and monitors

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zachfordmusic

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Is there any remedy to the constant going back and forth between headphones to monitors when mixing?

What do you guys do?

Strictly monitor mixing?

Strictly headphone mixing?

Just trying to get the best OVERALL sound, ya dig?


Thanks!
 
I mix on monitors and do a headphone pass near the end for certain details like panning. But in the end it has to sound right on speakers.
 
Headphones are good for quick checks on certain "microscopic details" -- Reverb tails, edits, clicks, pops and other assorted anomalies and the like.

Otherwise, "everything sounds good on headphones" -- They're not an overall reference.
 
John, I love your tagline "Spoon-feed a newbie the answer and he'll mix for a day --
Spark his curiosity to find the answer himself and he'll mix for a lifetime..."
 
Funny this came up because I was just having this conversation with a colleague yesterday.

He was mixing this jazz album which is almost ready to be shipped off to Bernie Grundman for mastering, so you can imagine the pressure given Bernie's audiophile-like disposition. He was getting paranoid that the mixes sounded quite a bit different in his headphones and he started to seriously doubt his monitoring environment.

Anyway, I was there to lend a helping ear and help quell his paranoia with a bit of reassurance. It sounded like jazz to me, man. Although, granted, the mix did sound a bit different in the cans. I personally think he was overthinking it but I can understand that when your work is being sent off 15000 miles away to LA, the pressure can get to you. Basically, his Genelec 8030's sounded a bit bitey and brighter than the headphones. The room also has a few inconsistencies (it's not perfect) so he had to learn to ignore them and just get on with it.

This is the plight of having a less-than-perfect room to mix in. You have to learn the room, overlook it's shortcomings, make references, listen to your cans, take a walk outside, listen to the mix in the car or on a familiar system and just work through it. This is how it's done for most of us who don't work in an acoustically tuned control room.

After a while you get the picture. My room is also imperfect but I have learned not to sweat the small stuff and JUST LISTEN to the music. I want that emotional response. If my legs start tapping or I wanna get up and dance (which I often do in private), then I'm doing something right.

Music is about emotions, not about frequency or any of the other technical aspects. It's about getting that foot tapping.

That is all.

Cheers :)
 
Mo Facta said:
Music is about emotions, not about frequency or any of the other technical aspects. It's about getting that foot tapping.

That is all.

Cheers :)
Click to expand...


I think I´ll print that quote on top of my monitors so I never forget.

cheers
 
Now that I've gotten into mixing, I listen to songs WAY differently than just a couple years ago. I used to think "man, that's a sick riff!" but now it's more like "Damn, that riff SOUNDS amazing! How did they do that?!" So now, this attitude has gone into other places like when i watch any sort of video. I start wondering about the cuts/edits, the sound dubbing, placement of the camera, etc instead of just watching it at face value. My point with that is if you show your tunes to a person who has no idea what you did to get them there, they're not gonna ask "what compressor is on that guitar?" They won't give two shits about what you did, as long as it makes them move. If it doesn't make people move, you're not quite there.

As a still relatively noob to making music, it's hard to get past being detail orientated though. There's just so much crap to understand before you can get people to jam out. I'm still trying to just make it sound good as a piece, and my songs still lack some of that "movability". They're coming along, but still soooo much to learn.
 
Mo Facta said:
Music is about emotions, not about frequency or any of the other technical aspects.
Click to expand...
That's a groovy quote but it's too absolute for me. I can't say for certain what music is "about" because it's "about" a number of things depending on the writer, the ones recording the song etc.....
Obviously music isn't "about" technical aspects. Technical aspects have come into greater prominence because of recording per se and developments in the live reproduction of music. But they can't be ignored, just shouldn't be obsessed over, which is an easy thing to do if all the stuff I've read over the last 30 years is anything to go by.
Mo Facta said:
It's about getting that foot tapping.
Click to expand...
If that's metaphorical, then I can see where it's coming from. In other words, if you're saying "music should engage the listener and elicit a response of some sort", yeah, I'm with you all the way. But if it's literal, then there's gonna be some fear and trembling in Petaluma tonight !! :D
 
zachfordmusic said:
Is there any remedy to the constant going back and forth between headphones to monitors when mixing?
What do you guys do?
Strictly monitor mixing?
Strictly headphone mixing?
Just trying to get the best OVERALL sound, ya dig?
Click to expand...
The first question is a puzzling one. The quest for a remedy implies some sort of problem. Zachfordmusic, are you experiencing a problem in your mix method ?
Personally, I use monitors but I check on headphones too. But the reason I use the phones is that a piece of music has to sound right to me on phones. It's hard to put into words but something that might not sound unbalanced out of speakers can sound really lopsided in headphones. But there is always a happy medium where both sound cool. It's also important to me that that mix is balanced in the van, the front room and the little 'boombox' type player that could be listened to in the kitchen, bathroom or wherever.
 
grimtraveller said:
That's a groovy quote but it's too absolute for me. I can't say for certain what music is "about" because it's "about" a number of things depending on the writer, the ones recording the song etc.....
Obviously music isn't "about" technical aspects. Technical aspects have come into greater prominence because of recording per se and developments in the live reproduction of music. But they can't be ignored, just shouldn't be obsessed over, which is an easy thing to do if all the stuff I've read over the last 30 years is anything to go by.If that's metaphorical, then I can see where it's coming from. In other words, if you're saying "music should engage the listener and elicit a response of some sort", yeah, I'm with you all the way. But if it's literal, then there's gonna be some fear and trembling in Petaluma tonight !! :D
Click to expand...

My point - and therefore my opinion - was essentially that music is about the sum of the parts, not dissection. It would be wrong of me, as an audio engineer, to totally shun the obvious technical nature of the field because they are the tools we use to 1. correct a problem, or 2. supply an effect. They are essential to the art. But then again, every process and phase of production that we follow has it's own measure of art and expression.

One thing I say a lot on these forums is that much of the minutia we spend our lives chasing after are forest-for-the-trees issues. I feel like we have so much processing power at our disposal and our ability to whip up 1000+ edits in no time is part of the problem of why we don't progress as much as we could. In fact, it's been part of my problem over the last couple of years and I'm willing to admit that. I forgot how to listen to the music. I couldn't enjoy music because I was constantly analyzing the recording and the mix. Songs became soul-less arrangements to dissect.

[[WARNING]] Please brace yourself for a ramble which is directed toward no one in particular [[WARNING]]

Now I'm sick of all that. I want to go to a concert and actually enjoy the band and the music. I just want to listen and apply that kind of approach to my work. I want to make the best decisions I can at the beginning of the production to save me the complete MISERY of having to fix problems later. I'm done with problems. Do it right the first time, fucker! And that includes getting your monitoring right and/or getting to know it intimately. Quite honestly, the best production decisions are often the simplest ones. If I could count how many times I've just straight up cut something out, be it a doubled guitar track or a stereo keyboard down to mono I'd, uh, have counted to a very large number of decisions I wouldn't ever take back. A lot of it has to do with getting over the ego which pushes us to over produce, too. It's there. Believe me. "Yup, seventeen mikes on the drums alone! Y'should've seen the guitar tracks. Eight mikes on one cab, dude! He's a REALLY good engineer." No, he just had a big mike collection and couldn't resist.

So yeah, hope that clears up my POV.

Cheers :)
 
I'm in total agreement. If something takes away from the music (obsession with the mix, tone, pitch, timing, volume or whatever) then ditch it. That was the idea behind a recent session that ditched the usual process of tracking parts one at a time on headphones in favor of tracking as a band while monitoring through a PA. People play differently when they are all playing together, can feel the sound in the room, have eye contact and can talk to each other directly. That's what we wanted to capture.
 
Yes!

My kingdom for eight mikes, a Scully, and a good room!

Cheers :)
 
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