Speakers Vs. Headphones?

[fluffy13]

Which do you guys usually use to mix down? I usually go for speakers, but I get quite annoyed when it all sounds very cluttered on the headphones. Is there an industry standard for that per say?

 

[tc4b]

Avoid mixing on headphones if at all possible.

 

[RAMI]

Avoid mixing on headphones if at all possible.

What he said.

 

[G-Jay]

Which do you guys usually use to mix down? I usually go for speakers, but I get quite annoyed when it all sounds very cluttered on the headphones. Is there an industry standard for that per say?

I guess the industry standard is quality full range monitors behind the console, and reliable/well known nearfields on the meterbridge. BUT the most important factor is that it is done in a well treated (most likely custom designed) acoustic space.

Of course quality headphones are also used to check mixes too.

Avoid mixing on headphones if at all possible.

I personally mix on monitors however I'm going to respectfully disagree with your statement here.

With great cans, a crossfeed plug in and LOTS of listening time and mixing experience on your headphone setup great mixes can be done. I know people who do it.

Some would argue that pair of Sennheiser HD650s would be better than $500 monitors in an untreated room.

Anyone interested in mixing on cans should be aware that it is not an ideal situation - but then neither is mixing on low budget monitors in an untreated room. Check out this excellent article from SoundonSound. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/articles/mixingheadphones.htm

 

[Terra]

my monitors don't produce the amount of bass that is there in reality. I always do the mix on my nearfields and then I check on my headphones to make sure the bass isn't overpowering anything.

 

[grimtraveller]

In "the old days" D ), didn't they sometimes mix on headphones ?
There seems to be an interesting divide on this subject. I've done mixes on phones that I thought were OK but I did that through force of circumstance {late at night, kids and neighbours asleep}, rather than choice. Now, I wouldn't do a mix on headphones unless maybe it was a very sparsely instrumentated song and even then, I'd be constantly checking to see how it sounded via the monitors which would beg the question as to why I was doing it on phones in the first place.
Maybe those that are undecided about whether to mix on phones or monitors should try both and hear the pros and cons and see which is better to them. I must admit, the bass could often be deceptive on phones and for some reason the mix could sound like a jumble in my head !
But Terra's point about his monitors not reproducing the amount of bass that's there in reality is one that's confused me for a long while. What I don't understand at this moment in time is that if stereo speakers are 'enhanced' to make them sound 'good' in the high and low end and everyone is ultimately going to listen to their music on such, how is a flat response monitor going to be better ? I was listening to some stuff I knew well on my friend's monitors the other week and I had to strain to hear the bass. I'm not up for an argument by the way , I genuinely don't understand this and I want to. Having said that, I'm only just now beginning to understand compression. The time will one day be here when I can laugh at my present folly.

 

[G-Jay]

. What I don't understand at this moment in time is that if stereo speakers are 'enhanced' to make them sound 'good' in the high and low end and everyone is ultimately going to listen to their music on such, how is a flat response monitor going to be better ? I was listening to some stuff I knew well on my friend's monitors the other week and I had to strain to hear the bass. I'm not up for an argument by the way , I genuinely don't understand this and I want to.

Hi-Fi speakers are designed to flatter the sound. Monitors can sound quite boring in comparison.

However, the monitor (if its any good) is giving you a far more accurate representation of the sound. If your speakers are 'enhancing' the sound and hiding problems from your ears, you can not fix the problems.

If you can get a mix to sound great on unforgiving monitors at fairly low volumes then the chances are that it will sound amazing on Hi-fi speakers especially at higher volumes.

The biggest problem with mixing on Hi-Fi speakers is that you can set up a mix to sound amazing on THOSE speakers but it sounds all over the place on every other system.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

In "the old days" D ), didn't they sometimes mix on headphones ?
...
Now, I wouldn't do a mix on headphones unless maybe it was a very sparsely instrumentated song and even then, I'd be constantly checking to see how it sounded via the monitors which would beg the question as to why I was doing it on phones in the first place.

I think G-Jay gave an excellent answer to this question. To over-simplify it, in a perfect world, one would not mix on headphones because they introduce their own problems. At the same time, in a perfect world one would not mix on cheap loudspeakers and/or in a bad-sounding room either, because they introduce their own set of problems.

I'm not sure exactly what "the old days" means any more; just a couple of days ago in the studio building thread someone referred to using a 16-bit DAW-in-a box as "old school". (Yikes! What does that make tape? Or direct-to-disc?). But I have never known mixing primarily on headphones as being commonplace any time in the 20th century.

That said, though, headphones can have their place. Personally I don't see them as necessary, but they can help - especially in less than perfect monitoring situations - but usually only in conjunction with loudspeaker monitoring, not as a replacement for it. Sometimes using headphones to mentally "drill down" inside the mix to listen for fine low-amplitude detail can help, especially when ambient external or room noise can be an issue. Also if one is creating special 3D binaural spacial effects designed largely for headphone use, obviously headphone monitoring will help. But in neither of those situations would the headphone use normally be considered as a replacement for performing one's main mixing on loudspeakers. Personally I'll use a combination of my monitors and my phones while mixing, but probably about 85-90% of any given mix it is done on the monitors with only 10-15% of it done or checked on the phones.

The bottom line in my book is, use what your ears can translate and mix with the best. For the majority of the population without practice either way, the answer to that is going to be at least halfway-decent monitors. That doesn't make mixing in headphones impossible, but it does mean that the odds are better that the average human being is going to find it easier to translate from monitors than from headphones. But if one has for whatever reason already gotten used to mixing on phones, or if their monitor and room situation is poor, then all bets are off.

G.

 

[miroslav]

With great cans, a crossfeed plug in and LOTS of listening time and mixing experience on your headphone setup great mixes can be done.

But why go to all this trouble when decent monitors will always work 10 times better?

One thing you never get with headphones is the natural way your left/right ears deal with time/space as they do with all sounds (and monitors for that matter).
They are plastered up against your ear and there is no time/space between them and the source (well, miniscule)...so, your sense of certain sonic elements ends up being skewed.
Can you practice enough to get a decent mix with headphones?
Sure...but why bother? That's like practicing piano with gloves on.

That said...headphones are needed for other duties, like checking certain individual sonic issues, as the headphones really let you "zoom in" while blocking out any outside influences.

Also...you will mess up your ears a lot faster with headphones when mixing for several hours, than you would with monitors, especially if you like to punch up the volume.

Yeah...avoid mixing with headphones if at all possible.....

 

[G-Jay]

But why go to all this trouble when decent monitors will always work 10 times better?

I'm not disagreeing that monitors are better. Like I said, I mix on monitors.

However since this is home recording we're talking about, there could be a lot of reasons for mixing on cans.

Budget - $400 buys much more quality in headphones than it does in monitors and room treatment.

Room treatment - A lot of people don't want it, won't get it blah blah. If you learn to mix well on headphones you don't need the room treatment. Yes, of course it would be better to get the room treatment but not every wife is keen on bass traps in the bedroom.

The music room is a small box - nothing is ever going to sound good on speakers in a box room.

Unsociable hours doing music in an apartment - lots of home recordists have pain in the ass neighbours or can only fit in mixing sessions at times when music through speakers wouldn't be acceptable.

And a bunch of other reasons too. One guy I know works in a few different studios and prefers to get the majority of his mixes done on his own headphones as he really knows that system.

It's horses for courses. In an ideal world everyone would mix in a largish well treated room with quality monitors. In a less than ideal world purist approaches often don't work.

It's better to make the most of mixing on cans than to not mix at all.

 

[miroslav]

Yeah...but none of the reasons you provided get around the issues brought in by headphones, so you end up trading one set of problems for another.

If you have all those room issues, chances are, you already have problems during tracking, long before you get to mixing.
If you are doing all ITB/electronic music, with no mics or outside instruments ever involved and no vocals...OK, the tracking part goes away, but you still have the headphone issues to adjust to.
I'm not saying you can't work with headphones, I did it for a bunch of years early on before I knew any better (like most guys do) and was able to get OK mixes.

I guess the real point is, do you want to create obstacles for yourself and chase ghosts, or work towards improving your recording situation?
Then when you do get monitors, you'll spend a whole lot of time relearning how to mix.

But yeah...if I was like in a real crappy/noisy environment, then sure, I agree, headphones will isolate that out and allow you to get some work done.

PS
You can get some decent used monitors for $400!
I just saw two listings on eBay for Mackie HR824 monitors for under $400.

 

[Dogbreath]

I know it's already been covered but I'm throwin in my "me too" anyway.

If it came down to having to mix on headphones vs hi fi stereo speakers, I'd pick the speakers.
If it came down to hi fi speakers vs monitors....

I DO check my mixes in a set of cans for specific detail or stereo spread but monitors hands down.

my 2c...

 

[Chibi Nappa]

But Terra's point about his monitors not reproducing the amount of bass that's there in reality is one that's confused me for a long while. What I don't understand at this moment in time is that if stereo speakers are 'enhanced' to make them sound 'good' in the high and low end and everyone is ultimately going to listen to their music on such, how is a flat response monitor going to be better ?

In most cases there is little to no difference between a "hi fi" speaker and a monitor speaker. They're all just trying to reproduce sound accurately with varying degrees of success.



Those tiny satellites/cubes/sticks that pair with "sub woofers" (used in the loosest meaning possible) certainly exaggerate highs and lows...only because they are incapable of producing midrange. But I don't think anybody in their right mind would call those things hi fi speakers.

 

[TripleM]

Headphones can be useful to spot digital "clicks and pops" - or I guess non-digital ones too . They can be useful when you're looking for left-to-right balance in your mix. I can't think of anything else right now. I personally wouldn't spend much time using them to mix. I'd just pop them on every once in a while for the two purposes I stated.

 

[G-Jay]

PS
You can get some decent used monitors for $400!
I just saw two listings on eBay for Mackie HR824 monitors for under $400.

Sure you can get decent monitors used. However, if you spend the entire theoretical budget of $400 on the used Mackies that leaves $0 for room treatment.

 

[miroslav]

Well...OK...let's be realistic.
I think you will agree that $400 ain't enough for much of anything when just starting out. Thing is...everyone wants to buy EVERYTHING for their budget, no matter if it's a $400, $4000 or $40,000 budget!

Let's talk about room treatment.
I don't want to suggest that going without room treatment is better...however, I see way too many guys get very caught up with that as though it's a magic element AFA having a studio that rocks VS sucks.
Quite frankly...most of the rooms people use for home studios need a LOT more than some bass traps and foam...which is what a lot of folks blow their precious, limited budgets on. Some of them get WAY too scientific about it...others just put up foam/traps wherever there is an empty wall.
Often it's a total crapshoot no matter how much "treatment" they put up....and man, I've seen some downright UGLY studio setups on these forums, mainly due to the "treatment", which sometimes costs them a LOT!
Then they go out and buy $59 condensers and $99 preamps to go with their fancy treatment.

Point I'm getting at...there's been a lot of great sounding music recorded in NON-treated rooms, like a typical home living room...and there's been crappy sounding music recorded in studios that were almost over-treated.
So it's hard to say what's the best thing to spend $400 on.
It's like the reoccurring question that comes up on forums when budgets are small...
"What should I buy first, a great mic or a great mic preamp?"
I say...it doesn't really matter all that much, as eventually you will need both!

None of that really clarifies the headphone VS monitors question any better than we've already tried to do......but I just don't see that money should be the main deciding factor for that question...if you get my meaning.
Sometimes it IS smarter to buy for the long-term rather than just to fulfill an immediate need that you then have to fix later on anyway.
So yeah...I would still spend the entire $400 on decent used monitors..and the treatment can come later when there’s more clams.
I just think that is better than spending $400 on several crappy items just so you get more quantity out of your $400.
Don't you agree?

Anyway...in case anyone wants to go the headphone way...I suggest you check out the Fostex T50RP semi-open headphones. They are absolutely fantastic for critical listening. They have a huge bandwidth and flat response and are very accurate, and they can be found as cheap as $60 on eBay (new)...though they sell normally for $75-$100.
I have three pairs...along with a bunch of Koss Pro4AA that I use mainly for tracking as they offer super isolation...but the Fostex would be the better choice for mixing, if anyone is going that route instead of monitors.

 

[G-Jay]

Well...OK...let's be realistic.
I think you will agree that $400 ain't enough for much of anything when just starting out. Thing is...everyone wants to buy EVERYTHING for their budget, no matter if it's a $400, $4000 or $40,000 budget!

Let's talk about room treatment.
I don't want to suggest that going without room treatment is better...however, I see way too many guys get very caught up with that as though it's a magic element AFA having a studio that rocks VS sucks.
Quite frankly...most of the rooms people use for home studios need a LOT more than some bass traps and foam...which is what a lot of folks blow their precious, limited budgets on. Some of them get WAY too scientific about it...others just put up foam/traps wherever there is an empty wall.
Often it's a total crapshoot no matter how much "treatment" they put up....and man, I've seen some downright UGLY studio setups on these forums, mainly due to the "treatment", which sometimes costs them a LOT!
Then they go out and buy $59 condensers and $99 preamps to go with their fancy treatment.

Point I'm getting at...there's been a lot of great sounding music recorded in NON-treated rooms, like a typical home living room...and there's been crappy sounding music recorded in studios that were almost over-treated.
So it's hard to say what's the best thing to spend $400 on.
It's like the reoccurring question that comes up on forums when budgets are small...
"What should I buy first, a great mic or a great mic preamp?"
I say...it doesn't really matter all that much, as eventually you will need both!

None of that really clarifies the headphone VS monitors question any better than we've already tried to do......but I just don't see that money should be the main deciding factor for that question...if you get my meaning.
Sometimes it IS smarter to buy for the long-term rather than just to fulfill an immediate need that you then have to fix later on anyway.
So yeah...I would still spend the entire $400 on decent used monitors..and the treatment can come later when there’s more clams.
I just think that is better than spending $400 on several crappy items just so you get more quantity out of your $400.
Don't you agree?

Anyway...in case anyone wants to go the headphone way...I suggest you check out the Fostex T50RP semi-open headphones. They are absolutely fantastic for critical listening. They have a huge bandwidth and flat response and are very accurate, and they can be found as cheap as $60 on eBay (new)...though they sell normally for $75-$100.
I have three pairs...along with a bunch of Koss Pro4AA that I use mainly for tracking as they offer super isolation...but the Fostex would be the better choice for mixing, if anyone is going that route instead of monitors.

Actually Miroslav I think I disagree with you philosophically.

I am a firm believer in getting the basics right. After all your talk of chasing ghosts I'm really surprised that you downplay acoustic treatment.

Lower quality monitors will fare better in well treated rooms than top of the range monitors will in a bad sounding room.

Room treatment is one of the cheapest and yet most significant improvements that the home recordist can make. With a cheap reliable measuring microphone you can see where the problems with your room lie and you can check the effect any treatment you are installing is having - there is absolutely no need for it to be a crapshoot. With the treatment in place, recordings will sound better and you will be able to reliably HEAR what has been recorded and make prudent mixing decisions.

It's interesting that you mentioned people asking whether to upgrade the mic or the pre first. Room treatment would make a FAR greater difference than any mic pre would.

To my mind it makes more sense to begin the upgrades at the start if the chain. Get the room right first. Then upgrade the mics. A good mic will make far more of a difference than a good preamp. It's pretty hard to buy a truly bad preamp these days.

This all presupposes that a recording system is in place already. If you want to make records and you only have $400 then you will need to make that budget stretch to include a mic, an interface (or recording device), monitoring, a stand and cables. THEN you can look to upgrade things.

I do agree that it is better to spend budgets on quality rather than quantity. That is why I'd spend my theoretical monitoring budget of $400 on a pair of Sennhesier HD650s rather than a set of cheap monitors and half assed room treatment. The HD650s are well respected amongst audio professionals and will last a lifetime.

However, I will state again that I far prefer mixing on monitors than mixing on headphones. I am just making the point that mixing on cans can be done and done well.

 

[miroslav]

The trouble is that most home recordists’ room treatment amounts to very little. A few hundred dollars (or even a few thousand) spent on hanging traps and gluing foam will not equal the same results as when a trained acoustician designs the same room from the ground up...so you tell me who is chasing ghosts?

I know the prevailing notion is that "any treatment" is better than "no treatment" and that "more treatment" is always better than "less treatment"...but somewhere in there is the actual reality that is shaped by each and every room, budget and long-term goal.
I'm just saying one should first see what they have...and then go from there.

You are welcome to disagree with me philosophically, though it doesn’t always work in a studio reality...
...and over the last 35+ years I've made a lot of the same mistakes as the newbies here to prove it.

But let's get back to the OP's question.
He asked what was the industry standard for mixing...and the answer to that is monitors, not headphones....though you can find specialized/unusual situations where a pair of headphones can come in handy.

 

[moresound]

After monitoring on the studio speakers and everything sounds great you could just go over everything with headphones. When I do this I find small fix up problems that are missed with the monitors. Nothing big but still there, now that would be called nitpicking so it all boils down to how much of a perfectionist you are and is it really needed.

 

[NYMorningstar]

But let's get back to the OP's question.
He asked what was the industry standard for mixing...and the answer to that is monitors, not headphones....though you can find specialized/unusual situations where a pair of headphones can come in handy.

The original problem he raised was when he mixes with speakers it sounds cluttered on headphones. G-Jay has it right I believe in that it may be money better spent on headphones than to treat his room and end up fruitless.