Recording/Mixing with Headphones?

[rrgguitarman]

The more I read, the more confused I get!
I have another thread asking opinions on a set of Monitors thinking that you had to have monitors to record and mixing?

Question, can you record/mix successfully (good results) with a good set of cans? Audio Technica M50 for instance.
I own a set of sennheiser hd280 that sound descent.

I would rather not use monitors because of space constraints and because of my living set up would be a bother to others.

Thanks!

[muscmp]

mixing with headphones is not considered appropriate but you have to do what is best for you. just make sure to test your creations on various media so that you get an idea of what you are really hearing.
good luck!
play music!

[Bob Womack]

Here's the upshot: What you mix under headphones won't sound the same on speakers. Here's why: With standard headphones, the left speaker is isolated and fed only to the left ear. The right speaker isolated and fed only to the right ear. With speakers, some of the signal fed to the left speaker bleeds to the right speaker and visa versa. The result is a different perception of the information by the listener. In general, the perceived sound field from speakers is collapsed a bit, meaning something panned far to a side seems less far to that side on speakers than it does in headphones. There is also an immediacy conveyed by having the speaker right up against the ear that isn't duplicated by having the speaker away from the ear.

As a result, it is difficult to get predictable mixes for speaker listening by mixing on headphones.

Bob

[kscobie8]

Originally Posted by muscmp

mixing with headphones is not considered appropriate but you have to do what is best for you. just make sure to test your creations on various media so that you get an idea of what you are really hearing.
good luck!
play music!

+1. It's not the industry convention, for some pretty good reasons. But as long as you know how your headphones respond and what you need to be listening for, they can certainly work. If your living/working space doesn't suit a full monitor setup then you can certainly make it work. I prefer to mix with big, full monitors, but it isn't always an option.

There are no rules.


Bel isi,
-kyle

[Jeremy]

I mix with my iPod headphones and usually get pretty good results. Sometimes I'll have to tweak the mix after hearing it in my car or through my home stereo, but for the most part it works pretty well for me.

I wouldn't recommend it universally though. I didn't like my experience with studio monitors and prefer using headphones.

[rrgguitarman]

Thank you so much for the quick and helpful replies.

The right speaker isolated and fed only to the right ear. With speakers, some of the signal fed to the left speaker bleeds to the right speaker and visa versa.

I never thought of it like this.

I didn't like my experience with studio monitors and prefer using headphones.

What happened if I may ask?

Are the sennheiser hd280 good enough for mixing in the abscence of a set of monitors or should I invest on a set of Audio Technica M50?

Thanks.

[Sage97]

If you prefer listening to your music via headphones, I guess mixing with headphones makes sense. Nevertheless, what you hear through headphones is not always heard the same through speaker systems.

[bobby b]

No way I can mix with headphones.....just way too uncomfortable for one...and can be very frustrating when listening back on some good monitors afterward.
At work I generally mix 5.1 all day so headphones are out. When I mix music I will only use monitors and even then I like to check playback on other 'consumer' systems, car stereos included.

There simply is no way I can mix with HP's and be confident that the mix will translate well on a big system.
If you mix with HP's you will have to constantly check playback on other systems just to get some sort of reference..... not exactly a good workflow, but hey ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

[sdelsolray]

I will check mixes with headphones, both open backed and closed, but only to hear how those mixes (which were mixed using nearfield monitors) sound through headphones.

The monitoring chain is more important than it might first seem, at least in my experience it was. Many studio cats suggest spending a substantial chunk of the budget on the monitoring chain and related room treatment.

That being said, you can certainly mix with headphones. In addition, most music listeners do not listen with high quality gear, and are themselves listening to .mp3 versions of the music through earbuds, car stereo speakers or computer speakers.

Still, having a good monitoring chain is something to be desired and appreciated.

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by rrgguitarman

What happened if I may ask?

I just wasn't happy with the way the mixes came out. I primarily listen to music through headphones so maybe I'm just more comfortable doing it that way.

[KevWind]

In my situation I use both .My studio is in the 3 rd floor attic. When my daughter is home 2 floor I use Head phones. When she is out at school I use monitors. There is for certain a difference especially in the low end, more bass comes thru the HPs then is present in my monitors, so I know that with the cans I have to mix a little bass heavy.
I have been using open back for mixing and closed back for tracking but I see Sdelsoray checks the mix with both, so I might start trying that also. There is much to learn.

[JonPR]

These are all good responses (and as an amateur I can't improve on the technical advice), but there seems to be an unspoken assumption that there is some kind of perfect mix, that can best be appreciated through the best studio monitors one can buy. The truth is, we (producers and consumers) listen to music in all kinds of ways. It will of course sound different through headphones (and phones of different types) than through monitors, or home stereos, or ipod ear buds, etc. Who is the music for? How will they be listening?
The only answer (IMO) may be to produce a kind of average mix that sounds good on the most popular listening medium - which may well be ipod earphones. Or maybe to produce various mixes with recommended listening equipment specified: headphone mix; hi-fi mix; cheap stereo mix; etc. (This already happens with "radio mixes" of course, and I guess there may already be others - I wouldn't know, I'm an amateur like I say .)

There is, of course, no "natural" listening environment for recorded music. Very little recorded music is made to sound as if musicians were sitting there in front of us playing (except possibly classical orchestral, and self-consciously traditional acoustic folk). In pop and rock music, effects of all kinds are added to enhance the sound, to produce the sense of an artificial space, often a totally unnatural one. We accept this as listeners. With most music, we don't expect to go "wow, it sounds like they're right in the room with me!" - usually because we wouldn't want them in the room (or bus or subway train or car) we're in anyway - it would sound awful, even if they could all squeeze in with us. We like the kinds of magical artificial spaces created by the recording process - we imagine ourselves there, not them here.

Of course, all this means - as advised above! - that it's important to listen to the mix through as many different systems as possible; but without dismissing the cheapest, least effective. It has to sound as good as possible on those too, especially if that's a popular medium. Headphones are not inferior to monitors; they are just different, as Bob described. Monitors are no more "natural". The bleeding he describes (which is of course similar to how we hear real musicians and their sound sources, if that's the environment we want to imagine) can easily be reproduced - or at least emulated - with headphones, simply by not panning anything totally left or right.
The other factor with monitors that complicates things, of course, is the room we listen in, and where the monitors are placed relative to our listening position. The closer we are to the monitors, the closer the stereo field gets to that of headphones (while never actually approaching it of course). Those are just the differences we need to be aware of, not factors that determine whether one method is better than another.

[ljguitar]

Hi Ruben (and others)...
I mixed and mixed down using a nice set of Sennheiser phones for years.

What Bob W pointed out about the spatial separation of phones versus monitors is true, but I was able to play my mixes back immediately in studio on monitors, on a house stereo, in a car, on a BoomBox, through an iPod (which is more like the phones I mixed with spatially) during the mix down process. I'd run the mix through all those back-to-back-to-back in 30 minutes, and then return to the studio and remix as needed.

I did it regularly for 8 years and really became adept at 'forecasting' what I was hearing through the phones and translating it into what would happen on the monitor/speaker side.

[rrgguitarman]

Great wealth of information.

You guys have forced me to step back and look at what I'm trying to do with a different perspective.

I love this Forum.

Thanks for all your time and great advice.

[patrickgm60]

Not sure this was addressed in the other replies, but it really matters what type of recordings you will be doing. If it is solo guitar or guitar/vocal, one track, then headphones should work just fine. It's when you add other instruments/tracks, particularly in stereo, that monitors become more important.

Of course, now you have to share your recordings with us....