Mixing with earphones/headphones.

A

ArtaxiasNegus

New member
So I typically mix my instrumentals late at night when my neighbors are sleeping (they live under me) so I can't have my speakers up. I have been mixing with the standard Apple earbuds, but I just switched to BeatsByDre (Studios) headphones and notice it sounds a lot different, especially the low frequencies.

Are there any better or worse headphones to use or is simply using them a step backwards on its own?
 
There are a lot better headphones than either of those for mixing purposes - the Apple 'buds just ain't very good and the Beats are notoriously bass-heavy and thus not very well suited for mixing. If I were to buy a pair of mixing cans right now, it'd be a toss between the AKG K701, Beyerdynamic DT-990 & Focal Spirit Professional. There are, of course, cheaper options and more expensive ones; those are just my personal picks.
 
krushing said:
There are a lot better headphones than either of those for mixing purposes - the Apple 'buds just ain't very good and the Beats are notoriously bass-heavy and thus not very well suited for mixing. If I were to buy a pair of mixing cans right now, it'd be a toss between the AKG K701, Beyerdynamic DT-990 & Focal Spirit Professional. There are, of course, cheaper options and more expensive ones; those are just my personal picks.
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I appreciate the response, bro! Yeah I just recorded something new on the Beats then when I switched back to Apple buds it sounded terrible. I'll stick to mixing during the daytime until I can get some better suited ones. Thanks!
 
Nooo not earbuds. Ouch! Beats sound good but you won't get a honest sound. It's think it sounds like beats and Bose have built in maximizer and bass compression that's works in conjunction with their battery power amp. You want something with more of a flat response like DT990. There are some things I think headphones are good for mixing. I thing panning and stereo imaging. But bass you need a 8 inch monitor anything smaller you probably want to get a sub monitor. Usually a song that sounds good on a decent pair of monitors will sound good on headphones as well. Unfortunately that's not the case the other way around.
 
The Burglar said:
Nooo not earbuds. Ouch! Beats sound good but you won't get a honest sound. It's think it sounds like beats and Bose have built in maximizer and bass compression that's works in conjunction with their battery power amp. You want something with more of a flat response like DT990. There are some things I think headphones are good for mixing. I thing panning and stereo imaging. But bass you need a 8 inch monitor anything smaller you probably want to get a sub monitor. Usually a song that sounds good on a decent pair of monitors will sound good on headphones as well. Unfortunately that's not the case the other way around.
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For the rough mix it can help to use headphones that are a bit weak in the subs and highs, because size has a lot to do with the extreme lows and highs of the mix. If the rough mix has been down sized, it can very challenging to re-gain that lost size. When the rough mix is done it might be a bit weak in the mids, at that point you move on to headphones that are a bit bigger in the lows. Those might then reveal that you can turn down the lows a bit, this in turn brings up the mids. Finally you can add cans that are sensitive in the highs, this will then finally balance out the mix as a whole. Then once you have set the balance to a good overall level, you can bring in other cans and use various combinations at various places in the song, depending on the sound you are going for. But usually, if the rough mix is not in good balance, the rest is not going to work out so well, it's very important to have good cans for the rough mix. In ear buds are also important, should be part of the rough mixing process. It is critical that you understand what music creation qualities various cans produce. Cans are paint brushes. It is basic to understand what qualities various cans produce on reference material, so that you can understand what to discount and pay attention to. For instance a bass weak mix in bass heavy cans will instantly make you aware of a balancing issue. This process of knowing your monitors and cans is the trick. For pro mixing I recommend these: https://www.audeze.com/products/el-8-collection/el-8-closed-back Since they have greater than 130 dB SPL and they go up to 50 kHz, you can remove all harsh distortion from the mix, which is impossible when you use cheaper cans since you don't hear it.
 
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DarkRed said:
For the rough mix it can help to use headphones that are a bit weak in the subs and highs, because size has a lot to do with the extreme lows and highs of the mix. If the rough mix has been down sized, it can very challenging to re-gain that lost size. When the rough mix is done it might be a bit weak in the mids, at that point you move on to headphones that are a bit bigger in the lows. Those might then reveal that you can turn down the lows a bit, this in turn brings up the mids. Finally you can add cans that are sensitive in the highs, this will then finally balance out the mix as a whole. Then once you have set the balance to a good overall level, you can bring in other cans and use various combinations at various places in the song, depending on the sound you are going for. But usually, if the rough mix is not in good balance, the rest is not going to work out so well, it's very important to have good cans for the rough mix. In ear buds are also important, should be part of the rough mixing process. It is critical that you understand what music creation qualities various cans produce. Cans are paint brushes. It is basic to understand what qualities various cans produce on reference material, so that you can understand what to discount and pay attention to. For instance a bass weak mix in bass heavy cans will instantly make you aware of a balancing issue. This process of knowing your monitors and cans is the trick. For pro mixing I recommend these: https://www.audeze.com/products/el-8-collection/el-8-closed-back Since they have greater than 130 dB SPL and they go up to 50 kHz, you can remove all harsh distortion from the mix, which is impossible when you use cheaper cans since you don't hear it.
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I'll definitely be taking into consideration what both of you are saying. It looks like I won't be using my two cheaper headphones to mix anymore. Time to invest. Thanks a lot for the help, y'all!
 
While it is ideal to make all your music on your best sounding system, using speakers instead of headphones, this isn't critical to all parts of the production chain. Mastering should never be done on headphones. And mixing 100% on headphones is generally a bad idea unless you do many, many checks on other systems. But for song creation? Composition? Sound-design? There's no reason why you couldn't do these on good headphones.

Your listening system, be it speakers or headphones, needs to have enough fidelity for you to hear what you're doing. You need to be able to hear subtle effects behind instruments, hear reverb trails in a dense mix, etc., to be able to create them. Fidelity is actually cheaper to achieve with good headphones. I'm very happy with my AKG k702.

But fidelity aside, you probably won't be able to achieve a perfectly accurate monitoring system. Very, very few engineers have perfectly accurate systems. But good engineers know their speakers or headphones inside and out. They know how things should sound on them, and what they don't do well. Then they compensate. I know that if I mix with my k702 headphones, I'll add way too much 50 Hz to make it sound good to me, and it won't translate well to other systems. So if I mix on those headphones, I know to keep the bass sounding light at 50 Hz. And if I had to work that way all the time, I'd become very good at judging how much bass I should hear on my headphones in order to sound good on other stereos.

Whatever you mix on, speakers or headphones, use them to listen to everything in every genre. Bands you like, famous recordings, YouTube videos, movies, etc. Know how they sound, and know how things sound on them. Then make your music sound the same way on those speakers or headphones instead of making it sound perfect. That's what good engineers do: they compensate for their monitoring system's flaws.

And using reference tracks really helps. If you want your mix to sound like Drake or Katy Perry, then switch back and forth between your mix and Drake's or Katy Perry's. Hear how loud the kick drum is, the snare drum, the vocals, etc. If that mix sounds super crispy, make yours sound equally crispy. Because the crispiness is likely in your headphones, not their music. If their kick drum sounds quiet, make yours sound quiet too. This will help you make music that translates.
 
Milo Burke said:
While it is ideal to make all your music on your best sounding system, using speakers instead of headphones, this isn't critical to all parts of the production chain. Mastering should never be done on headphones. And mixing 100% on headphones is generally a bad idea unless you do many, many checks on other systems. But for song creation? Composition? Sound-design? There's no reason why you couldn't do these on good headphones.

Your listening system, be it speakers or headphones, needs to have enough fidelity for you to hear what you're doing. You need to be able to hear subtle effects behind instruments, hear reverb trails in a dense mix, etc., to be able to create them. Fidelity is actually cheaper to achieve with good headphones. I'm very happy with my AKG k702.

But fidelity aside, you probably won't be able to achieve a perfectly accurate monitoring system. Very, very few engineers have perfectly accurate systems. But good engineers know their speakers or headphones inside and out. They know how things should sound on them, and what they don't do well. Then they compensate. I know that if I mix with my k702 headphones, I'll add way too much 50 Hz to make it sound good to me, and it won't translate well to other systems. So if I mix on those headphones, I know to keep the bass sounding light at 50 Hz. And if I had to work that way all the time, I'd become very good at judging how much bass I should hear on my headphones in order to sound good on other stereos.

Whatever you mix on, speakers or headphones, use them to listen to everything in every genre. Bands you like, famous recordings, YouTube videos, movies, etc. Know how they sound, and know how things sound on them. Then make your music sound the same way on those speakers or headphones instead of making it sound perfect. That's what good engineers do: they compensate for their monitoring system's flaws.

And using reference tracks really helps. If you want your mix to sound like Drake or Katy Perry, then switch back and forth between your mix and Drake's or Katy Perry's. Hear how loud the kick drum is, the snare drum, the vocals, etc. If that mix sounds super crispy, make yours sound equally crispy. Because the crispiness is likely in your headphones, not their music. If their kick drum sounds quiet, make yours sound quiet too. This will help you make music that translates.
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You the real MVP, bruh.
 
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