Acoustica User Forums

For anyone who uses headphones regularly for mixing, as I have to on many occasions, I would suggest perhaps tryingtry these budget studio h/phones. Good flat response & comfortable to wear.
I have used these for two years and have ditched my much more expensive Beyer 770s & quality pair of Sennheiser.
http://recording4.com/samson-sr850-vs-sr950/

Can't get a better price to performance in my opinion.

comedians wrote:For anyone who uses headphones regularly for mixing, as I have to on many occasions, I would suggest perhaps trying these budget studio h/phones. Good flat response & comfortable to wear.
I have used these for two years and have ditched my much more expensive Beyer 770s & quality pair of Sennheiser.
http://recording4.com/samson-sr850-vs-sr950/

Can't get a better price to performance in my opinion.

I have been GASing for a pair of these for a long time. Birthday is coming up, time to drop hints. Not a wallet-lightener either.

I'm assuming that people who say you can't mix on cans can't actually mix period. I've never heard a good reason for not mixing on cans. I can do a full mix on my AKG K77s, twenty five quid a pair. So good I bought two pairs.

There's no equivalent to cans, I freely admit.

RobertAllan wrote:...




RobertAllan

Well said: straight to the point.

One thing I've particularly noticed about mixing on headphones is that they are able to reveal a mono-incompatible mix far more obviously than studio monitors.

Tell you what:

There are some FINE posts on this thread!!! Well done chasps!!! LOL!!!

Little bit of my input on the topic (and pretty basic stuff i.e. the technical and more complicated aspects have been WELL addressed on this thread already):

Once you have recorded something then "step away from the vehicle" for a couple of hours or preferably until the next day or session. This even before you start mixing. Recording and then straight away starting to mix becomes really counterproductive. Too many times I've done this and I've gotten so frustrated thinking that "man: this is terrible". Then and a few days later: I pull everything into Mixcraft and my first thoughts (with a big grin on my face) are "bloody hell is that ME???"!!! LOL!!! I kid you not.

I've found that mixing on headphones: I can get something that sounds great. Then I'll immediately switch to my PA and it sounds not so great. Once again: "step away from the vehicle". The next day: the same mix doesn't sound half bad on my PA i.e. the same one that sounded lousy the day before.

There is absolutely no substitute (this has already been covered but it's worth mentioning again to stress the importance) for playing back on multiple devices and using commercial reference tracks (your favorite artist/CD/whatever will do). For me: if something sounds fantastic on my car CD player and on my el cheapo Samsung sound bar with subwoofer then I know I'm "done". An iPad is pretty good in detecting quality as well at least insofar as phase issues are concerned anyway. Stuff that sounds great on my headphones or on my PA does not necessarily sound great on my car CD player or on my el cheapo Samsung sound bar. See where I'm going with this???

That's about it i.e. all I can contribute that's not already been covered.

Yes I agree, something can sound great then a day, week or even month later - sound not so great. I think one of the vintage big bands - Beach Boys? Steely Dan? - used to say, if a number didn't equally sound great on a bog standard mono car radio speaker, than scratch it & start again. A song must work across the broadest hi-fi/lo-fi spectrum. Plus sometimes we get carried away with what we've done, and it might not be that good anyway - time always tells

Tip: Listening to the mix over monitors (big and small), headphones, earbuds, and in your vehicle is a good idea.

Yes, listen to it through as many different sets of speakers as possible

kr236rk wrote:Yes I agree, something can sound great then a day, week or even month later - sound not so great. I think one of the vintage big bands - Beach Boys? Steely Dan? - used to say, if a number didn't equally sound great on a bog standard mono car radio speaker, than scratch it & start again. A song must work across the broadest hi-fi/lo-fi spectrum. Plus sometimes we get carried away with what we've done, and it might not be that good anyway - time always tells

Well also true i.e. something that sounds great today may not sound so great in a month’s time. But I reckon that this would happen if you’ve improved on subsequent recordings or if you never referenced properly to begin with. I know this happened to me but in a slightly different context. When I (again) bought guitars and amps. (and Mixcraft) etc. early 2017 I thought everything I did sounded amazing back then only to find that as the years and months have gone by I’ve dialed back on distortion and effects so much so that it’s not even funny. Everything I did back then was mushy with no definition. What I thought was a “wall of sound” back then was more like a “wash of sound”. Now my stuff is pretty clear and punchy and articulate. I guess really that this just means you learn and improve as you go along.

Different strokes for different folks!

IIRC, there are plugins that are supposed to be helpful here. IE., Audified MixChecker/Pro. I must admit I have no experience with them however.

My fav method is to do a rough mixdown, then head out to the car stereo to see how it sounds there, also, find a set of decent quality ear buds and listen from your DAW, if they dont sound too muddy and can handle the highs without breaking up, it is a good start. Good monitor speakers are great to have, but they are all different, claiming to be flat as etc, but get to know what you have and learn to mix so that it sounds good on them, then play it on anything you can find, little ghetto blasters, walkman type stereos etc, because recordings will get played on all those type of players, and they all have shortcomings, and lets face it, not everyone is going to play your recordings through B&W etc hi fi speakers. I have those in my hi fi, but never go to them first after a mixdown, as they will make mud sound like cream and give a false idea of the sound.

aquataur wrote:You asked the 1Million $$$ question

What are "good" headphones for mixing, as mentioned before, may sound sterile for listening to music. For those little mp3 players to sound good at pretty low power they have to fiddle with the frequency range. Usually an unnatural bass boost. Imagine a multiband compressor at work.

Those headphones and also average speakers with bass reflex openings are untrue, which is why you rarely see them in studios. Having that said, (for the reasons mentioned above) they make sure that a recording sounds good also on those systems.

-helmut

On spot! that's the reason usually headsets are not preferred *artificial boost*