I'm confused about mixing with headphones

B

bschaefer

New member
Ok, I know that headphone isn't the best tool to mix a track. It dont have the same acoustics that a reference monitor have, etc.

But, there are some people who say that if you know your equipment, you could do some great job, relatively. Of course, not the same as you do with a good monitor, but something listenable.

Well, I have a very cheap akg k404. Far from flat, it have a heavy bass, a weak mid and pretty clean high.
I only use it when i'm producing, as I dont listen too much music when i'm home, only at work, where I use a phillips slh3000 (cheaper than akg), so i'm more used to the phillips sound.

But, recently I've noticed that the akg have a very heavy bass (sub and bass) when compared to other producers music, so I started to bring down my bass and it helped a lot, but i'm still not happy at all with my mixes. And here is my question:

How could I know when my mixing problems is with my equipment or is a technical issue? I dont know if i'm following the right path learning to mix.
The simple comparison A (my music) to B(other music) can truly show me if a track have a good mix? Is there any good way to monitoring without expensive equips?

Sorry for my english, its not my native language.

Here's an example of a little piece of track that I made 2 weeks ago, when I realized that if I bring down the bass, it sounds better. (PS: I changed it a lot, add a synth and delete some percussion) (PS2: there is a demo version of glissEQ to see the spectrum, so it cuts the track sometimes)

 
Physically headphones will give you an inaccurate mix. In headphones a pressure is formed around your left ear, and right ear. Therefore this makes the right headphone your right ear and the left headphone your left ear. A very linear sound with no depth of field. That being said, listening through monitors your right ear will hear the right speaker first, however your left ear will also hear the right speaker after the right ear hears it. The human can calculate the distance in time between the right ear and left ear to accurately pinpoint exactly where the sound is coming from. Depth now develops.

So that being said, it is very, very true headphone mixes usually don't translate very well to monitors because they can be quite deceptive, no matter how flat they always lack depth. But many people still mix on headphones, and if you can't use monitors (while referencing in a set of cans) Headphones can still be used to better your skills. That being said, mixing is an artform and no one is good at it right away. You have to mix, and mix, and mix, and mix, the same tracks again and again, and everything you make from there on out. Slowly you will notice you are getting better. Don't give up just don't expect results right away! Learn when to move on to a new track and recognize you are always getting better.
 
When I was buying a couple of monitors I talked with this clerk who knew a lot about electronic music production, and he told me that he could easily hear if someone made a track on earbuds/headphones - the instrument levels were a little off and there was too much reverb generally (probably because of the lack of room echoes).

So no matter how much effort you put into getting your mix right when using headphones, there's always a risk that you may get these artifacts in your songs because you mixed it on your headphones, especially if you do it on cheaper heapdhones that aren't designed for studio usage.
I gotta say that from when I switched from producing on headphones (because of my lack of cash) to real studio monitors, the difficulty level went from Novice to Expert, suddenly you had to put a lot more effort in everything to make sure it worked, and I spent way much more time on mixing than before, and my songs suddenly became much more clean.

Don't confuse mixing on headphones with comparing on headphones though. A lot of people mainly listen to music on earbuds these days so a comparison on this element is a very good thing to do - and in my opinion, headphones are even better than studio monitors on detecting unstable stereo balancing, because the stereo field is so exposed on headphones.
 
I'm pretty new to mixing. In fact, I've only mixed 3 songs so far, but the 3rd one is my best, I think, and I did it in my headphones.
I agree that if you know your equipment, you can make a great job. My main problem while mixing in the headphones (btw, I've got open ones) is that I always feel like there's not enough the low end/bass. I haven't got used to my headphones yet, because I listened to music on my speakers or closed headphones before. So it's a matter of time, I guess.
You can listen to the latest song I mixed and tell me what you think.
 
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bschaefer, you can achieve great results with headphones, but depending on what the quality of your headphones is, your weak skills might or might not set the impact of it. With poor monitoring you need to be aware of it and you then need to have "extra" good skills with meters, and so on... With skills you come a long way, in one way or another it ends up pretty good sounding. Now of course gear sets a limit on what is physically possible to achieve...

What you don't like about the sound of your mixes, is the dynamics of the mix. Lots of cans are too "kind" about the transients, they consume them rather than reflect them back. This in combination with the frequency range being a bit uneven in combination with lack of proper transient handling, becomes an issue that you might be stuck with for a long time.

Although this is likely the case about your mixes when mixed against headphones, please notice that there is much more to great sound than having great monitoring. A lot of your final sound is a result of how you approach music. Music must be sensual, warm, inviting, engaging, energizing, powerful, exciting, pleasant etc. and all of these qualities you must practice to be sensitive to as an engineer. So it is a matter of being sensitive, and that it takes time to learn. But if you have raw and edgy sounding monitors or cans, they can help you build that sensitivity that you need, that's much better than not being able to hear it, maybe even to the point that you are damaging all of your music so that you cannot enjoy it.

I recommend that you get a pair of Ultrasone Signature DJ headphones, then once you have those, you learn them well. Then after that do not get hang up on the monitoring, but rather focus on how to achieve great sound through good technique.
 
bschaefer said:
Ok, I know that headphone isn't the best tool to mix a track. It dont have the same acoustics that a reference monitor have, etc.

But, there are some people who say that if you know your equipment, you could do some great job, relatively. Of course, not the same as you do with a good monitor, but something listenable...

How could I know when my mixing problems is with my equipment or is a technical issue? I dont know if i'm following the right path learning to mix.
Click to expand...

Excellent question. You will know the problem lies with your equipment if your headphones DO NOT HAVE A FLAT FREQUENCY RESPONSE. Most consumer headphones are bad for mixing because they eq the sound as it goes through them. They eq it to sound better to your typical consumer.

You clearly don't want headphones to be messing with the sound before you hear it.

So look for flat frequency response headphones. I purchased beyerdynamic 880's a few years back which are SUPERB for mixing as far as headphones go. I'd highly recommend those or anything that Soundonsound.com recommends. I'm sure they have an article on it.

You can do as much as 90% of mixing on headphones, then would have to switch to monitors for stereo imaging, and preferably have a mono listening device too.

But save up a bit for those Beyerdynamics, get em on ebay for cheap, and you won't regret it.

My mixes were screwed up for so long because I didn't know my headphones were altering the sound.

Best of luck!
 
I think a good start to getting a good mix without "flat" sounding headphones or sound source is to reference a professional song that has the same "type" of mix your trying to achieve. Keep referencing back and forth and try to get the dynamics and frequency levels to a similar spot. Not saying this is how you should mix, but can be a useful tool.
 
Learn your tools and you can mix the way you like.

I mix 100% exclusively in my Sennheiser HD650's open backs. I use reference mixes and have learn from practice about how the song should sound via my headphones to translate accordingly.

People hate on headphones but the only major disadvantage I see is that your ears get tired relatively quickly so you can't mix for as long as you would if you used monitors. This is an excuse for me to take regular breaks and do other things I enjoy inbetween :)

If you wanna mix on headphones, then mix on headphones IMO.
 
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