Do You Ever Mix or Master on Headphones?

[Anderton]

I thought this might be a good topic for an EQ roundup - test out a bunch of phones. review the Focusrite VRM technology, add some tips, etc. But, I thought some words of wisdom from SSSers would be cool to include too. So...

 

Do you ever mix or master on headphones? Is it a part of the process, or the whole thing? What kind of headphones do you use? Do you find that mixes done on headphones are "trasportable," or not?

 

Inquiring minds want to know.........

[nice keetee]

Have had OK results using AKG K240DF phones. Similar to a decent pair of speakers. When silence is golden because someone is sleeping nearby.

[Mark L]

I only ever use headphones

 

Never owned monitor speakers in me life

 

 

At the moment I use AKG K141 cans

[John Sayers]

yeah - I have a pair of Grado S60s. as good as any.

[Roy Brooks]

I usually don't mix/master with headphones. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I get surprisingly good results. Sometimes I don't. I am more likely to mix and master with headphones late at night. And I will usually listen to it the next day on monitor speakers to see if I need to mix again. I am pleasantly surprised when the mix I did with headphones sounds good with monitors.

[MikeRivers]

When I'm mixing a live show and recording it (direct to stereo), my only choices for monitoring the recording is the live PA or headphones. If it's a show where there's a lot of acoustic spill (acoustic instruments with a too-loud electric bass, guitar, or drums) where the PA mix isn't all that the audience is hearing, I'll set up a separate mix for recording so that I can fill in the holes, setting up extra mics that aren't used for the PA. In those instances I'll use headphones to monitor the recording mix.

 

I use Sony 7506 phones because that's what I have, and I'll compare the sound with the phones on and off to hear what I need to add to the headphone mix. I set the pans by eye (unless it's a mono recording, which it often is) and tend to go wide since it's easier to narrow the stereo field than to expand it.

 

Since I rarely work with a really loud PA system, I can get good enough isolation from the Sony phones so that I'm usually not too far off with the mix. It's usually good enough. If the client wants the best recording mix rather than a live mix for reference, I'll record multitrack and mix later, on speakers, or find a place where I can set up separately for recording and let someone else deal with the PA.

 

When I'm recording with just a stereo mic pair, it's almost always a situation where I can't monitor on speakers, so there I use the headphones to check mic placement. I'll listen in mono for musical balance and amount of room ambiance, then in stereo for left-right position.

[Alndln2]

Do you ever mix or master on headphones?

Of course not, but I've always get pretty close after working with headphones. I've heard really good things about a VST plugin for this called Redline Monitor from a company called 112 DB.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

Of course not...

 

 

Exactly. I would say never do that, because "Loudspeaker Stereophony", and "Headphone Stereophony" are two complete different things.

 

In other words, your article should descibe what the two kind of stereophony are, and why the two are different.

[Jon Chappell]

 

...I am more likely to mix and master with headphones late at night. And I will usually listen to it the next day on monitor speakers to see if I need to mix again. I am pleasantly surprised when the mix I did with headphones sounds good with monitors.

 

 

I do a variation of this. I often mix with headphones (for me, AKG K271 MkII) because I can home in on the individual instruments better and listen for timing, breath noise/fret squeaks, flams, etc., faster and more efficiently this way than over speakers. I do make individual EQ adjustments, but sparingly. Here, I'll use my eyes as well as ears to employ any track compression.

 

When working with headphones, I make it a habit to swap the left and right sides, sum to mono, listen to left only (through both earpieces), then right only. This (hopefully) eliminates any fatigue or "stuck perceptions" my ears--collectively or individually--have picked up in the process.

 

Then I break for the night, and fire up the mix on the nearfields the next day (in my case, Mackie HR824, Tannoy Precision 6D, and my computer's multimedia speakers). That's when I'll EQ or employ light compression over the stereo bus, and perform any operations that fall more in the mastering domain.

 

Working with headphones so much in the preliminary stages enables me to learn the arrangement and individual parts well. Then when I hear the mix over speakers, it's a brand new experience, sonically. I can make decisions without fatigue. So I still experience the music fresh in one aspect, while knowing what I'm listening to in another.

[Billster]

I use the headphones as a double check type of thing. I have some AKG 240 series. Since my music room isn't ideal from an acoustics standpoint, the phones can sometimes bring out any anomalies that the room causes/masks. Using the phones as a step is also like listening to mixes in different locations and systems.

 

I also would use the cans to see how effective any little "ear candy" tricks are.

[vinceg]

 

because I can home in on the individual instruments better and listen for timing, breath noise/fret squeaks, flams, etc.,

 

 

What's a flam?

[RockViolin]

When I found out I was going to be a Dad, I bought Ultrasone ProLine 750's. It was a good investment.

When all is quiet I check the work I've done with them later with JBL4208's, Infinity Ref 6's, or Tascam vl-x5's and pretty much always conclude there is too much bass and plenty of reverb. But, it's priceless to be able to work while my son cranks The Fresh Beat Band, or plays with wooden Thomas The Train on the wood floors above me.

 

When the house is all mine, I'll sometimes crank a favorite cd and then listen from an adjacent room. Then I'll run my own mix and compare. That really seems to help for getting the low end right, around here anyway.

[Jon Chappell]

 

What's a flam?

 

 

It's a drum term to describe a grace note, or double hit, that's not quite together, but not quite separated enough to be perceived as a rhythmic subdivision. It's a way of "smearing" a hit.

 

I'm using it here to describe when two instruments are supposed to be playing the same note together, but aren't. Panning instruments tends to obscure flams, and summing them to center often reveals them. For example, the snare is usually not panned center and neither is the rhythm guitar. And if they happen to be on different sides of center, it can be hard to hear if they're together when both are playing, say, the backbeat (beats 2 and 4). So summing them to mono helps to hear this (you can solo them too). Summing to mono is quicker, as it doesn't require you to change the pan knobs (which you have to restore to their original positions with care, too).

[Mudcat007]

... I've heard really good things about a VST plugin for this called Redline Monitor from a company called 112 DB.

, a VST plugin similar to the Redline plugin. It is significantly lower in price (20 Euro) and seems to be quite a bit more flexible as well. The plugin moves the soundstage to the front, models a number of speakers and is customizable to the specific listener (ear size, head size, etc...).

 

I'm impressed by the demo and plan on purchasing it before my next mix session.

[Beck]

No, but I like to do a check with phones because they can reveal things that I might miss in open air listening. So it's monitors for the main mixing/mastering process.

 

AKG K240's for 20+ years and counting over here for tracking and checking.

 

[MikeRivers]

 

It's a drum term to describe a grace note, or double hit, that's not quite together, but not quite separated enough to be perceived as a rhythmic subdivision. It's a way of "smearing" a hit. I'm using it here to describe when two instruments are supposed to be playing the same note together, but aren't.

 

Flamming can also result when the drum (it's most obvious on drums) is picked at about the same level by two mics, where one is 5-10 feet further from the drum than the other. Normally the inverse square law works in your favor, but when the "far" mic is on a fairly quiet source like an acoustic guitar, you can get enough leakage in there to hear. It's something that should be fixed by re-arranging the mics or player's position before tracking.

[tradivoro1]

You actually need to mix on both headphones and speakers... Considering that a lot of today's music is only listened to in headphones, you gotta see how it sounds there too... So yes, I definitely would love to see an article on headphone mixing and headphones...

[Mats Nermark]

 

I do a variation of this. I often mix with headphones (for me, AKG K271 MkII) because I can home in on the individual instruments better and listen for timing, breath noise/fret squeaks, flams, etc., faster and more efficiently this way than over speakers. I do make individual EQ adjustments, but sparingly. Here, I'll use my eyes as well as ears to employ any track compression. When working with headphones, I make it a habit to swap the left and right sides, sum to mono, listen to left only (through both earpieces), then right only. This (hopefully) eliminates any fatigue or "stuck perceptions" my ears--collectively or individually--have picked up in the process. Then I break for the night, and fire up the mix on the nearfields the next day (in my case, Mackie HR824, Tannoy Precision 6D, and my computer's multimedia speakers). That's when I'll EQ or employ light compression over the stereo bus, and perform any operations that fall more in the mastering domain. Working with headphones so much in the preliminary stages enables me to learn the arrangement and individual parts well. Then when I hear the mix over speakers, it's a brand new experience, sonically. I can make decisions without fatigue. So I still experience the music fresh in one aspect, while knowing what I'm listening to in another.

 

 

Hi Jon,

 

This is exactly how I work with the exception for using AKG K240 cans.

 

Cheers,

 

Mats N

[MikeRivers]

 

You actually need to mix on both headphones and speakers... Considering that a lot of today's music is only listened to in headphones, you gotta see how it sounds there too...

 

Sigh . . . . I suppose so. But the earphones ("buds") that are most common these days, plus the players with built-in compensation for them, are so different from the studio headphones that we're talking about here that the only thing you get from a headphone check is a different perspective on the stereo width.

 

At the AES show, Monster (yes, the overpriced cable people) made a big push for their new headphones, both in-ear and over-the ear phones. The Dr. Dre Beats phones (the ones with the headband) produced lots of boom, and Dr. Dre says "I can really hear what I've recorded with those." They had some similarly hyped in-ear "Turbine" phones (including a Lady Gaga version - different in style, not sound), and also the "Turbine Pro studio" version which is a non-hyped version (and cost $100 more than the "listener" version). At their press conference, they had a few big name mixing engineers all who said "I could mix on these."

 

I've gotta give them credit for making a point that we go to great lengths to record music accurately (or at least how we want it to sound) and then the listeners go and screw that all up with inadequate listening equipment - which of course can be remedied by Monster products. This is the same campaign that The METAlliance is running, only the METAlliance is doing it by blessing equipment that engineers use so they can make better recordings, rather than what the listeners use to hear the better recordings.

[CalfeeJones]

My process sounds very similar to Jon Chappell's above. I will usually do initial mixes on the phones, then go to speakers later.

 

I've lately been thinking alot about how people will listen to the music. The great majority it seems will be on earbuds and small computer speakers. So to me it makes some sense to pay particular attention to how things sound in those formats. Of course the near field monitors give us a type of information many of us are used to, but just about nobody listens to music in that way anymore. More often it is the 2 or 3 inch Logitech computer speaker, or the built in noisemakers in their laptop computer.

 

So after I mix on the headphones, and tune it on the nearfields I listen on the computer monitors and if decisions have to be made to optimize one or the other I will usually optimize to the computer speakers.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Using only headphones to mix is obviously a huge mistake. But not doing a reference check for headphones is also a fatal error these days. It's probably more important now than at any time since the late '70s/early '80s.

 

I don't mix at all on phones, but I do a ton of listening on them. When Phil's delivered me a rough mix for my upcoming album, I have four listening sources I always check: speakers, TV, big phones (Sennheiser HD-485) and little phones (iPod buds). You learn a lot from doing the headphone listening, especially in the bass area.

 

But I'd never mix anything serious using phones and no other sources, for the obvious reasons.

[Jon Chappell]

Hi Jon, This is exactly how I work with the exception for using AKG K240 cans. Cheers, Mats N

 

Well, that just proves that great minds think alike, right?

 

Actually, I meant to point out that my whole routine of swapping the L/R, listening to Left only, etc., is just to "shake out my ears" a bit ... to get things "unstuck" for when I go back to the normal orientation. (This was a trick I often employed when I was a professional transcriber and music editor for publishing companies like Cherry Lane, Hal Leonard, Warner Bros., etc. It really helps you hear parts in a new light.) Summing to mono I spend a bit more time with, because that's useful from both a musical and production perspective.

 

It's never occurred to me to check the mix on earbuds, but I suppose I should do that too [*sigh*].

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

.

 

 

Like it or not, it's really important, Jon. If you ran an informal poll of people about their music listening habits, I'd put money down that if you remove the car from the equation, at least half of the people would report they do most of their listening through stock iPod buds. In fact, heh heh, I'd make an educated guess that there's more listening being done on those little pieces of crap than on any home-based speaker system at this point.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

checking the masters with headphones is not a bad idea

 

since the masters are pushed up to ear piercing loudnesses

 

however the mixmasterdeluxe never uses headphones, not for anything, because he knows that loudspeaker stereophony can not be listened to on headphones

[Jon Chappell]

Like it or not, it's really important, Jon. If you ran an informal poll of people about their music listening habits, I'd put money down that if you remove the car from the equation, at least half of the people would report they do most of their listening through stock iPod buds. In fact, heh heh, I'd make an educated guess that there's more listening being done on those little pieces of crap than on any home-based speaker system at this point.

 

No doubt, you're right, Jeff. (Thus the reluctant acquiesence in my *sigh* reference.)

 

But it raises an interesting question: Who is really making mixing/mastering decisions based on the earbud test? Isn't most well-produced music mixed and mastered on great monitors? Don't earbudders just have to live with the same versions of music, but down-converted to mp3s? Isn't it just their lot to listen to music optimized for a different platform? Am I going to change a mix based on something I hear when I go to the earbuds? And can you even change something for the better in the 'buds without affecting the mix when played over grown-up speakers?

 

If we cave to the earbudders, don't the earbudders win?