Andrew Scheps on Mixing with Headphones

[bitflipper]

This is a point I've been making ever since I read Floyd Toole's excellent book Sound Reproduction. Regardless of whether you have high-end speakers in a well-treated room or you're making do with cheap headphones, your own brain will, given time, come to recognize what a good mix sounds like on those speakers.

That's why I always recommend spending a few hours listening to your favorite records after you've bought new speakers or headphones.  Many people (incorrectly) believe that speakers sound better after they've been "broken in", when in fact they just sound better because your ears and brain have become accustomed to them and will automatically compensate for whatever those speakers are lacking.

Always feels good when an undisputed expert agrees with you.

 

[OutrageProductions]

I've had several different mains monitors in the walls since 1988, my all time faves being Westlake HR-1's, followed closely by some Genelec 1234's and Massenberg units (at Blackbird in Nashville).
But I've been mixing 98% on either Yamaha NS-10M's [with a SONY consumer 5" sub] (yeah... I know, go ahead and laugh) since 1989, and for the last 15 years an additional pair of Mackie 10" powered units. Once you get really used to what they sound like in a reasonably treated room, mixes translate very well nearly everywhere else, at least in my personal career.

It really does come down to developing the muscle memory for what ever you prefer to use and LOTS of ear training. And NEVER listening too loud for an extended period. If ya gots the ears, you're golden... if ya don't... hire someone that does.

I do most of my tracking and Ivory Soap mixing using headphones (Beyer DT700 pro-x or AT D40fs's) and never have had anyone complain that "it doesn't sound good" when the final product is delivered.
I never liked 'em, but had a colleague who swore by Sony 7506's, which were great for FOH live work, but IMHO sukt in the studio.
To each their own...

Edited January 7 by OutrageProductions

[craigb]

Somebody is really named Fap Dupont??? 😮

Dayam!

[bitflipper]

I know, right?

But I'll not speculate whether that's the name his mother gave him or a nom de guerre, lest I violate some rule.

[bitflipper]

4 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

Once you get really used to what they sound like in a reasonably treated room, mixes translate very well...

Well said.

I just bought some fancy earbuds last week, for stage monitoring. At first I was disappointed that at $400 they sounded way worse than my $200 Sennheiser headphones. But after several hours listening to a wide selection of music, and then using them during a 3-hour band rehearsal, I concluded that they didn't sound that bad after all. They're gonna work out just fine.

I had the same experience when I had to replace my studio monitors in a hurry, to replace a pair that had gone *****-up. With no money set aside, I settled for some speakers from Focal that were noticeably less flat and bass-light than their predecessors. No, these aren't the good Focals that I'd lusted after since the first time I heard them, but a far cheaper entry-level model. Yes, there were translation issues at first, as I foolishly tried to compensate for their weaknesses with EQ. But after a couple years with them, I actually like them quite a lot now and have no issues with translation.

[Terry Kelley]

Regardless of the number of different speakers and headphones I’ve used over the millennia, if I mixed in headphones, the mix balance is off on ANY loudspeakers.

So I don’t. I might rough it out but I mix on my monitors and check on my dipoles. Those two agree. 

[Shane_B.]

I have Yamaha HS-80's. I've never been able to hear bass on them. Even when listening to pro mixes. I attribute that to the room and their placement, and maybe my hearing a little.

I recently bought a pair of small Bose Bluetooth speakers and paired them in stereo mode. I was floored by how good they sound and the bass. Far better than my "pro" HS-80's. That said, moving the Bose speakers a 6 to 12 inches one way or the other dramatically changed the bass.

I've never been able to place the HS-80's where they should be because of size limitations of the rooms I've had them in. It says in the manual for best response place them "5 feet from walls".

[bitflipper]

It's a generally-accepted principle that whatever your speakers are weak at is what your mixes will overcompensate for. Usually, they're talking about deep bass. If your monitors can't reproduce very low frequencies, then gauging your mix's bass levels can only ever be a shot in the dark and likely to come out too hot. Conversely, speakers with hyped bass will encourage bass-light mixes. Consequently, the "you can make anything work" concept assumes that your budget speakers/headphones meet at least bare-minimum requirements. Laptop speakers and stock Apple earbuds will only ever translate by accident.

A good example is Audio Technica's ATH-M50, a longtime favorite for cheap-ish (~$150) but good-enough headphones that will do the job pretty well. They are far from flat (no headphones are), with hyped bass and uneven highs. But spend enough time with them and you can create well-balanced mixes. 

Personally, I'm a speaker guy. For me, headphones are either a secondary reference or for fine editing. But then I don't mix in hotel rooms or on the beach. I'm always in the same space, seated in the sweet spot and surrounded by absorption. Consistency is the key, regardless of what you're listening on.

On 1/8/2025 at 2:03 PM, Shane_B. said:

I've never been able to place the HS-80's where they should be because of size limitations of the rooms I've had them in. It says in the manual for best response place them "5 feet from walls".

That's because the HS-80s are rear-ported speakers, which can cause bass buildup between the ports and the rear wall. I've seen the benefit of moving them away from the wall first-hand, and it was a dramatic improvement. They didn't get stronger bass (they're still relatively small enclosures) but the bass response was smoother and flatter. The studio's owner later reported that the quality of his mixes had noticeably improved and he spent far less time fiddling with bass.

One potential solution for you would to add a sub and cross it over at a relatively high frequency, e.g. 100 Hz. You could then move the sub around the room until you find the ideal location - it doesn't have to be in front of you or equidistant between the main speakers. One neat trick I learned back when I had a sub was to set it on the chair in the mix position and then crawl around the floor until it sounds good, then move the sub there.

[jesse g]

This is a testimony from an excellent mixer, which shows that not all great headphones  have to cost $500 and up ⬆️

 

 
(Sony MDR 7506)   = $99.99
 

 

 

[bitflipper]

I didn't know those were so cheap! The only time I've heard them was at the Sony booth at NAMM, c. 2008. They sounded wonderful. At the time they were a new product, and when I asked the rep what they retailed for, he said $500. I set them back on the rack and moved on.

[OutrageProductions]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

...Sony booth at NAMM, c. 2008. They sounded wonderful. At the time they were a new product,

The 7506 has been around since 1991. Clair Brothers bought over 200 of them that fall for their road crews. Mostly because they would fold up and fit in a fanny pak & the cables were field replaceable. 

Edited January 11 by OutrageProductions

[Sal Sorice]

I’m an absolute noob when it comes to mixing. I invested in the Slate VSX system and it seems to do really good emulations. 

[pwalpwal]

yep, 7506, a standard studio monitoring headphone, with full replacability of parts, packaging has a diagram of how to rip them to bits, a workhorse headphone 👍

[bitflipper]

15 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

The 7506 has been around since 1991.

I stand corrected. I guess I just assumed it was a new product because I hadn't seen it before. Then again, I didn't even own a pair of decent headphones until c. 2004-2005.

[Gswitz]

5 hours ago, bitflipper said:

 Then again, I didn't even own a pair of decent headphones until c. 2004-2005.

I still don't. My kid took them. 

[Rain]

After I decided to bite the bullet and renew my plan on a couple of Waves plugins recently, I also decided to demo a few things, including their Abbey Road Studio 3. It was the first time in a decade that I used headphones for anything other than recording, but  I had used a plugin by 112db called Redline Monitor when we were on the road, "a listening, mixing, and mastering tool that makes your headphones experience more natural: as if the sound came from a pair of external speakers."

What truly shocked me with the Waves plugin is that it actually sounded pretty much like listening to the same mix on my monitors in this very room and in this position (move a few inches and that's a hole different story). I sincerely doubt that it sounded anything like Abbey Road, though... It "fixed" the stereo image, put less emphasis on the mids and added bass, which these AKG-240 seem to be missing.  

So oddly enough, it gave me a sort of continuity instead of being some kind of alternative, pseudo-reality check. This means that, in theory, if I had to turn off my monitors for some reason and use these headphones to mix instead, I could pretty much pick up right where I left off. Something I had never considered. Not a bad thing, as, after 12 years,  I am used to these monitors.

I recently got ARC as part of IK's Studio bundle, so I'll probably be buying their mic and finally facing some awful reality in terms of what this room sounds like. I'll be curious to see how that plays out. And if the Waves plug-in still sounds like my humble home studio afterwards. 😁

 

Edited January 12 by Rain

[Shane_B.]

On 1/10/2025 at 12:23 PM, bitflipper said:

That's because the HS-80s are rear-ported speakers, which can cause bass buildup between the ports and the rear wall. I've seen the benefit of moving them away from the wall first-hand, and it was a dramatic improvement. They didn't get stronger bass (they're still relatively small enclosures) but the bass response was smoother and flatter. The studio's owner later reported that the quality of his mixes had noticeably improved and he spent far less time fiddling with bass.

One potential solution for you would to add a sub and cross it over at a relatively high frequency, e.g. 100 Hz. You could then move the sub around the room until you find the ideal location

I've never had a large enough room to move them around. I would love to try that.

They are great sounding monitors. Professionally recorded/mastered music sounds incredible. Completely transparent as if the music isn't coming from the speakers. I can only imagine how these would sound in a properly treated room and spaced correctly. I tried to tinker with a sub one time but I didn't know enough about setting them up and had zero success. I have a much better understanding of all of this now, I just don't have the time or space.

 

On 1/10/2025 at 1:50 PM, jesse g said:

This is a testimony from an excellent mixer, which shows that not all great headphones  have to cost $500 and up ⬆️

 

 

I have a pair of those, or something very similar. IIRC there's a few models that look like that. They are so old the foam pads have deteriorated.  I also have to be very careful using them. They really flare up my tinnitus a lot faster than listening to monitors.

I had an ear infection one time and had a hard time hearing. I raised them to a comfortable level not realizing it was way too loud. I lost all hearing below 90Hz. I don't know if it was from the loudness or the infection or a combination of both.

After many failed mixing attempts with them I ended up only using them when I was tracking. That's a limitation of the operator, not the equipment though.

I do have to say, the #1 thing that has vastly improved my mixing and mastering attempts is Ozone 9 Advanced. Their visual approach to mixing that's different than just looking at a frequency display significantly helped me to the point where I once I had a visual that I could understand on what I was doing wrong, dialing everything in got a lot easier. I don't know what version OA is up to now, but I'm very happy with 9.

[Amberwolf]

31 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

I lost all hearing below 90Hz. I don't know if it was from the loudness or the infection or a combination of both.

Kinda OT, but:  Some antibiotics / etc have ototoxic properties, so depending on the meds for the infection and the dosage and your metabolism, that could also have caused it.

Some infections can do it, even if they aren't ear-related (guessing they produce ototoxins that kill "ear" cells / cilia?, or damage to the nerves that read those).  

Covid may also be a cause of tinnitus and hearing loss (mine didn't get anywhere near this bad until I went thru that, now it's quite severe and causes problems even understanding speech under various conditions). Some of the "studies" show it comes back after a few months, but mine has only ever gotten worse with time.

I also have problems using headphones, since the damage in each ear is different, and it is confusing and disorienting with the distinct separated L and R signals in headphones, vs speakers where they mix in the air on the way to me.      I mostly use them now just to listen for timing issues (mostly percussion) with sets of soloed tracks, vs whole projects, and other detail stuff like that.   

Can't really use them to check mixes or eq with (mostly I have to use a spectrum analyzer view, like in Audacity, to see where specific problems are in a track visually, so I don't have to just eq tracks globally and nuke stuff I really want to keep in some parts of a song but avoid in in other parts).