Producing exclusively on headphones

RightOnTime27 · Post by **RightOnTime27** » Tue May 17, 2011 1:00 am

Alright so I've got my trusty k-240's and thats all I've got. I've got a lot of monetary commitments coming up and so there is no money for a pair of monitors any time soon. Is there any advice to still create full sounding mixes? Right now I'd say that's a big Achilles heal in my production. I had a recent nasty surprise in which a mix I thought sounded good and spent alot of time referencing sounded weak on a big system.

amidoinitrite · Post by **amidoinitrite** » Tue May 17, 2011 1:09 am

use several different headphones, stereos, car systems, what ever you can find.
I have a Pair of ATH-M50, and I also use cheap skull candies. also monitors(+sub), and my DJ system
things sound A LOT different on all. I'll aslo check stuff on different car systems, and my big system when I get a chance.
I try to A-B on all of them as much as possible!

makemerich · Post by **makemerich** » Tue May 17, 2011 1:48 am

i liek to use the standard apple ipod headphones beacsue everyone has a pair and thats a pretty relative translation.

lyons238 · Post by **lyons238** » Tue May 17, 2011 1:52 am

makemerich wrote:i liek to use the standard apple ipod headphones beacsue everyone has a pair and thats a pretty relative translation.

it may be a good idea to check your mix on these but they dont really translate well. you cannot tell wtf is going on with the bottom end for the life of you with these. so to say they translate well as a general statement is false imo. they might translate well to other earbuds or crappy car speakers. but any decent speaker, these will not translate well..

kaiori breathe · Post by **kaiori breathe** » Tue May 17, 2011 2:00 am

Know the weaknesses of your headphones

I mix using my headphones a lot because I tend to do most of my stuff at like 4 am, so you can't really start blaring tracks out at that time on monitors - over time I've learned that my headphones really exaggerate the bass, so if i can hear a sub on my headphones i may not hear it on monitors. The exaggerated bass leads me to think entire tracks sound really flat, so it used to be that I'd sit and bump the high end on all the instruments only to find the next day when I listened through monitors that everything sounds like I just slapped a parametric EQ on the master and bumped up everything above 15k - pretty horrendous.

So yea, now, I've just kinda learned to make my sub louder when I'm using headphones and that if a track sounds flat on my headphones it'll probably sound alright in a proper listening environment.

Alternatively. If I know I'm not gonna get near proper speakers for a while I just avoid getting really worked up about the mix and EQing and I'll just get a track's bones down, make the parts roughly and get all the musical ideas down, and save it for when I'll be able to give it proper attention.

That's all I can really suggest :/ probably not much help, I don't think there's any definitive way to do it just using headphones tbh, you're probs best just holding back a little and not releasing anything till you can get to check it - sucks, but maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.

hollowman · Post by **hollowman** » Tue May 17, 2011 2:29 am

do a search on sound on sound articles, they did one in the last few years on mixing with headphones, how to balance etc.

Johnst · Post by **Johnst** » Tue May 17, 2011 2:50 am

RightOnTime27 wrote:Alright so I've got my trusty k-240's and thats all I've got. I've got a lot of monetary commitments coming up and so there is no money for a pair of monitors any time soon. Is there any advice to still create full sounding mixes? Right now I'd say that's a big Achilles heal in my production. I had a recent nasty surprise in which a mix I thought sounded good and spent alot of time referencing sounded weak on a big system.

all i've got are k-240's as well. personally i've found the opposite of kaiori's problem, the bass on the k-240's can be very hard to judge sometimes, but then i'll play it on a system with a sub and it booms. also, i think that the highs lack a bit of sparkle. pretty sure i read that somewhere then came to the same conclusion. like the others were saying though, just play stuff on as many systems and speakers as you possibly can, it's the best way to learn how your cans represent the sounds.

eldoogle · Post by **eldoogle** » Tue May 17, 2011 2:52 am

I agree. Monitors helped me a lot but playing it through computer speakers, monitors, headphones, and CAR SPEAKERS are helpful.

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue May 17, 2011 6:37 am

If you producing exclusively on headphones, be sure to take regular breaks to give your ears chance to rest - 15mins out of every hour ideally if you're using purely a closed cup monitoring solution.

Chicks don't dig on tinnitus.

mikeyp · Post by **mikeyp** » Tue May 17, 2011 8:14 am

+1 on the car speakers

my favorite part about playing something i've made is taking it to my car

Producing exclusively on headphones

Producing exclusively on headphones

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