Headphone mixing

[laputa_sync]

no, it was a month or two ago. not 4 yrs ago.

[where02190]

Any Wallace and Bob Clearmountain mix with NS10's.

I f**king love name dropping as well. especially people I don't know and can base nothing on their actual knowledge.

Bob Ludwig wrote:
My clients often come in and hear distortion they've never heard before when they take their projects to Gateway. The reason for this is that I think people are listening too loud and/or on low-resolution near-field monitors during mixing, such as the NS-10.

yeah! let's wank some more!

Yea I guess that's why there's about a dozen pair of NS-10's at Gateway, you'll find them in every room.

[AKJ]

dear jeffrey,
I can very well live with different opinions. but you did not express opinion but made quite strong claims such as "There's no such thing as mixing for headphones" and "If it's well mixed for stereoloudspeakers, it will be just fine for headphones". If I combine the latter claim with your opinion (which I share) that the sound representation in headphones and speakers differ it is, of course, a logical contradiction. I do have no idea how you come to claim that if it sounds good on stereo speakers it will sound good on headphones. my personal experience is different and I certainly disagree that speakers are per see better than headphones. they are different. and they do not present less information. they supply enough dynamic and frequency range to give a good represenation of audio.

[Kingston]

Yea I guess that's why there's about a dozen pair of NS-10's at Gateway, you'll find them in every room.

no doubt, and you just royally missed the point of my remark, mr. "cassette has more dynamic range than mp3".

[herodotus]

Any Wallace and Bob Clearmountain mix with NS10's.

I f**king love name dropping as well. especially people I don't know and can base nothing on their actual knowledge.

Bob Ludwig wrote:
My clients often come in and hear distortion they've never heard before when they take their projects to Gateway. The reason for this is that I think people are listening too loud and/or on low-resolution near-field monitors during mixing, such as the NS-10.

yeah! let's wank some more!

Yea I guess that's why there's about a dozen pair of NS-10's at Gateway, you'll find them in every room.

No offense, but...who cares??

Why do audio-obsessed people constantly get into this crap? What is this preoccupation with what this-one-guy-who-once-worked-with-some-or-other-musical-celebrity says or does?

In fact, musicians generally just seem to spend way too much time worrying about what famous people (or people who once worked with famous people) do and think.

After all, George Bush is famous, but no one assumes that this fact makes him right about anything, much less everything.

But just stick a fat guy in a hawaiian shirt and take some pictures of him next to a couple of one hit wonders (preferably with a huge SSL board in the background) and people everywhere assume that he is filled with knowledge and insight.

[Kingston]

thank you. I was about to do a similar one with Tom Cruise (instead of Bush) but you handled it with much more elegance.

[stash98]

Any Wallace and Bob Clearmountain mix with NS10's.

I f**king love name dropping as well. especially people I don't know and can base nothing on their actual knowledge.

Bob Ludwig wrote:
My clients often come in and hear distortion they've never heard before when they take their projects to Gateway. The reason for this is that I think people are listening too loud and/or on low-resolution near-field monitors during mixing, such as the NS-10.

yeah! let's wank some more!

Ok, because Andy mixed a record I was on. So yeah man, let's wank some more. The quote you put up proves nothing. Both of those guys use NS10's and mix on them. They are 2 of the top mixers in the world..but you make software and post on KVR all day, so you know more.

[Legion Hush]

Blah blah blah.........

The bottom line is it doesn't matter what you use to mix so as long as you know HOW to mix with whatever tools at your disposal.

In the end, a proper mix will sound pro if it is polished and waxed properly (mastered) and that my friends is a whole other can of worms.


Mixing is an art just like writing is. A good mixer can get a good mix regardless of the tools.

Trust me, this is coming form someone who has mixed on NS 10 Ms, Events, Mackies, headphones and no matter what i utilized, my mixes sounded like shit; even though i've heard immaculate mixes done on all of the above.
SO did i blame the equipment? No, it was my incompetence to mix.
LEARN to mix! As stated earlier in this thread, know how to adapt your ears to the tools being utilized be it headphones, pro monitors or cheapo circuit city speakers

And just so you know, after much patience and practice, i did manage to get a good mix using cheap $40 circuit city speakers (better something than nothing right?) and it was picked up by Experimedia for a compilation. SO you see, it can be done so long as you.....LEARN.....HOW......TO.....MIX!!!!!!

[Vonbrucken]

[stash98]

This is true Legion. It's also funny for me to think someone will believe me on here, even though to me it's not that fantastic or big of a deal. Music business is a small world.

I have an associate that did a record selling real well in England right now. Dude was switching back and swapping out monitors the whole session. I was giving him grief about it, was like "learn your damn monitors!!" . The cool thing is that I came out of there with some new Dynaudios that now reside next to my NS10s...this is a winning combo for me. For the record, an excellent mixer from England ended up doing the mix on my friend's production anyway..heh..he uses NS10s too in tandem.

[where02190]

As with singing or playing an instrument, mixing is an art, and either you have the talent to do so or you don't. If you do, like singing or playing an instrument, you must learn the proper techniques to fully develop your talents. However, like singing or playing an instrument, if you don't possess the talent from within, no amount of training will make you a good engineer.

[jkotz]

<edit> Okay, so I took to long to post this. I'm leaving it up anyway </>

First off, it seems like some people are equating accuracy with translatability or portability. Accuracy is a fairly objective and quantifiable measure, whereas translatability (portability) is a really subjective measure (Just look at the two guys arguing about NS-10s). Certainly the two are related, but that doesn't mean you can't have headphones that are highly accurate but don't translate well to other systems, or monitors that translate well to all kinds of systems but which are inaccurate and unsuited for detail work. That's why you should check your mixes on a variety of setups.
As far as the idea that headphones CAN'T be accurate is concerned, I suggest some research before making such claims:
-http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4-hwmra.aspx
-http://headwize.com/tech/elemnts_tech.htm
-http://headwize.com/tech/headrm1_tech.htm
-http://www.headwize.com/articles/judging_art.htm
as well as ER's library of peer-reviewed journal publications at -http://www.etymotic.com/aer/libart-category.aspx

Ultimately it's all just a matter of whether or not you can achieve a certain result with the tools you choose. For me, I can get good mixes of my material working on 'phones for 60-70 percent of the process. It also happens that I like headphones for regular listening as well. Is everyone else going to? Of course not. People on here seem to forget that despite all the technical stuff involved, what we do is still art. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need humans to do it (man wouldn't that make Sony/BMG and all the rest happy).

Oh, and if you want to discuss the illusory nature of perception, I'd try the philosophy dept. at the nearest Uni.

[stash98]

Last post before I have to go back to the cave.

I think a pair of mix headphones is mandatory for the studio. They allow you to hear detail and phase issues that you may miss on nearfields.

Using them 100% of the time though is a bad idea if you want to get great mixes.

Take care!

[JeffreyCreel]

dear jeffrey,
I can very well live with different opinions. but you did not express opinion but made quite strong claims such as "There's no such thing as mixing for headphones" and "If it's well mixed for stereoloudspeakers, it will be just fine for headphones". If I combine the latter claim with your opinion (which I share) that the sound representation in headphones and speakers differ it is, of course, a logical contradiction. I do have no idea how you come to claim that if it sounds good on stereo speakers it will sound good on headphones. my personal experience is different and I certainly disagree that speakers are per see better than headphones. they are different. and they do not present less information. they supply enough dynamic and frequency range to give a good represenation of audio.

1. An opinion is stil opinion no matter how strong the claim is - there's nothing inherently un-opinionlike about a statement like "There's no such thing as mixing for headphones" In my opinion, there isn't such a thing as mixing specifically for headphones. There's mixing so badly that you can only listen to it on headphones, but in my mind that's different.

2. Apparently either you haven't read my latest post, or my explanation of my opinion is not clear enough. It is not simply my opinion that the represenations differ. Headphones are monitors. They're just really badly placed and oddly shaped monitors.

3. If you're going to say I'm making a "logical contradiction", I'm goign to ask you to give me a simple logical demonstration of where the contradiction is. In my eyes, I haven't made enough claims for them to be in contradiction. Certainly the opinions of mine that you quote in this post do NOT constitute a contradiction.
While we agree that there are differences between headphones and speakers, we disagree very strongly about where you seem to think we agree. Headphones are not a "different but equal" replacement for monitors. You can't just get "accustomed" to headphones enough to make good mixes.
First and foremost,It is my opinion that headphones give less mixing-relevant information than monitors. This is Non-contradictory with my subordinate claim that headphones and speakers are different. Let me spell it out for you -

1. Headphones and speakers are different.
2. Speakers are better than headphones.

Where's the contradiction?!

4. At the end of your post you seem to realize a directly opposing opinion. This is a refreshing new development. Now that we have agreed to disagree, we can find evidence for our opinions and possibly come to a resolution. Of course I know there are more pressing things demanding your attention, but when you get the chance, I'd love to see the sources which lead you to believe that "they are different. and they do not present less information. they supply enough dynamic and frequency range to give a good represenation of audio."

[Legion Hush]