Headphone reference while mastering?

[gubu]

Hi forum,

What do people think of checking EQ balance on a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-100's while mastering?

My room is a spare bedroom and is treated about as good as it will ever be treated, i.e. rugs at speaker reflection points, pictures hanging around the place and a couple of bookcases to break things up some more. Needless to say, the bottom end in the room isn't great.

I'm happy enough to continue learning in this room with my old passive Tannoy Reveals (not noted for their spectacularly detailed bottom end either!) but the DT-100's give a waay better reference below around 800hz and also give a better indication of the overall EQ balance.

Mixing on headphones is a bad idea for sure but I'm wondering what pitfalls there may be in using headphones as one of your reference tools while mastering? The DT-100's are a pretty good reference headphone IMO. The reason I started using them in this way is that I really noticed how detailed they are in the bottom end compared to my room. Stereo imaging and 'depth' perception is good in the room but I've found the headphones to be good at suggesting little tweaks below 800hz.

Thanks in advance for any replies

[Zooey]

I don't really see a downside to spot-checking your mix on every monitoring device you own.

[gubu]

True dat.

 

I guess I'm trying to cut down on the amount of time spent going from system to system with CD's and USB sticks and wondering what to be wary of when using heaphones. Or what experience people have had here using headphones as a mastering reference.

[WRGKMC]

Headphones dont give you a flat responce like good recording monitors do. You may get 20~20Khz but you cant get a flat responce between those frequencies with a single headphone.

You can use them tracking, or spot checking mixes for stereo balance, but you wont have the proper depth perception using them like you get from actual speakers.

Getting a good mix or a good master using only headphones is purely pot luck. I used them for a good 10 years when I had small kids and lived in an appartment.

I was really good at using them too because I would constantly A/B my mixes against commercial recordings. I may have gotten 1 out of 10 close and all the others

suffered from two dimensionality in one form or another. You just can beat a high quality two or three way flat responce system for making those kinds of decisions.

Best advice is try it both ways and stic the results on a CD and stick it in a good car stereo and judge which sounds best.

In my experience the headphone create a mix that sound like a recording in a small closed box.

[CME]

 

True dat. I guess I'm trying to cut down on the amount of time spent going from system to system with CD's and USB sticks and wondering what to be wary of when using heaphones. Or what experience people have had here using headphones as a mastering reference.

 

 

I'll agree that IMO headphones won't cut it for the most part. However I am interested in maybe getting some of the Ultimate Ears Reference Monitors. They're a multi-driver in-ear that is suppose to be very accurate and really blocks out ambient noise. Could be really useful if they are advertised. But at roughly a grand I don't have the $$$ to experiment lol. And I'm still betting it would take some time to get used to them and get really good results.

[WRGKMC]

The fact that its in your ear is the problem. You need distance (air) between you and the speakers to mix right.

You external ears act as direction finders for sound and can detect depth and distance.

When you place a speaker over your ear lobes you are eliminating their highly important use in mixing music.

[144dB]

I use headphones to check for small defects (e.g. clicks, pops, etc.). In a home studio, it's very difficult to get enough isolation or a low enough noise floor to hear such things on monitors (unless the defect is pretty blatant). I'll also use headphones just to check the mix or master, to hear what headphone users will hear when listening to it. But otherwise I use my monitors to do the heavy work.

[gubu]

Ok, well I think I'm going to continue using the DT100's as outlined in my OP. Many people complain that they can sound a little 'boxy' but, in my experience, great audio sounds like great audio on these headphones.

So, I'll be using them only to double check EQ balance with specific reference to the bottom end. As I said, I'm happy with how my stereo imaging and 'depth' translates from my Tannoy Reveals to other systems.

I've got some 'remasters' to do for a couple of people in the next week or 2 so I'll see how it goes...

Thanks for all the replies,

ad

[BushmasterM4]

I think one should do two mixes. One for headphones and one for speakers

[veracohr]

I always check my mixes on my Sony MDR-7506's. I've had them forever and I've listened to a ton of music on them, and they have a lower frequency response than my monitors, so they are a good comparison even though they're not very flat.

[gubu]

Well, I've one track done and I'm pretty happy with the results. Using the headphones, I was much better able to hear some low-mid issues and how to cut some bass without killing the kick drum.

It sounds about as good as I'll ever get it and is an improvement on the original mix, which was a bit flat and woolly.

So, I've 3 more tracks to do for his band and 2 tracks to do for another songwriter next week. So far so good!

[Etienne Rambert]

People are listening to music via headphones & ear-buds a lot.

 

They're listening to it on car radios a lot.

 

I'm no engineer. I usually prefer to hire someone else.

But I record alone. So I definitely monitor my recordings & sometimes

mix them to sound good on what people will listen to them on.

 

Right now, I have SONY MDR900HD's, Sennheiser HD280's & Shure SRH 440's.

I have crap monitors. I check my mixes on laptops, ear-buds, through cheap

Logitech headsets & my own three sets of reference headphones.

 

(Right now, I prefer the SRH 440's. The SONY's are a huge disappointment.

I'm about to retire them. I just got the HD280's and can't really say how they

stack up next to the Shures).

[Phil O'Keefe]

As your only reference, I think headphones are less than ideal. As "a" reference that are used in conjunction with some good speakers, I think good headphones are a very useful and helpful mastering tool. Not only because you can often hear small sonic details and gremlins that are occasionally difficult to catch with speakers, but as Etienne Rambert mentioned, people are listening on headphones / earbuds a lot these days, and checking the master on the types of systems a good percentage of your audience will be using is (IMHO) a good idea.

 

Because they provide a different listening "experience" than speakers, I think it's a good idea to have a good idea of what it's going to sound like on cans too, as opposed to just speakers. But I would never want to try to master something using only headphones as a reference. YMMV

[gubu]

I have to say, I used them for around 20-30 minutes during around 2 hours of listening and tweaking. They open up a lot of the bottom end and are a real help in translating bass to kitchen/car type systems. It's not and ideal solution but it's definitely a help. There has been a lot less running from system to system to see how things are translating before running back to the Mac to 'try' something else.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I call that whole running around / checking on as many systems in as many environments (car, home stereo, studio speakers, cans, etc.) as possible routine "doing the dance", and I was well acquainted with it... until I remodeled my control room and upgraded to some very nice speakers that I can personally "relate" to, and that "work" for me. Now, I trust what I am hearing, and I know how it's going to translate.

 

I love it!

 

However, if upgrading the speakers and room acoustics isn't an option for you, then cross-referencing the mix on a variety of systems is about the best option you have available. However, if you're in that situation, you might want to strongly consider hiring a good mastering engineer to work on your stuff. IMO, getting that unbiased outside POV / opinion / take on things is especially important if your room and monitoring are less than ideal.

[gubu]

For sure, if I produce anything that's good enough, it'll get mastered by a pro. These projects I'm working on at the moment are an exercise in turd polishing tbh. I couldn't say that I could improve the sound quality of an already great sounding mix with the system I'm using (tho maybe I'd have the good sense to leave it alone ). But it's great to be able to trust what I'm hearing thru the speakers in terms of space/depth and augment that with a more detailed view of the bottom end on the DT100's.

I don't know if you've used those cans much but they seem pretty flat and while they are highly unflattering 'reference' cans, great audio always sounds like great audio on them.

 

My workflow used to be:- tweak, bounce to disk, kitchen, car, living room, car, living room, tweak, bounce to disk, car, kitchen, tweak etc. etc.

 

Now it's more like:- tweak, DT100's, tweak bottom end, bounce to disk, check on iTunes on the same machine, kitchen, done.

[Phil O'Keefe]

If "great audio sounds like great audio" on those cans (and no, I'm not terribly familiar with them ) then you're half-way there. The other half is that bad audio needs to sound like bad audio on them too.

 

If it's working for you, then who are we to argue?

[gubu]

Yep, I'd much rather be using a

[gubu]

Ok, I had another listen to that master around 5 minutes after I posted the clips above and realised that it's garbage. It sounds like garbage on the DT100s too

 

I've been at it again, getting more overall level by reducing some low mids even more and changing the shape of the low shelf (cut), and may post a clip of it tomorrow once I've done a little 'dancing' with it.

 

In the meantime, if anyone wants to outline all the ways in which the mix and master above are garbage, knock yerself out!!

[Phil O'Keefe]

I do want to give it a listen, but I'm pretty swamped right now. Will try to do so soon.

[gubu]

I do want to give it a listen, but I'm pretty swamped right now. Will try to do so soon.

 

No worries. Here is a 2nd master (attempt). I think this one sounds better than the master I posted above. I relied on the headphones a little more for this one and think I managed to get the bottom end sounding a little more 'open' while getting slightly more overall level.

 

[ATTACH]336827[/ATTACH]

 

So, if you or anyone else has time to lend your ears for a minute, then

[iqi616]

So, if you or anyone else has time to lend your ears for a minute, then

 

Sounds okay through the laptop speakers - I'm away from my monitors at the moment. Anyway, my hopefully useful contribution to this discussion is to remind everyone of the effect of listening at different volumes. That's a big cause of next-morning blues. There are a bunch of factors to consider...

 

Your hearing isn't "flat" until the music is at a certain level (I'm not going to argue about specific SPLs here, just to say that when you turn up the volume it gets to a certain level and it starts to sound full and beyond that it's just as full but louder).

 

Your hearing compresses when the music hits a higher level. As ever this starts as "soft limiting" rounding off the peaks and ends up with everything squashed to mush - and by then you're doing permanent damage to your hearing.

 

If the mix sounds good at low levels, it will probably sound just as good at high levels. If it sounds good at high levels, it will probably sound crap at low levels. That's because you will EQ differently and if you're monitoring very loud your ears' in-built compression will further skew your judgement.

 

Another problem with mixing too loud - you won't be able to adjust compression or limiting properly. The compression of your ears will mask over-compression and you won't be able to hear it "hitting the wall" until you turn it down. Listening to modern over-limited CDs at low levels will help train your ear to hear the wall.

 

It is a lot harder to judge loudness in headphones. Particularly relative loudness. I'm not sure why that is but nowadays I never count a mix as done until I've heard it through speakers even if I was tweaking something that I could only really hear in the headphones. Also, you end up tending to crank the volume in headphones over a period of time in a way that you don't with speakers.

[gubu]

Thanks for listening!

 

I don't know what SPL I've got the speakers working at but I don't think it's anywhere above the mid-70's. My room is small so I tend not to push the speakers too high as it can get real fatigue-y real quick.

I've got a notch set on the monitor amp for mixing which is few dB higher than the setting I use for mastering and they both seem to be listening levels that work for me.

 

Regarding the headphones, I've also got a notch set on the headphone send and I never go above that level. It can be easy to keep pushing your headphone level but I think you need to set a level and keep it there or you'll end up with no real reference. As I said at the start of the thread, the headphones are helping to judge how things sound below 800hZ and also how the overall EQ balance sounds but I stick to the speakers for everything else.

[Phil O'Keefe]

my hopefully useful contribution to this discussion is to remind everyone of the effect of listening at different volumes. That's a big cause of next-morning blues.

 

The influence of the Fletcher Munson curve on the way we perceive frequency balances is undeniable - excellent point!

 

I have an app for my iPhone that turns it into a SPL meter. I also have a $50 Radio Shack hardware SPL meter that sits right next to me when I mix. Since our hearing is "flattest" at about 85dB SPL, that's the level I tend to try to mix at.

 

It's much harder to know "how loud" you are when using headphones, which is another potential disadvantage to using them as your sole mix or mastering reference IMO.

[gubu]

Ok, well for all my talk, I've been doing 'the dance' with this track since posting the last clip. I've done 1 further master and I think that this is the one I'm going to use as a template for the other 4 tracks in the session. It's not hugely different from the sound in the clip above. That setup just needed around 1dB of multiband compression applied from around 80-300hz to slightly soften the attack of the bass guitar.

 

What I've noticed is that the headphones are a useful 2nd reference in terms of overall EQ balance but that over-reliance on them tends to lead to a 'washed out' sound that has no warmth or punch. My monitors and consumer gear are still the final reference points but I'm pretty happy with how this track turned out and will continue to spot check on these headphones. It's still a learning process but, for my setup, I found that I was able to get a handle on what was going on below ~800hz pretty quickly when spot checking on the phones and referring back to the monitors (in a poorly treated room). More specifically, they gave a much better idea as to how frequencies in the botom end related to each other and to the rest of the spectrum when boosted or cut. So, I could hear where to make the right cut to reduce the 'boominess' of one instrument without adversely affecting the 'body' of another.

 

These mixes weren't great to begin with (and are 5 years old, I've been literally digging up all sorts off my drives just to have some material to practice on lately), but I'm happy that I've been able to improve things in small ways to make the material more listenable and more translatable to other systems.