Who do I listen to?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Christoffah
  • Start date Start date
SonicAlbert said:
Since you recorded and mixed the album on one set of headphones, you should include those headphones with every purchase of the CD. That's only way anyone listening to your CD will be able to hear it as you imagined it.

You've just discovered the pitfalls of using headphones to record and mix. Headphones are great for checking details, but lousy as the main reference when mixing (or recording). You need sound moving through air, which means speakers. Even cheap but decent speakers are better than using headphones only.

If you want your listeners to hear the music more as you intended it, you need to remix on speakers. That will most likely translate better to other playback systems.
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Hahaha that would be so funny :D yeah I definately learned a lesson here. Is that so? I have a pair of 1ft high Sony speakers and a subwoofer unit to power them. Occasionally I'll listen to it on there and in my car, and both systems make the songs sound okayish (not as good as headphones... as you say actually it sounds airy on speakers but "tighter" on headphones). It's just my laptop's (or my computer flatscreen's) built-in speakers which seem to EQ the drums all by themselves and make the cymbals louder than anything (when really they're not THAT loud). Infact I've discovered that playing my music out of headphones and placing them on my desk is pretty much how my songs sound out of my laptop. It makes various notes lose their tuning, I think because I'm not "directly" hearing them. Irritiating! :(
 
Change of POETS said:
Just like my signature?

I don't get it... My album was released to the masses, yes as an indie project, but not as an internet release. I've soundscanned a couple thousand units...

If you expect retailers to carry your product, it better sound good enough. If that's not your intention, then don't stress over it. No need to make it more than what it is... a release for friends and family. Which, most of the time, they don't care how it sounds.
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Sorry, I assumed your signature was a link to your music hosted on the Internet. ("soundscanned"?)

I don't expect retailers to carry it, infact originally I wanted the local band music shop to carry it but I wanted it to be FREE and people could take one if they liked. And you're right I'm trying not to stress over it so much. Tiny little clips that I spent 10 minutes trying to edit out will be over in a miliseconed to the public - and they probably won't notice (I'm talking about the really tiny ones when two sliced waveforms are put together). If I can't notice without really trying I'm thinking casual listeners won't. That's my audience, not qualified sound engineers who will diss my hard-worked project :(

Thanks again for all your help, you guys are great. :)
 
Laptop speakers are one type of spekaer I would advise against monitoring on. They have no lo or hi end, but are concentrated in the 1-3kHz range. That is why your cymbals sound louder when listening this way.

Eck
 
I'm talking about monitoring on something like these:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/StudiophileBX5a-main.html

Under $300 and would certainly be much more accurate than your computers' multimedia speakers. I mean, the sky is the limit when it comes to monitors and how much they cost, but you can find budget speakers that will be better to mix on than headphones.
 
SonicAlbert said:
I'm talking about monitoring on something like these:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/StudiophileBX5a-main.html

Under $300 and would certainly be much more accurate than your computers' multimedia speakers. I mean, the sky is the limit when it comes to monitors and how much they cost, but you can find budget speakers that will be better to mix on than headphones.
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I dont beleive that to be true. Headphones are fine for mixing on, as long as you get to know your monitoring device it doesnt matter what they are (to a certain extent ie you could use built in laptop speakers!)
I would always use reference monitors though no matter what you are mixing through and check your panning and reverb with monitor speakers.

I use 4 different sets of monitors to get my mixes sounding right.

Eck
 
I use two sets of monitors and a set of headphones. I'd never use headphones as my main or exclusive monitoring though. They are great for checking detail though.

I've never, ever been in a commercial studio with professional mix engineers where they mixed all on headphones. Headphones are for checking detail only, looking for the small imperfections that might creep in. That's the way I've seen them used.
 
I'd love to have a set of monitors... one day perhaps...

Aside from Eck (I know you play guitar in your band), what do the rest of you do musically? Just quite curious as you all seem quite intelligent when it comes to audio; you also own a lot more equipment (many pairs of monitors, headphones etc) than a just-doing-it-for-fun guy like myself (mixing it all on headphones....).

Please let me know. I'm quite curious, and if you'd like to point me towards some of your work, that would also be interesting.
 
Chris, check out the 1st song on the link below.
I mixed and mastered this on headphones, using my speakers and other headphones as reference monitors.

www.myspace.com/crystalmixing

Let us know what you think of the quality for mixing and mastering on headphones.

Eck
 
The quality of Rock Mix was excellent. Sounds like a good band too. Nice idea for an organisation but doesn't it get a little "much"? Then again, you probably have a lot more experience than me thus getting the job done a lot more quickly.

May I ask how you used "headphones as reference monitors" ? Please expand that?
 
I mean that I jut listen to the mix through my main headphones and use other headphones and speakers to see what it sounds like through them, and I come up with a happy medium that the mix sounds good on all listening devices.

Thank you.
Eck
 
It is pretty full on some times, doing mixes and mastering for free, but I beleive it to all be worth while as its getting my name out there. I dont work either so that gives me plenty of time to mix and master peoples music. :)

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Chris, check out the 1st song on the link below.
I mixed and mastered this on headphones, using my speakers and other headphones as reference monitors.

www.myspace.com/crystalmixing

Let us know what you think of the quality for mixing and mastering on headphones.

Eck
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But this is totally not representative of doing a headphone mix. You said earlier in this thread that you use four different sets of monitors and headphones. You also say you used speakers for a reference. The point is that you are using speakers for this mix, not just headphones. So it was not really mixed and mastered on headphones.

The percentage of headphone versus monitors can be debatable, but doing a mix on headphones *only* is not debatable in my opinion. It's just a big no-no.
 
To follow on from SonicAlbert's post there, thanks to you guys I am now using my speakers to help me mix my songs. I've not changed much in the way of levels (although vocals are now sounding either too loud or too quiet), but there are little bits that are "clippy" compared with how they sound through headphones. It is sounding nice through my speakers too.

I am working my ass off to get this done for Friday; as weird as it sounds I feel like I will be able to live my life properly again. It just doesn't feel "free" when I have to do loads of editing every day.
 
I mix and mastererd the song on headphones, and used the speakers as reference monitors. So yeah I didnt do it solely on headphones. OK :)

Eck
 
C'mon, tell me how irritating the random clippings are, etc... I thought I had em all removed! then I listen to a diff pair of headphones/speakers and they're back. :(

Reference monitors are on the shopping list for the next time I start a big project :)
 
It's always hard to tell much about something on myspace because it completely rapes the sound quality. Vocals are the only thing that really jump out me as a trouble spot though. I like the guitars.
 
Yeah I noticed! the mp3s sound horrible on myspace compared to on CD. What did you mean they were a problem, the levels or the fact I can't sing brilliantly haha. thanks though :)
 
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