Mixes sound better on a different system....help!

[smallclone]

Hello, any help on this please?

I mix in a bedroom studio setup. With monitors and headphones (DT 990 Pro).
I use Reaper on Windows 11.
RME Babyface Pro Interface.
I ensure that the mix sounds as good as I can get it on both monitors and headphones.

But the mixing process always gives a higher quality mix when I listen through my Sennheiser (RS175) headphones through a media player on my television. If I use these headphones from my interface they sound terrible and tinny. So I end up making incremental changes and rendering and saving and rendering and saving and listening through the TV every time. It's madness.

So....how can I make this mixing process easier, faster etc.

[Benedict]

You are making the usual error of thinking that music sounds exactly the same on every system or place. Easy to do seeing everyone says "sounds" when the real meaning is "feels".

Does your fave song sound the same on each of your cans, let alone in your lounge on the Marantz or down la Discoteque through bass bins? Nope. You know that is crazy town. And yet you expect this when you put your Opus Dei on different systems. Why?

As I said already, the word "sounds" really means "feels" as people thought that way in the day. In the last few decades, people have become increasingly literal and fearful (one drives the other), and so everything is only considered from a one-dimensional perspective. And nothing in life works that way, even a can opener. Yes, a can opener. Think about those people who cannot use a classic 'two bits of hinged metal' can opener without having a spaz. The can opener works, but they won't let themself feel how it works, so they say it doesn't. It does, just fine. They are not feeling it but forcing it. It doesn't work for them as they are not working for it.

See, you said there in your last line, "So....how can I make this mixing process easier, faster etc."

Either decide that you love mixing and work with it so that you and that can opener become one and can feed the masses with beetroot or bring in someone who is like that. You can't win the Olympics without a lot of sacrifice. Not just a one-off $199 ProRunQ sort of sacrifice, but getting up every darned day at 4:00am to run 50,000km so much you can't go on dates kinda sacrifice...

Assuming you are still gonna mix, then back to the real word. "Feel" that fave song we took from your cans to your car to the disco, does it feel different anywhere? No, it is still "Drain In Blud" wherever you go. It is your feelings that have you like that song that many others hate. Wherever you go, you experience the same feeling about blud draining when you hear it. On an iDevice you notice it is bit tinny, but the blud drains as well as ever.

So strip your mix and start again (skip this at your own peril). Mix as one with the Scene & Story of the Song, none of that thinking you need a better can opener with 47 digital settings, just work your basics. Once the mix is done, go watch TV for the evening. Then, and only then, pull out your mix and with your volume exactly how you have it for listening to music (not LOUD) listen to your track. We are not looking for anything technical like if the 4,457Hz is different by 0.023789dB but how does it feel? If it flows nicely, I bet that your mix is working. If you feel something intrudes on the flow, change it tomorrow. Don't take notes as what matters is in your feelings. Check it again tonight - after TV and dinner and kissing the wife...

I also bet that if you sent me the current mix that you feel you have issues with and that new mix that I will say the new mix is better. The song feels better.

Feel

[lobanov]

Have you tried plugging the headphones (Sennheiser) into your computer directly, without Babyface? The sound card of your PC hardly is significantly worse than the sound card of the media player. Modern embedded soundcards aren't excellent but they aren't bad as they was years before.

There may also be a problem with the cable or jack on the Babyface. Try another cable or push the current one a bit harder. Or spin it around a bit.

[jancivil]

n/m, I'm confused

[Ah_Dziz]

Measure the response of whatever processing is occuring in the media player/ TV setup. Then add that to your mixing chain.

[lobanov]

- Frequency response of TV is important, this is a good point. It hardly significantly affects the sound of the headphones but you must mix in a neutral environment with flat frequency response (without EQ or other effects that improve sound).
Have you listen to mix made with TV on your PC? Does it sound better? Or does it sound better on TV only? How does sound on TV a mix made on PC? Better or worse?

- Can you adjust the volume of the headphones? Connect the headphones to Babyface and change (lower) the volume on the headphones and/or the interface.

- First I've thought that Sennheiser RS 175 are flat but they aren't. Exagerated bass, bad high frequencies... DT 990 are definitely better, trust them. Use Sennheiser RS 175 for additional control.
sennheiser rs 175

[legendCNCD]

VSX can help you tremendously here!

[smallclone]

Thanks all, I can't respond to every individual message. I get that the feel of the mix is THE thing. I'm just trying to understand why the mix sounds better after I use a media player and TV to mix it than an actual piece of audio software. If I take that mix that I painstakingly did via the TV back onto any other device, it literally sounds better - on every other device (laptop, phone. headphones, monitors). It's like the Sennheiser environment in the gold standard so getting it right on that means it will sound good everywhere.

I think my best bet is to try and measure the signal and processing of it and try to recreate a template in my TotalMix software that the Babyface uses.

[bk]

It could be the output impedance of the two different headphone amps, interacting with your headphones, and making it sound different. Headphone amps seem to be an afterthought in many designs.
Check out Julian Krause's channel for more info on audio interfaces and headphone amps.

[Zeisner]

If I use these headphones from my interface they sound terrible and tinny.

Could be a case of bathtub filter applied by your media player or TV. I would take a look at the audio settings of both devices.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Use your tv system as a mastering chain and resample it

[lfm]

Izotope Ozone has guides for a balanced mix frequency spectrum and was stumped looking at professional recordings, both vinyl an CD how they fitted within these guides.
- modern for CD tend to go closer to 3 dB line, more mids, and vinyl closer to 6 dB line

What you see is a line from 1 kHz and onwards, tilting 3 or 6 dB each octave.

Screenshot below, I find it really interesting. I don't believe in just eq final mix to fit, but rather look at it as a symptom that some frequencies are not there to make it sound full. So arrangement and choice of instruments may be lacking etc.

My 20 yr old Ozone have ability to license to usb stick, so not dependent on that Izotope is existing still after NI mockup. So make your Izotope stuff licenses on usb stick is my suggestion so you can always install, keep installer, and have usb licenses and you are good.

[Zeisner]

Could be a case of bathtub filter used by your TV or media player. I would check their audio settings and try out night mode if available. This often turns the bathtub filter off.

[rACatkvr]

If you want to get really down in the weeds get a microphone with a measured frequency response; use it to record a sine wave sweeping through 20Hz -20 KHzt rack at your listening position of your DAW setup and repeat for the listening position of the TV. Graph them both corrected for the microphones response curve(s): are there significant differences? Think about those differences.
Play a number of somethings that you know well through both systems and try and conceptualise the difference you are hearing. Repeat with something of your own that you have gone through your laborious process with. In your DAW setup hear the differences, conceptualise it, analyse it, and apply it it future.