Thinking of switching to headphones as my main mixing device. Opinions, recommendations?

[Dalal]

Summary:
I'm looking to switch to headphones as my main mixing device. I'd like to get your opinion on what sorts of headphones (open, or semi-open backed) to get under $1000, what pitfalls I might experience and how to best combat them, and your overall perspective on this idea.

Details:
I'm moving to a new home! And now I've been considering how I want to set up my creative space there. My current lovely setup is comprised of two 8" reference monitors (JBL LSR-2328) sitting on stands, two large vertical bass traps in the corners, and a few acoustic panels for the side walls. I want to sell all of that and switch to a good pair of reference headphones and a cheaper, smaller pair of reference monitors sitting on my desk so I can occasionally check the mix through them. Here's why:

• In the spirit of minimalism, I want to combine my development workstation with my audio workstation to form a simple, inspiring creative workstation for all my needs that isn't overbearing in any dimension.
• I feel more inspired when I'm cozy, and a nice little corner where I do my work is better for this than some strategically positioned desk with looming speakers on stands and big dark bass traps in the back. Instead of having to structure my whole room around the acoustics, I'm now choosing to structure it around what makes me most creative because ultimately that's what will guide the soul of my tracks.
• I'll feel freer and less restricted to a space when making music. If I want to go outside one day and work in the forest, I can do so guilt-free without the feeling of compromise because my mixing device will be well known to me.
• Painless moving process each time I get a new place.

What do you guys think of the idea? What should I look out for? What considerations are there in choosing a pair of headphones (and which ones in particular would you recommend)? Any perspectives you guys have are really appreciated!

[Aloysius]

[rod_zero]

I can't offer advice on headphones but for new monitors consider the Genelec 8330 ir 8320, they have room correction software.

[JCJR]

I don't know what phones to recommend. Tis possible to spend lots of bucks on phones, as much or more than on speakers.

Probably need to just try it for a few months to make a fair test to find out if you are long-term comfy sitting under phones many hours at a time, and if you can learn to make translatable mixes on phones.

I personally would consider it a risky enough experiment to deserve trying on good but not exhorbitantly expensive phones. So that the experiment would not cost too much if unsuccessful.

I haven't tried mixing solely on phones for a couple of decades. Probably wouldn't bother to test the proposition again. Maybe most fellas can learn to mix on phones great.

I tried it in the 1970's. Tried again in the 1980's with stax electrostatic phones, which are purt good phones, fairly similar to using speakers. Stax calls em Earspeakers rather than Headphones.

My perceptual problem was that phones sounded "too clear" though the explanation may seem silly. I could hear all the parts so clearly in phones that some important background tracks which were perfectly easy to hear on phones-- When played on speakers sometimes the background parts would be buried so quiet in the mix as to be entirely inaudible, or at best barely audible.

I also tended to mix foreground tracks too quiet for proper sound on speakers. Even on speakers, to my ear pop music tends to sound too-prominent on vocal or whatever is the lead instrument. On phones its worse, and a "properly forward" vocal or lead line tends to sound just obnoxiously too loud compared to the backing tracks. So my headphone mixes tended to have vocals and leads audible if you listen for them but excessively buried in the background.

Some folks are real artistic about mixing, but I'm most interested in good balanced sound and being able to clearly hear all the musical parts. If a part can't be heard good enough to transcribe by ear if necessary, IMO ya might as well mute the track and remove it from the mix, rather than leaving it in there at a level so low you can't clearly hear what its doing, though the quiet track is still in there adding mud which makes other louder tracks harder to distinguish. Making the louder tracks more difficult to mix clearly.

The extra detail in phones makes low level tracks too easy to hear and makes foreground tracks seem "too loud" unless mixed so low they tend to get buried when played on speakers.

I hadn't listened to my old etymotics ER4P for a year or two. The other day listened to some commercial mixes and some of my old mixes on em. That day it sounded fairly balanced. Decent low bass, mids and highs "about right". Neither over-bright nor over-dark. "Mellower" mids and highs than what I recalled from years ago. My memory isn't always real reliable. Good detail but not "exaggerated detail".

If I was gonna try phones mixing again maybe would try it with the etymotics. But it is a different task listening versus mixing. I noticed some of my old mixes sounded marginally "too drowned in reverb" on the ER4P, but those same mixes tend to sound "on the verge of too dry" on some speakers. So maybe I would end up making mixes that sound "perfect amount of wet" on the etymotics, but sound "no reverb at all" on speakers.

Maybe the above describe faults in my perception with which others are not afflicted.

[aciddose]

One major issue with headphones is that a lot of the quality depends upon a very good amplifier capable of driving them to their full potential.

The main source of the difference in a mix using headphones vs. monitors is the near full isolation you get from good headphones. Monitors will always be blended by a large amount and so any minor variation in panning or intensity will go mostly unnoticed using monitors even in a perfect environment free of reflections.

This can be overcome somewhat by using a crossfeed filter.

[incubus]

I only use cans.

What I have are KRK 8400's and much much older Sennheiser 580's.

What I like about the 8400's is that they don't hype anything and are comfortable and give a reasonably accurate representation, and replacement parts are a plenty (when you do cans a lot, they wear out as far as pads, cords, etc)

The Senn's are the most beautiful headphones I've ever heard, but the are open. That is NOT good for tracking under any circumstances. It's too distracting (hell, I'm distracted by my closed cans because I don't crank real loud)

I'm not saying my mixes are supreme, but I just don't want the neighbors calling at 2am when I'm "in the mood"

[donkey tugger]

Two things I've found over the years when I've done mixes on headphones (maybe me, maybe the headphones I've been using...probably me..) are;

1. Always seem to mix the vocals too low
2. Always seem to have not enough wet signal with reverbs, particularly small ones for guitars, drums and the like.

Possibly something to do with the immediacy (for want of a better term)?

[aciddose]

Yes that's the isolation between the left/right. They give you a much clearer interpretation of otherwise very subtle differences and so what sounds like way too much reverb on headphones will end up not being enough.

A cross-feed filter can help solve that issue and give a sound a lot more like you get from monitors.

[t3toooo]

Take a look at this thread.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=484570

But you always need some type of monitors for comparison specially the upper highs because nearly any headphone tend to begin to roll off in the 10khz region.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

One major issue with headphones is that a lot of the quality depends upon a very good amplifier capable of driving them to their full potential.

You can also buy very good quality cans that have low impedance, that don't need to be driven with that much power. Furthermore, most semi-decent audio interfaces are perfectly capable of driving even higher impedance cans

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

After 7 years of mixing only on headphones my mixes are better than ever. Due to my growth as a mixer, adapting to or learning my headphones and dealing with the isolation - reverb issue. The biggest help was using something like Toneboosters Isone which simulates room and speakers. I wouldn't attempt a headphone mix without it. There are others out there. Some more sophisticated and some free. I also tried eq compensation to flatten my headphones natural response but found in the end that knowing your headphones is probably best. I use something like Sony 7506 or AKG 240 nothing really expensive. If I actually made money at music I may consider better.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

After a lot of research I ended up with KRK KNS8400, as they were supposedly very flat. I liked the fact that they were not hyped, but something never felt right. It wasn't till I paired them with Sonarworks correction software, that things improved immeasurably. Gone was the fatigue I would get from harshness that I hadn't previously perceived, and they now sound closer to what I imagine 'flat' really be.

With that in mind, I would definitely look into the Sonarworks correction software.

http://www.sonarworks.com/headphones

You can even by cans directly from them that have had the modifications done physically to the product. So it might be worth looking at their list, and working backwards i.e Choosing those that fit you best, then checking out reviews for weight, comfort, etc.

One benefit of not having them mod'ed in-house, is that you get the ability to choose a can that can work for multiple purposes (Flat cans might be good for production, but they aren't so fun for leisure-time music listening). So you could have a can that hyped the bass a little, for when video-gaming, watching films, listening to music etc, but then apply the software curve when using them to mix/listen critically. I've also found that eq'ing after the software correction allows me to sculpt a nice leisure-listening sound, from a flat starting point, without accentuating the bad stuff. Software such as 'menubus' (I'm sure there are similar apps on windows) really opens up functionality across the whole system.

Ultimately, with regard to mixing in cans, it depends on your goal/philosophy with regard to your intended audience. If you are still aiming for mixes that translate well to left/right speaker setups, then the recommendations to get some kind of crossover simulation are good. However, if (like me) you are convinced that most people listening to your stuff will do so on earbuds/iem's, or sub-standard setups, then mixing to the specific qualities of headphones makes more sense. I personally consume most of my music with headphones/earbuds, and I am pretty sure that my output from now on will be mixed to exploit this setup, and will come with an "Listen with headphones only" warning

One last thing, that is more important than anything. Take care of your ears. It might seem obvious, but the closeness and tight vacuum nature of listening to sound this way can have a much greater impact on your sensitive ears. Absolutely resist the urge to go loud, and take frequent breaks.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

The biggest help was using something like Toneboosters Isone which simulates room and speakers. I wouldn't attempt a headphone mix without it.

As I mentioned above, this is only useful if you are mixing with the intention that your music be heard in a traditional, ideal monitoring setup.

[Taika-Kim]

I have used Sennheiser HD650 and Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro cans before, now I recently got AKG Q701 phones, and they are a lot better than either of the previous ones. I have also Adam A5X monitors, but I find that with the AKGs I don't need to use them too much. There is not much I can say about the AKGs, they are just stellar. I make mostly quite dense electronic music, and I find the sound is perfect, the bass is very clear and neutral.
I head the K701 are quite similar, but have a bit lighter bass. I'm not sure which are more neutral, but I recently played some tracks I mixed with the Q701s on a big festival PA, and they sounded just perfect, so I guess it's possible to mix the bass all right with them.

+1 for the forest! I have a lot of plants in my studio room, and a window out into a forest, the proximity of nature and living things is mandatory for my creative strength to stay in it's prime... I didn't try working outdoors yet though, but thought about that also. Mostly worried about the ergonomics of that. And since I live next to a big forest, I find it easier just to take a walk out and then come back if I start to feel my focus drifting or getting into creative loops that go nowhere. But this is something that deserves another thread, I've been looking quite deeply into ecopsychological research lately, there's a lot about the restorative effect of nature to cognitive functions that creative people should think about...

[Dalal]

Awesome, awesome responses all of you! These perspectives are so valuable. Thank you all!

Overall what I'm getting is that I'm not totally crazy for wanting to use primarily headphones, and if I do intend to go through with this experiment, it's worth:

• Looking at some crossfeed/room simulation plugins
• Putting in the time to really learn my headphones, by mixing and cross-checking with speakers, and listening to tons of commercial mixes.
• Perhaps exaggerating the reverb and vocals a little, getting used to mixing them at a slightly higher level than I might normally mix them, and then cross-referencing with a speaker and crossfeed plugins to make sure it's all good.
• Going a bit cheaper initially for the headphones (<$500) in case this doesn't work out.

Great advice everyone. And if anyone has anything else to add, please do! Thanks again