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Headphones for mixing?


Rizza

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Never mix on headphones.

 

 

ALWAYS mix with headphones. AND monitors, and earbuds, and in mono, etc. Not everyone is going to be listening on top-of-the-line studio monitors.

 

Disclaimer: I'm not a pro by any stretch, but I have mixed on one setup in the past and was shocked that the mix sounded like garbage on another.

 

I use Sony V6 headphones for mixing, BTW.

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That said, Sennheiser HD 280. They are awesome.

 

 

I love the pair my wife got me for my birthday.

 

That being said, I "mastered" my brother's band's new album on the headphones, play back on the 3 speaker system on my computer at home, play through my 5.1 system at home off the PS3, in the car, then at work on my sh!tty little 2-speaker system, then through my earbuds that I have plugged in to my mp3 player. Then I sent it over to him and his band to let me know if it's close to what they were thinking. I'm still learning all this stuff, so I'm making little tweaks here and there when I think it needs more bass, more compression, a touch of reverb, etc.

 

It takes time and practice to get good with these things, and the Sennheiser headphones are a great starting point, IMO.

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My recommendation is not to do your mix on headphones (unless you want to fork out $1000 for the Audeze LCD-2). Even then your main reference should be a proper set of monitors. There's too many things that will sound wrong if you mix on a cheap pair of headphones.

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I use a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M40fs cans for tracking. I like them so much that I have 2 pairs.

 

The Sennheiser 280's are really nice too. But I agree with everyone who says not to mix with headphones. I'll mix a bit with my cans if it's late and I don't want to bother my neighbours, but I'll always go back to my monitors the next day and fix up my mix.

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Just a heads up, headphones are not true stereo. It is unwise to use them as a final mixing reference.

 

 

One of the most noticeable weird things that I found many years ago was that the pan was fairly true when you got a headphone mix to some good monitors to check it, but the "depth" of the panning (placement "up" and "down") on individual channels can get way off, especially when you are using time effects on certain channels.

 

An example would be a nice thick but separated mix but that VOX over at 12% right would be sticking "up" out of the mix, kinda by itself. Don't know the term for it, but you can't hear that on headphones.

 

Also don't remember the term for what headphones are regarding stereo but if you look it up it is fact that they are not true stereo

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HD280 are great headphones, but by no means are they balanced.


one big problem with headphones is the common ground blurs the image. balanced headphones do resolve this problem
but the stereo image you get from headphones can never be the same as what you get from speakers (binaural mixing aside)

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