Headphone advice (for mixing)

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Hank Dussen

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 30, 2009
Messages
425
Location
Antwerp, Belgium
Lately, I've been doing a lot of mixing at night. I like the quietness and more relax atmosphere then.
But since my studio is not too far away from the bedrooms I mostly work with my headphone.
Can any one recommend me a good headphone for this?
 
I love my Sennheiser HD600's  They're pretty accurate, I'm in the same boat as you with late night mixing and I can't complain about them at all.

-casey
 
I would recommend closed-back headphones. There are lots of good types, but I've found my open back K240s ok sound-wise...they are useless if your in a noisy environment, and no good if you use them to record with, they leak into microphones...
 
Love the HD600's as well... man they're comfy.  But my favorite mixing headphones are the Ultrasone 750's.  Both these are a bit bass shy though. 
 
Whatever headphones you end up favoring, you'll need some time to get used to how headphones mix translate on loudspeakers. Headphones tend to be more tolerant of balance errors and enhance stereo imaging.
When you mix on hp's, you tend to bury vocals and leads and you use reverb more scarcely and less extreme panning.
There are some hardware or software solutions that are supposed to make headphones sound like loudspeakers (google for HRTF) but so far it's not that convincing.
 
Love my DT770 Pro for more than 6 years now, but you end up with exactlly what Abbey said.
But it's always a pleasure to put them on, and it's rock solid, sound great imho....
 
+1 on the DT770's for low fatigue and accuracy.

I have several models in the studio which also help to develop a reference:
Sony MDR7506's, AKG K240's, Sennheiser HD280's, even a set of "Beats" by Dre/Bose (!)...

Cheers,
jb

 
don´t know the HD600 .
but my favourite HPs for long time listening are AKG k500 . they´re open HPs , very lightweighted so your ears are not on fire after some time .
i used to mix a lot at night with AKG K271 (closed) when i was living in a flat with some friends. (you don´t want to do this for more than 1 or 2 hours)
soundwise though i like my akg K340 more (the old ones ,not the now available k340) , but they´re very heavy.

i guess just wanted to say to bear in mind the weight and that closed, also halfclosed, HPs generate heat around your ears . some HPs therefor can be very fatiguing (physically and soundwise) during long sessions.
 
I've mixed sooo many records on HD600s, totally love them, takes a while to get used to how the stereo field translates but once you get used to them, it's really easy to mix with them
 
Prefer the HD600 over the 650's... I also think the new KRK8400 are worth a look. They are closed back and useful for tracking too, but surprisingly detailed and NS10 like... which is good for a headphone.

-T
 
abbey road d enfer said:
Whatever headphones you end up favoring, you'll need some time to get used to how headphones mix translate on loudspeakers. Headphones tend to be more tolerant of balance errors and enhance stereo imaging.
When you mix on hp's, you tend to bury vocals and leads and you use reverb more scarcely and less extreme panning.
There are some hardware or software solutions that are supposed to make headphones sound like loudspeakers (google for HRTF) but so far it's not that convincing.

Yep bang on! Couldn't have said it better. Granted there are times when you must use the phones such as late at night like you say, but its important to acknowledge it affects the the way you mix. That's not to say that you cant mix with them, its just that you should be aware of the enhanced stereo image and very importantly the difference in how much reverb you "perceive" to be needed in the mix rather than the same reverb when mixing with speakers. Its true there are programs that help image a real monitor speaker set up, although I find they kind of sound strange to me, maybe I am just not used to these programs.

I have used AK k240s forever and I think they sound great, are a good price, but also feel like bricks on your head. There are more comfortable phones out there if you are mixing for hours on end.

In the context of this post, I am sure I am stating the obvious and you already do this, but after you mix on the phones, you should listen on monitors the next day just to check you haven't got a mix which sounds like the tracks are collapsing into each other. 
 
abbey road d enfer said:
When you mix on hp's, you tend to bury vocals and leads and you use reverb more scarcely and less extreme panning.
There are some hardware or software solutions that are supposed to make headphones sound like loudspeakers (google for HRTF) but so far it's not that convincing.

uncanny. Exactly the results i had!
Remember trying a couple of simulation demos at the time, but you cant get the real thing :)

http://www.kvraudio.com/news/10853.html

phones are brilliant for the editing and cleaning up stage after tracking tho, easier to pinpoint erroneous noises etc. not to mention the possible insanity of your loved ones when you repeat the same 5 seconds of a song 50 times :)

 
I really like head phones for checking bass. I have a pair of Audio Technica ATH m50's that I use for tracking and bass checking. I like them quite a bit. The sound is non fatiguing, and they are comfy. I am also interested in Beyer Dynamic 770's and Sennheiser HD 600's.

Agreed with the tendency to bury the vocals when using headphones. I actually found that I exaggerated reverb effects when using hp's because I couldn't hear the effect until it was cranked. Although that was with some cheaper hp's.

I have read that closed back headphones have a tendency to emphasis bass response, and open back designs are better for mixing purposes. I haven't tested this out, but it seems to be a popular opinion. I don't think it's all that critical if you learn your headphones.

Anyone tried logic's binaural plugin for headphone mixing?
 
I use HPs for mixing quite a bit also, but I've trained my ear to them by listening to all my favorite music (artists that I'm trying to emulate, mix-wise) and that seems to help in getting the panning and vocals closer, then a check on the monitors the next day after work let's me do some minor tweaking.

Unfortunately my HP amp came down with a bug... :( I'll have to build a gyraf HP amp, but try out that cross-feed dealeo, if somebody doesn't mind recommending a schematic. :)
 

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