Mixing With Headphones

DrStrange

DrStrange

New member
Hi all, is mixing in headphones a no no. I find that i can get a nice mix in the headphones but when i switch to speakers there are parts that nearly disappear. Likewise when i mix through speakers there are parts that then sound too loud in the headphones. Due to restrictions with sound levels it is easier for me to use headphones. Which is the best way to mix, obviously there is a balance that needs to be reached.
 
Dr.S - you've just found out why mixing with headphones doesn't work! You CAN learn how to mix with them, by doing a lot of experimenting, trial-and-error, and lots of tweaking/remixing. You can burn a CD of your mix, then listen to it on various systems to see how things translate. As you learn what works and what doesn't this way, it will take less tweaking each time you do a new mix.
 
mjbphotos said:
Dr.S - you've just found out why mixing with headphones doesn't work! You CAN learn how to mix with them, by doing a lot of experimenting, trial-and-error, and lots of tweaking/remixing. You can burn a CD of your mix, then listen to it on various systems to see how things translate. As you learn what works and what doesn't this way, it will take less tweaking each time you do a new mix.
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For a lot of us, we use both. Do some on headphones, then as everything matures, rely on the monitors for the final mix. As MJ stated, and you posted, headphone mixes do not translate well to regular speakers.

Once you get monitors, you should look at working on room treatment to reduce room influence on your mix. When I first started a couple of years back, I thought the guys here were just a bit overly anal about room treatment. Well, as I started reading and doing some of the things they stated/recommended, my mixes became better (better is a relative word here) everywhere I would listen. It really does make a difference when it is time to make sure the music plays well on most systems.
 
All great advice here Dr.S.
The main problem is that with speakers your left hear can hear both speakers to some extent, and so can your right ear.
With headphones the left side is heard exclusively by your left ear and vice versa.

I can confidently do some work on headphones but when it comes to stereo image it's a pure guessing game for me.
 
Hi Dr.......you do not mention whether your "speakers" are monitors or what your setup actually is. If you were mixing on great phones and then playing back on PC desktop speakers.......well......that could be your problem. Or it could be vise versa.........lousy phones and great monitors. Don't get me wrong........the advice you're getting here is correct. Phones that you're very familiar with really can help you get much of the way through the mixing process........but never all the way.
 
I mix with headphones...because I don't yet have monitors. They are on the list of must haves though...as soon as I get the blessing (read "not going to get in too much crap") for buying them.

And from my unprofessional experience, I can say two things...
1) recording, manipulating, and composing with the headphones works pretty good in my opinion.
2) my final mixdowns have always sucked. I get the exact same results as you. So I will be remixing everything again someday when I get proper monitors to work with.
 
Thanks again everyone. Yeah at the moment its just a couple of small pc speakers that i plug into my mac. My thinking was always that most people are gonna listen on headphones through an mp3 player so i may as well stick to mixing in headphones but definitely will grab some decent monitors when i can afford some as it'd be great to get a much better mix.
 
Mixing on headphones really makes me want to gouge out my eyes or rub cheese graters in stereo over my ears until they're gone leaving only bloody holes in the side of my head.
 
DrStrange said:
Thanks again everyone. Yeah at the moment its just a couple of small pc speakers that i plug into my mac. My thinking was always that most people are gonna listen on headphones through an mp3 player so i may as well stick to mixing in headphones but definitely will grab some decent monitors when i can afford some as it'd be great to get a much better mix.
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Most people are gonna listen on headphones through an mp3 player to music that has been professionally recorded and mixed in a real studio on monitors....

You see the problem?
 
DrStrange said:
...My thinking was always that most people are gonna listen on headphones through an mp3 player so i may as well stick to mixing in headphones....
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From what I understand, this is not sound logic. What you listen to on your headphones through an mp3 player is a mastered version. Please, a more knowledgeable poster add to this....I would like this point clarified as well.

Edit...nevermind...Armistice got post in before I finished typing my comment ^^^^...Thank you for confirming what I was thinking was true!
 
I have mixed in Audio Technica ATMH50 headphones (widely lauded by home recordists as being awesome dude for mixing...they aren't) all night long getting the mix to sound great in those headphones...only to email myself the song to work and listen on earbuds in sheer abject horror. What. Is. This. Shit?
 
The trouble with in-ear headphones is that they all sound wildly different. You get the intimacy and the volume, but if you have three pairs of headphones, which do you prefer? If you favour one set, what about people listening to your mixes on the ones you didn't choose?

With proper monitors, what you hopefully get are neutral sounding speakers that don't add to or take away from the audio. This is why hifi speakers that get raved about in hifi mags are often horrible to master on - because they do the same as headphones, flatter the wrong bits! The hifi brigade hate our monitors as sounding poor, boring and lifeless - but they're closer to a neutral standard. My monitors are a little bass light - so I know I need to mix the bass a little higher than my ears tell me.

Apart from the stuff people are talking about here, don't forget that stereo field - as in closing your eyes and pointing at sound sources in the mix is almost impossible to get right on headphones because the left doesn't leak into the right and vice versa - which happens on speakers. It's often impossible to spot polarity errors on headphones like you can on speakers.
 
I use both to mix (actually four things: I start with Sony MDRs, switch over to Alesis monitors to refine, earbuds to test how it MAY sounds wrt levels/panning for most people after mastering, and then test on car/home system). I'm sure it is "wrong" to start on Sony cans, but it works much better for me than if I skip this step and go straight to monitors first. The headphones are like the framework and then I use the monitors to build the house. Every once in a while I have to knock out a wall or reposition a window... I guess in my analogy the earbuds would be putting on the roof and the car/stereo test would be the final coat of paint.
 
Biggest problem with mixing solely on headphones as has been mentioned already is translatability(is that a word?) Mixing on monitors even cheap PC speakers is preferable, imo. When I've mixed on headphones I find the effects I put on tend to get overdone, also it tends to be bass heavy. Ear fatique is another issue that can creep up. Headphones are great to reference your mix and check for certain balances to see how it sounds without the interactions of your room, but to mix solely on them can be tricky and I would highly recommend against it. Learn your speakers and reference your mix on a number of sources (your car, headphones, another stereo) and train your ears to learn what the speakers are telling you. The more you do it, the more instinctual it will become.
 
Sounds like both your headphones and monitoring are going to be difficult to yield good translation.

Sounds like both would need to improve to get to a point of not having to remix and remix again.

Certainly as mentioned, you should get monitors but .... getting real monitors is not an easy task, in the sense that you will pay for them (at whatever level u can afford) and then you will pay 5 to10 times that to treat your room close to properly. It is something to work towards.

In the immediate sense some better headphones would help before spending the $ to getting real monitors eventually.

I don't mix with headphones but do use them as a reference. I have Beyerdynamic DT770 an 880, AKG 240 and 701s, and the pair i actually use the most as a mix reference are my Yamaha HS10, I think that is the model. They are the headphone equivalent of the NS10 monitors. They are direct and focussed much like the NS10 and I feel of what I own they are the most accurate reflection of the mix and while not being made anymore? I think, they were around 100$. I think after about 1 hour you will have some fatigue mixing with them , but that is what you will get with most headphones.
I ask have audeaze a nice set of audiophile headphones and wouldn't mix with them, but they sound great for listening all day but not cheap.

Oh yeah another factor is the impedance, as my AKG an Beyers sound nice too, but sound best with a nice headphone amp, which is more $, while the Yamaha's are extremely responsive even at iPod, iPad levels. Certainly for plugging into a synth or something the Yamaha are best, the others do not go loud enough at max volume on for example our NORD Stage piano. SO these are versatile which might of value to you.

I would start there until I could get a monitoring system going.

All the best to you and your music!
 
I used to mix on headphones but one thing you have to take account for is, atleast in my opinion, Vocals will seem quiet but on monitors they'll be loud. Also headphones have a wider stereo field then monitors so you have to account for that aswell.
 
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