Vocals Sound Louder in Headphones
- Thread starter Magnawolf
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Massive Master
www.massivemastering.com
Stop mixing on headphones.
JimmyS1969
MOODerator
Yeah, I often listen to final mixes on a cheap pair of speakers, to get the sweet spot, as far as vocal levels are concerned. I think it has more to do with getting your head out of the room/mix for a bit, when making final decisions.
Headphones IMO, always lie, lie, lie.... I would never base mix levels from headphones, as there are two sides of the story, that headphones will lie to you about. Interaction between left and right, in an open space, is detrimental to what is actually going on in a mix.
Your goal now, is to find out why, and what works in other environments, and adjust to what works well. Learning your monitoring situation, and how it translates, is what will help to get it right.
Headphones IMO, always lie, lie, lie.... I would never base mix levels from headphones, as there are two sides of the story, that headphones will lie to you about. Interaction between left and right, in an open space, is detrimental to what is actually going on in a mix.
Your goal now, is to find out why, and what works in other environments, and adjust to what works well. Learning your monitoring situation, and how it translates, is what will help to get it right.
I have to mix on phones lately because of my living situation and I found this exact problem as well, but also with kick, snare, and bass. The center tracks are hardest to judge on phones.
Just the other day I tried putting an EQ on the master bus, and rolling off the highs to about 5k, and the lows to around 1k or so, while leaving everything playing. It gave me more of a laptop type sound, and it helped me get the vox seated a little better volume wise.
Also, take your volume knob down to absolute zero with the mix playing. SLOWLY turn it back up little by little... What do you hear first? When I try it with pro mixes, I hear vox and snare, and the click of the kick drum, before guitars or symbols, etc. So, I aim to get a similar situation in my own mixes. This also helps to get those levels right. When the mix is blaring loud, it's hard to judge...
Just the other day I tried putting an EQ on the master bus, and rolling off the highs to about 5k, and the lows to around 1k or so, while leaving everything playing. It gave me more of a laptop type sound, and it helped me get the vox seated a little better volume wise.
Also, take your volume knob down to absolute zero with the mix playing. SLOWLY turn it back up little by little... What do you hear first? When I try it with pro mixes, I hear vox and snare, and the click of the kick drum, before guitars or symbols, etc. So, I aim to get a similar situation in my own mixes. This also helps to get those levels right. When the mix is blaring loud, it's hard to judge...
JeffroMixesYou
New member
pure.fusion
New member
It's already been said but since I've been stung in this area I felt like I had to chime in.
Yes, Massive Master has the best advice above - don't mix on headphones.
FM
Yes, Massive Master has the best advice above - don't mix on headphones.
FM
Great advice - I do this all the time
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Weird. I get exactly the opposite effect, things panned center (like lead vocals) sound quiet in headphones compared to speakers. You're not putting some sort of stereo widening effect on the vocals, are you?
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Sorry, bad wording on my part... What I meant was that I have a tendency to make center items too loud when working with phones.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Aha. In speakers you're hearing both channels with both ears, so things in both speakers (panned center) get an apparent boost compared to things in only one speaker (panned wide).
Right, but is this not true for headphones too? I mean, there are in fact still 2 speakers in a pair of headphones, no?
Is that all the reason though? I know it's not perfect, but even when using crossfeed eq, I still get this effect.. Maybe I don't have it set up well, idk
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
There are still two speakers but in headphones the left ear can't hear the right speaker and the right ear can't hear the left speaker.
In headphones if you have a sound in just one side and then add it to the other side at the same level it will just sound like it moves to the center. If you do the same thing while listening on speakers it will sound about 3dB louder, depending on room acoustics. That's why there is a thing called pan law, so that if you pan something the apparent level doesn't change.
Gotcha, thanks for the nice answer boulder!
Bristol Posse
Okey Dokey
Surely this would still be the same on phones or speakers since as Scotty once said "You cannae change the laws of physics, Jim"
if you have a 0dB pan law and you pan something center you get double the power as both speakers are playing the signal at full level vs hard panned which is one speaker playing the signal at full level (whether they be headphone speakers or speakers in cabinets) and so the centered panned sound is louder since double the power = approx +3dB in perceived levels.
If you want sounds to not appear to move forward and backward as they are panned then you need to have a -3dB to -4.5db pan law whether you are using headphones or not. Just as you do in a console (-4.5 gives fractionally better mono compatibility although the center panned sounds would get a tiny bit quieter vs the hard pans)
xander.moser
New member
Same here!
When I listen on headphones, the instruments panned hard always seem louder to me.
If I check the mix on headphones and think that everything in the middle (vocal, snare, kick, bass) needs to come up a dB or two, then I know I'm good
I think headphones give a very unrealistic representation of the stereo field and should not be used to make important mix decisions.
They do, however, make for good devices to check for all those little poor edits, unintended background noises. I typically use them to listen to the mix after each version of my mix. If I hear any poorly done edits, click track bleeds, or something really sticking out badly in the earbuds, I go back to work on it on the speakers.
If I hear the vocals "way too loud" through headphones, but sounding ok on speakers, I'd most likely attribute it to an EQ issue, and go back to relook at how each instrument sit in the frequency spectrum, and where they are panned to. One thing I really like to do is to solo the instruments panned center (typically the kick, snare, bass, vocals) and make sure the mix sounds pleasant with these instruments to start with... Then I add on the other instrument parts panned left/right.
They do, however, make for good devices to check for all those little poor edits, unintended background noises. I typically use them to listen to the mix after each version of my mix. If I hear any poorly done edits, click track bleeds, or something really sticking out badly in the earbuds, I go back to work on it on the speakers.
If I hear the vocals "way too loud" through headphones, but sounding ok on speakers, I'd most likely attribute it to an EQ issue, and go back to relook at how each instrument sit in the frequency spectrum, and where they are panned to. One thing I really like to do is to solo the instruments panned center (typically the kick, snare, bass, vocals) and make sure the mix sounds pleasant with these instruments to start with... Then I add on the other instrument parts panned left/right.