Noise canceling headphones for making music?

[Tannaliini]

Quarantined at home (and not alone in good and in bad ). So noise canceling headphones are needed!

Any recommendations for music creating (something on the more neutral side)? I use laptop if that matters.

Edited: so some headphones that give good noise canceling but won’t have huge bass boost or something like that. Don’t need to be fit for final mixing - but would be good that they wouldn’t be totally “off” with the sound balance.

[kovacs]

In my experience noise cancellation introduces quite a bit of lag (I use the Bose QC35ii and the AirPods Pro) but for anything that does not require live recording they're ok. As long as I can double check on speakers on occasion.

[fese]

I don’t know what type of noise you’d want to cancel out, but if it’s other people and other people talking, you’re going to be a bit disappointed. You’ll still hear them.

I have the Sony WM1000XM3, they’re ok, they work well on e.g. a train ride, not so much in a noisy office (well, better than nothing, and depends on how loud you listen). I got them for 230€.
You can configure a “not-so-bass-heavy”-Profile, but they don’t sound anywhere as good as my Beyer DT880, which were cheaper. I don’t regret buying them, but I wouldn’t use them for music production (only if I had nothing else).

[BertKoor]

I've got a pair of BeyerDynamic DT-770 M. Not the modern active noise cancelling type, but they do take off 35 dB of the surrounding sound by just passive mechanical isolation: they sit very tight around your ears. If you have music on, you will see your wife speak & make handwaiving signals to you but you're not hearing what she says. Vice versa: she'll enjoy much less of your infinite repeating loops as with half-open cans.

I bought them for FOH monitoring, where in an environment with 105 dB SPL sound (a live band blasting through the PA) you want to solo one track of the mixer to make EQ adjustments, or set the noise gate threshold. I've read also drummers use them. No bass boost, but there's a hump in the spectrum at about 160Hz. Once you know that, you can work around it.

It's something you can consider. Most webshops offer them for about 75% of BD's suggested retail price.

[kovacs]

I've got a pair of BeyerDynamic DT-770 M.

If they are anything like the "regular " DT-770 then this should be a great choice.

[Forgotten]

I don’t know what type of noise you’d want to cancel out, but if it’s other people and other people talking, you’re going to be a bit disappointed. You’ll still hear them.

I agree. My wife bought me some top of the line noise canceling headphone a few years ago for when I used to still travel a lot, and they work to cancel out some noise, but make no difference to other things. They were great at canceling out engine noise on airplanes, but made almost no difference to voices. They also seem to add a slight amount of hiss to what I am listening to - it was a worthwhile trade off for plan engine noise though.

[dark water]

I use these Ultraphones which are actually noise isolation (passive noise cancellation) rather than active noise cancellation headphones:

https://www.gk-music.com/product/ultraphones/



They are very effective at keeping outside noises out and allowing you to listen to your audio confidently.
For many drummers (like me), they seem to be highly regarded.

However, I find them a bit uncomfortable (for example, the headphone headband between the two ear muffs is very tight) and also I think you might well get better value for your money by buying a different set of noise cancellation / isolation headphones.

[roman.i]

I have the Bose QC 35ii, won't recommend them for music production.
There is no option to disable the "active eq".

[Tannaliini]

I've got a pair of BeyerDynamic DT-770 M. Not the modern active noise cancelling type, but they do take off 35 dB of the surrounding sound by just passive mechanical isolation: they sit very tight around your ears. If you have music on, you will see your wife speak & make handwaiving signals to you but you're not hearing what she says. Vice versa: she'll enjoy much less of your infinite repeating loops as with half-open cans.

Beyerdynamic is quite praised brand. Haven’t tested them but did read good things on their headphones (770 pro was one of their models said to be quite good - are the 770 M any similar?).

[pljones]

I've got a pair of BeyerDynamic DT-770 M.

If they are anything like the "regular " DT-770 then this should be a great choice.

I've got a pair of both. Very similar sound, both great. Even without the M (which I use when I'm drumming - I use an e-Kit and and it sounds rubbish compared with the samples ), they cut a fair bit of background level.

And as has been said, I've not seen anything good said about noise cancelling headphones for "studio" / audio production use. Any live production work, you'd be better with something like the DT770-Ms. Maybe plus earplugs if that's not enough .

[elxsound]

I don’t know what type of noise you’d want to cancel out, but if it’s other people and other people talking, you’re going to be a bit disappointed. You’ll still hear them.

I have the Sony WM1000XM3, they’re ok, they work well on e.g. a train ride, not so much in a noisy office (well, better than nothing, and depends on how loud you listen). I got them for 230€.
You can configure a “not-so-bass-heavy”-Profile, but they don’t sound anywhere as good as my Beyer DT880, which were cheaper. I don’t regret buying them, but I wouldn’t use them for music production (only if I had nothing else).

I have the Sony WM1000XM2, and they actually work great for reducing the volume people talking... making it sound like a neighbor with TV next door/with semi-thin walls. I've had noise cancelling headphones before, which were great only for white noise cancellation, but people's voices could be heard very easily. With the Wm1000XM2, these are great at just cancelling it all out. I sometimes just put them on simply to get break.

I also use the Sony WF1000XM3 for when I was on the trains (but f**k that life with COVID19 now) and they're not as effective (for music production, due to a bluetooth only connection), but are still great.

There is only latency IF you are using a bluetooth connection. Plug that shit in, or don't use them.

If you are using your headphones on a laptop, or desktop and if you are agreeable to spending more money on top of the cost of the headphones, consider buying Sonarworks Reference 4 (headphone edition)... this is often on sale, so no need to pay the full price. There are profiles for most consumer grade noise cancelling headphones getting you closer to a balanced output.

Still, if using these... just like when using closed backs, just be hyper aware of bass/ear fatigue. Its very easy to not notice this and end up raising the volume of the bass. In this setting, I keep the volume low but just loud enough that I only hear what I'm working on.

[ztrauq]

I would concur that noise-isolation headphones are the way to go - I found that when I needed it Sennheiser HD 280s worked well enough to cut some of the background noise. Most "drummer-style" phones will also have solid noise isolation. If it's hard to get ahold of "audio" ones, even some of the shooting or construction ones you can connect a 3.5mm audio cable to can work passably in a pinch (haven't tried actually mixing with them, but I have a pair of "worktunes" hearing protectors that sound half-decent with music). Of course, in my experience, the quality of the noise isolation and the clamping force against your head are directly related...

That being said, if you can stand something actually in your ears, I've heard that you can get good audio quality and very good isolation with in-ear isolating phones (which are kind of like a combination between in-ear phones and those multi-stage ridged earplugs). I think Shure makes some solid ones but I haven't really looked into them.

[AdvancedFollower]

Quarantined at home (and not alone in good and in bad ). So noise canceling headphones are needed!

Any recommendations for music creating (something on the more neutral side)? I use laptop if that matters.

Edited: so some headphones that give good noise canceling but won’t have huge bass boost or something like that. Don’t need to be fit for final mixing - but would be good that they wouldn’t be totally “off” with the sound balance.

I'm in the same situation actually. Me and the spousal unit share a small-ish flat which unfortunately means the I don't have a dedicated studio room any more. Normally our working hours gives me plenty of alone time for music production, but not in the last months.

I'm still trying to find the perfect solution, but here are my findings so far.
The DT880's I normally use for late-night mixing don't block out nearly enough noise. Neither do the regular DT770's (I got a pair to try). Obviously if you crank up the volume, you don't hear anything else, but they don't block outside noise on their own, you can still hear everything slightly muffled when no sounds are playing.

I'm doubtful even the DT770 M's would be enough, as for me it took a pair of Peltor X5A ear defenders to block out nearly all noise. They're *amazing* when I just want near silence, but they're obviously not headphones.

I currently have a pair of Etymotic ER4-XR's on order which I'm looking forward to trying. They're supposed to offer some of the best sound isolation (and if that's not enough, ear muffs would fit over them), while being neutral enough to use for mixing. Etymotic also have the ER3 and ER2 series which are a bit more affordable while supposedly still offering great sound.

Morphit is a great utility when mixing on headphones. It does frequency correction and has profiles for nearly every headphone out there. Can Opener or the free Airwindows Monitor are great for adding a bit of crosstalk/room to make headphones sound a bit more like monitor speakers.

[BertKoor]

> you can still hear everything slightly muffled when no sounds are playing.

If this is your issue, then nothing will help I'm afraid. Laws of physics...

[AdvancedFollower]

> you can still hear everything slightly muffled when no sounds are playing.

If this is your issue, then nothing will help I'm afraid. Laws of physics...

Well of course it's impossible to physically block out *all* noise since you can't exactly wear the equivalent of a soundproofed room around your head (it would weigh hundreds of kg and crush your skull with pressure). However it's certainly possible to reduce background noise like conversations, TV etc. to the point where it's not distracting, even when nothing is playing in your headphones. The regular DT-770's didn't do that, however. They were enough to block out the noise of computer fans etc. almost completely, but beyond that, other noises were just slightly muffled.

Since the Peltor earmuffs were enough to give me "near silence", adding isolating in-ears would only improve the isolation. Unfortunately my SE215's are too large to fit comfortably inside the cups, but the much smaller Etymotics should easily fit.