Speakers Vs. Headphones?

[TeyshaBlue]

i have some very good speakers - about $6000 each.
that said, i have some very good headphones too.

i can hear things on the cans that you cannot hear from the speakers.

for convenience use your speakers.
for detailed quality work use the phones.

now considering that the public thinks mp3 is really hi fi and many folks cant hear at all cause they have blown their ears out with dangerously loud SPLs you might as well use the speakers on your pc and save some money unless you are producing a classical music album.

I routinely mix on Rokkit 5's.

A couple of months ago, I got to mix on a pair of Adam A7's.

I heard things I could not hear with the Rokkits. I also listened to mixes done on the Rokkits on some very nice Sennheiser HD 650's. Personally, I didn't hear a thing I wasn't already hearing. Anecdotal? Of course.

Given enough time, I can produce a good mix on just about anything. When I first started, I used a pair of Sony bookshelf speakers pushed by a Kenwood stereo. I compensated for the hyped upper end by turning the treble up on the Kenwood..thereby forcing me to mix the highs at a lower level relative to what was coming out of the monitors. Those mixes translated very well, but man, they took some time. When I upgraded to my first set of semi-decent monitors, EV MS802, my mix times were literally cut in half...after I learned to return the treble control on the Kenwood to the center position.

I could conceivablely mix on headphones...don't know why I would want to, but if I had enough time, I could probably kick out a decent mix. But, why put yourself behind the 8 ball right off the bat?

When I'm critiquing a mix, which I just don't do much of anymore, I could immediately pick out the headphone mixes. They were generally bottom heavy with little definition....mixes that sound killer on phones and then just burned to CD without listening to them anywhere else.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

he who pays the piper calls the tune

If you're in this racket for the express purpose of making more than pay-the-water-and-electricity money, you're in the wrong racket.

commercial jingles pay quite well

guy in washdc area making 1/2mil a year doing things like that

He's one of the last of a rapidly dying breed. I've known a few guys that made their living well by writing jingles for years and who have moved on to other musical silos in the past few years because the jingle business is disappearing to the one-two punch of 60s and 70s hit music going public or at least becoming very cheap, and modern day bands not having the aversion to "going commercial" the way the previous generation of musicians did. When a PR firm can get the rights to a hit tune from 1968 or even from 2008 for a decent price - which they often can now - they are not interested in jingles.

Let's all go to the lobby....

G.

 

[XLR]

I've done the hotel room thing.
I was working on a soundtrack for a documentary on Louisville, CO a few years ago. I was on location during the day getting an idea of the footage, then with some rough video, I would work at night. I was holed up in a hotel in Denver for 2 weeks. I had a pair of Tannoy PBM 6.5's, 100 watt reference amp, 2 keyboards and a sequencer. I worked at a fairly low volume and never had a noise complaint the entire trip.

Cool. I was doing a classical concert in Palo Alto a few yrs ago that was being recorded but they had no dedicated sound room like some halls do. The engineer ran the mic cables hundreds of feet to a far back room of the building, and carried in small speakers to use to monitor, mainly so he could be sure of getting a good mic placement in the hall, which for classical stuff is everything. He said no way would he use headphones for that even if it would have made for a much easier setup.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

Let's all go to the lobby....

G.

Is there a bar in there?

 

[Bitter Dawn]

I must say, very interesting perspectives from every one on this subject.

Now, as far as I know, monitors are for flat frequencies to give a pure, unbiased presentation of the recording. It's very possible that I missed it while reading through all the responses but, it seems like every time headphones were brought up, people were saying how cans just enhance the sound to make it sound better than it is, like most home audio equipment is designed to do for entertainment purposes but, does this debate of monitors vs. cans include all types of cans or is it just regular cans? Bear with me but, I thought cans with a zero or flat frequency would suffice for mixing, no?

It may be my ignorance (likely the case) but, I had the impression that using flat freq headphones was a good thing because it was pure sound, with no outside elements to tamper with the sound on playback, where as monitors would be affection by the room.

 

[gecko zzed]

It may be my ignorance (likely the case) but, I had the impression that using flat freq headphones was a good thing because it was pure sound, with no outside elements to tamper with the sound on playback, where as monitors would be affection by the room.

It is true that with headphones you reduce the audio impact of the room. However, the phones themselves have an impact, and you need to ensure that the phones you get are not themselves introducing unexpected and unhelpful audio artifacts.

Pure sound aside, the big difference is the different spatial perspective you get between speakers and headphones. This is determined by the physicality of these things. Cups over your ears or speakers in a room present the "landscape" of your stereo image quite differently, and can cause funny things to happen. For example, vocals mixed at a level that sounds acceptable in headphones will often sound way too loud when played back through speakers.

I use phones for getting in to the detail of a mix; they can help in this way. And sometimes I do preliminary mixes late at night using phones. But, in the end, I am not satisfied until the mix sounds good out loud on speakers.

 

[Bitter Dawn]

For example, vocals mixed at a level that sounds acceptable in headphones will often sound way too loud when played back through speakers.

This is some thing I am familiar with. I can recall some mixes where the vocals are just plain overbearing, there does seem to be a bit of a trick to finding the sweet spot for getting the vocals in the mix. As my lead guitarist would say, "Most vocals sound like they're on top of all the music".

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Now, as far as I know, monitors are for flat frequencies to give a pure, unbiased presentation of the recording.

Ask yourself these questions: if "monitors" (these days really just a marketing term for loudspeakers) guaranteed anything even close to a flat, pure, unbiased presentation of the recording then why do no two of them sound the same, and why do they range in price from approx. $100 to $4000 a piece? The whole thing about "studio monitors" being more flat and accurate than your average loudspeaker line is little more than marketing myth.

This is part of the reason why the question of phones vs. loudspeakers is a false dichotomy, because the answer changes depending upon which specific monitors and environment one is comparing to which cans. Crap monitors - or at least ones mismatched to the listener's ear bias - in a lousy room give no advantage over a halfway-decent pair of phones, and in many cases the phones may actually be a better idea.

But once one starts going up in quality all the way around in all variables, the loudspeakers begin to rule when t comes to appropriateness to mixing and mastering

G.

 

[Bitter Dawn]

Ask yourself these questions: if "monitors" (these days really just a marketing term for loudspeakers) guaranteed anything even close to a flat, pure, unbiased presentation of the recording then why do no two of them sound the same, and why do they range in price from approx. $100 to $4000 a piece? The whole thing about "studio monitors" being more flat and accurate than your average loudspeaker line is little more than marketing myth.

G.

Good point. I've been trying to spend more time here reading than posting and, you do seem to know your stuff SSG. I'll also admit as, it's clearly evident that there's a lot I don't know yet about recording.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Good point. I've been trying to spend more time here reading than posting and, you do seem to know your stuff SSG.

Only those things I post about. If I'm not sure, I'll say so right out front, but usually I'll just stay quiet if I'm not fairly sure about something. It's makes one look a lot smarter than they really are that way . That false impression also tends to get me into trouble around here

I'll also admit as, it's clearly evident that there's a lot I don't know yet about recording.

That admission alone makes you smarter than you may think you are, and puts you clicks ahead of many folks. Just stick around, quiet or not doesn't matter. But welcome to the world of the posting, one way or another .

G.

 

[mixmkr]

amazing thread.

I'll say I could give a hoot about rules and what should be done. I've mixed with cans for over 3 decades, had mixes mastered done on cans with minimal EQ or spatial adjustments.

What works for some may not for the next.

I think Frederick summed it up a zillon posts back.

 

[SaberBeats]

i have a pair of krk 5s, and some decent headphones, and i still choose to mix with headphones just because a: ive listened to these same type of phones for 3 years now, b: the frequencies are flatted out over the extensive amount of time listening on these phones, and c: better stereo perspective (in my opinion at least)

i use my monitors rarely to check on eqing and low - mid - high end balence, and i can usually get them sounding just the way i want them in my phones anyway.

also, im in an untreated room, with 4 walls, lots of open space, and no proper stands to set up my monitors so that i could get a better stereo view.

so yea, i like my headphones ty

 

[kcearl]

no