Monitors, headphones, rooms and perception & the doors of

[lebouche]

Otek was just saying in my headphone thread that even bad monitors can be ok to mix on if you learn what they sound like and also that headphones will always just fuck you if you try to mix on them.

So....

A) Why cant you mix on Cans if you for example only listened to music on them...surely you would know what you were trying to achieve (apart from the fact you would prob go deaf)

B) Why would a room or monitors fuck your mix if you apply the same logic. I listen to music in my studio..and the room prob has all sorts of acoustic problems but other stuff still sounds great and I know how it sounds in there....:Roll eyes:

[Brendo]

You can't mix on cans because things aren't quite right... panning is generally never "natural" sounding in cans, things are either L, C or R, there's no "how much"... Levels are difficult to judge, and it's generally just an excercise in frustration. Levels of effects are hard to judge, and a common symptom, at least in my headphone mixes, is that reverb levels are wrong... either too high or too low.

If you're mixing for headphones ONLY, like, say, a binaural recording, sure... headphones, fine, i guess...

[otek]

I would have to offer a different take.... I actually often use headphones to check my panning.

Levels, on the other hand, remains a clusterfuck on cans, like Brendo said.



Lebouche, as for your questions:


A) Why cant you mix on Cans if you for example only listened to music on them...

I am not saying unequivocally that you can't, but I have yet to hear ONE serious AE claim that he's entirely comfortable with it. As for myself, I find it near impossible to get a truthful idea about levels and EQ, because every time I've tried it, I get a nasty surprise when I return to the monitors.

But don't take my word for it. The challenge stands from that other thread. If you want to use cans to mix in, God Speed. Just make sure you check it so that the mix translates on any regular speakers in your vicinity....

B) Why would a room or monitors fuck your mix if you apply the same logic.

Again, the more anomalies you have in your listening environment, the more unknown variables you intoduce into your mix workflow.

A mix is a complex interaction between various elements. Even without factoring in room nodes and other assorted acoustic problems, it's a daunting task to put it together and give it musical sense.

With a frequency anomaly in the room, you can never be quite certain of what you're hearing. You always have to guess when trying to adjust something. If you make sure you remedy as much as possible of the problems in the room, your workflow will improve dramatically, because you eliminated most of the guesswork.

[lebouche]

Thanks,
Its never ending..
:Cry:
Now I need to check my room...I just thought people were being poncey with all that.

[Brendo]

And now to go against most of what I said... check my latest thread down in Song Critique... for a headphone mix, which I think actually didn't turn out all that bad...

[Brendo]

I would have to offer a different take.... I actually often use headphones to check my panning.

Don't you find it odd how there's no "crosstalk" between ears? I mean... 50% left is going to sound way more left in headphones than in speakers because your right ear still hears the left speaker when you're listening in speakers... right?

[bunnerabb]

I use headphones, oddly, to gauge both the "In your face" thing and the "intimacy" thing.

And that thing will work differently on speakers but it has to do the do on both.

Otherwise, the song doesn't translate as an emotional event and you blew it.

Is this making any sense?

[otek]

Don't you find it odd how there's no "crosstalk" between ears? I mean... 50% left is going to sound way more left in headphones than in speakers because your right ear still hears the left speaker when you're listening in speakers... right?


I agree with you Brendo, though I think it mostly has to do with the fact that the room diffusion tends to blur the "channel separation" a bit. When you listen to a mix in the room, you are hearing the mix reflecting and "living" inside that room. This is why your idea of "problem areas" are often different from listening on headphones, because the room tends to pick up on different things.

In any case, with cans all I do is looking for a starting point - for the unlikely event that people may be listening to music on headphones.... :Roll eyes:

I will often adjust things slightly on the speakers after the fact.

[PRobb]

I don't think you should mix on any one thing. Big speakers tell you things nothing else does. So do NS-10s. So do Auratones. So do cans. I always check mixes in cans. Things like panning, reverb and bad PT edits jump out in cans.

[SaltyDog]

Try this pluggie for a headphone mix. I'm curious what you all think of it.
http://refinedaudiometrics.com/products-hdphx.shtml

[dwoz]

ok, here's a stab at it, from someone who ends up spending entirely too much time in headphones...

The problem with headphones, is that you can "hear into" the mix so easily.

THIS is a problem???? Yes.

Because they just simply don't respond anything like speakers. Every mix I've done in phones, sounds....undefined....in speakers. what sounded like a mix with a definite "moment of focus/thread of focus", somehow looses that definition, instead having a pile of competing elements.

So I think the problem is that in phones, its really hard to discern volume relationships. One way to address that problem if you HAVE TO be in phones, is to do your mix, then turn it down to barely audible, and readjust, fine tune your levels there.

A mix done in heaphones at very low volume tends to translate better to speakers, in my experience.

Maybe that helps, maybe not.

dwoz

[dikledoux]

Headphones are bad because they're typically somewhat hyped. But you could theoretically get used to that. But the total separation between your left ear and right ear will completely hide phase issues (and other things) that would jump out at you on speakers. Not kinda hide... COMPLETELY hide.

dik

[Brendo]

I dunno... it seems to me that phase issues are occasionally quite easy to hear on headphones, if they're obvious enough?

Imagine your head being turned inside out.

[slabrock]

Try this pluggie for a headphone mix. I'm curious what you all think of it.
http://refinedaudiometrics.com/products-hdphx.shtml

Thanks for that link. No, i haven't tried that artificial field but i have thought that would at least solve some of the problems when working with the cans (I don't think you really can mix in the cans, even if with practice it might sound pretty decent).

The main problem with headphones compared to speakers is that with speakers you always hear a stereo weighted stereo sum, whereas with cans the summing up happens somewhere in the middle of your skull.

I always check the mix with the same headphones. Headphones are great for tracing the minute problems in pan and low end. And i need my AKG K240M's because i don't trust subwoofers (having had to redo several sessions because of various sub problems) and work 99% on nearfields.

Peace,

Slabrock

[lebouche]

[QUOTE]And i need my AKG K240M's because i don't trust subwoofers (having had to redo several sessions because of various sub problems) and work 99% on nearfields.[QUOTE][/
Slabrock.

Do you use your sub with your monitors or mostly use it to solo and monitor on its own. I recently installed a sub running from a seperate amp to my quad and ns10's and just add to taste but I've been wondering if thats a big mistake..

[Brendo]

I can't say I've ever heard of anyone SOLOING a sub.

[lebouche]

I can't say I've ever heard of anyone SOLOING a sub.

You have now... :D

[mattian]

eqing - levels - panning - reverbs. compression is also a problem with cans or is a less problematic thing?

i mean, the attack is always a attack.. so probably you hear it defined or undefined in phones or speaker at the same way.

probably is than a problem to judge the level before and after compression.

or not?

[Tim Halligan]

We've talked in other threads about glue.

In my experience, the air in your control room is a type of glue also. This explains why levels are easier to judge.

It is not impossible to mix on cans...it just takes longer to achieve because cans don't have enough air, and by logical extension, enough glue.

YMMV.

Cheers,
Tim

[mattian]

thanks!

[imagin]

I have been taught that, cans can be a problem as the phase cancelation that occures when simalar tracks are panned left and right, happens when the actual waves are summed in the space between you and your monitors, you hear phase cancelation if it is present.

With cans this does not happen as the sound waves pass straight to your ear drum!

So not the same level or sound. A mono listen should give an exagerated idea of any problems.

Cheers

Iain