Dubstepforum.com

Yeah, the best way is to use a combination of sources. Some people even have two sets of monitors they switch between.

I really don't know why everyones arguing about this - we all know that the optimal solution would be a well treated room and monitors. But this is only for people who have enough money and take their music seriously. If you're broke or just make music for fun then it doesn't really matter what you do anyway.

Sunklo - your graph is from the manufacturer, yet you believe it? They are trying to sell you headphones lol. I doubt that'll be accurate.

Genevieve - yeah that's what I do, switch between headphones and monitors. And listen on other systems. I think it just comes down to practice and knowing your room/speakers.

bassbum wrote:headphone are not perfect, and your acting like they are.

Genevieve wrote:Headphones aren't optimal for sub, but better than a boomy sub in a small poorly/untreated room.

bassbum wrote:Most headphone have real punch in the bass at 200hz and everything bellow 100hz gets quiteter as you go down.

See graph above.

bassbum wrote:Taking that into account would you say your headphone experience is an accurate representation of bass music?

Yes. Or at least moreso than the representation that results from excess boom and room excitement.

bassbum wrote:Even in a small room with a floor that really shakes at 50hz I would still want a sub than use any headphones from my collection.

Not so much about a shaking floor. Maybe you're not that familiar with room acoustics? The floor would be a factor in terms of reflection between it and the ceiling. You can usually tame this a bit by throwing down a rug. The walls will most likely present more of a problem, where reflections between walls resonate at frequencies corresponding to the room dimensions and add decay across the spectrum.

With properly sealed circum-aural headphones you can get pretty linear low response. There's some reflection in the cup as well, but the dimensions are so small that it corresponds to higher frequencies. This can be remedied a bit with foam dampening.

Maybe you've only got shit headphones in your collection or something? Not talking about Skullcandy, Beats, and iBuds here. The money you're saving on monitors and room treatment should be going directly into nice cans and your signal chain. I'm talking a dollar for dollar comparison here. Obviously taking money out of the equation, a sublime room and high end monitors will win every time.

bassbum wrote:@SunkLo
The bass on thoughts headphones is pretty flat do you have a link so I can see them? Looking at it you might be able to mix bass on them but you still cant feel it and get the atmosphere a sub gives.

Trust me, you can feel and hear plenty of sub on them. I'd argue even moreso since they're flat and not colored by reverb so there's much less masking going on. You might be surprised when you click this link. Not high end headphones by any means, and considerably cheap. And yet still more accurate than the average producer's room. Couple that with a proper set of mixing cans from Audio Technica, Beyer, Shure, etc. and you've got a nice monitoring chain that probably costs less than your left speaker alone.

Genevieve wrote: Panning for headphones though? Width in headphones doesn't translate well to speakers. Speakers don't have perfect stereo imaging while headphones do. So what sounds right on headphones won't sound right on speakers.

Yeah you're right... but when I pan on speaks and listen on headphones it dosn't sit right. Normally I will pan on speaker then do the "little to the left... little to the right" thing on headphone so it sound nice a tight. I find that stops a high passes hat or something floating about in the stereo field without and weight under it it.

I also switch between headphone, monitors and I might even bounce down and play it on my laptop.


Yeah I'm getting bored of arguing about this. This is the last post ima make about it. To be fair to you though I didn't know you could get headphone with bass like that.
Yeah a setup you build over time. I toke me 7 years to get what I have and I still don't have the ideal setup and it looks like I will need a better PC soon

Lol my collection. I have skullcandys in my collection but I have more senhisers than I do other headphones put together. Some I have because they look cool though insted of sound quality like aerial7s.

Alright then that settles it then.

You might wanna pick up some of those cans with the money you got. They're pretty great for recreational listening as well. They have 600, 700, and 1000's now too. The original line was 300, 500 and 700, and 500 were the best. I don't know how the 600 or 1000 perform but the 1000's are massive. They might actually be muddier but they do have huge drivers so they might sound good.

If you get them, do some A/B tests and tell us which monitoring setup is more accurate. Somehow I bet it'll be better than M-Audio monitors and a pc speaker sub.


Or you could spend your money on room treatment instead since it sounds like you're producing in a bare room. (Which makes this debate 10 times more hilarious) I think I mentioned before that treating your room will most likely improve your monitoring more than upgrading your speakers. If you build your own you can treat a whole room without breaking the bank.

What Sennheiser models do you have? If you've got a bunch of headphones you could probably sell off the redundant ones and put that money towards a couple good monitoring pairs. There's always some chump on ebay or craigslist who will buy your skullcandys because he thinks the paintjob makes them sound better.

Everyone take a moment to listen to some silkie and keep the vibes positive

Def felt and heard the sub shake on that!

But lol @ the video uploader name and the arguments in the comments.

Yeah I'm moving soon, I hope, so treatment would be crazy. If I sold some of my headphone it would no longer be a collection.

You can make some panels that just hang up on your wall. They're basically like sound absorbing paintings. Same for bass traps, they're usually just wedges that you stack on top of each other in the corner.

As glamorous as a headphone collection is, a core group of top performers would be better. Quality over quantity and all. You can always paint them neon if that pleases you.

SunkLo wrote: As glamorous as a headphone collection is, a core group of top performers would be better. Quality over quantity and all. You can always paint them neon if that pleases you.

LOL glamorous isn't even the word... trendsettingly cool is a better fit.

Simulant wrote:Monitoring sub bass on headphones is never going to work! ?

I dont know why everyone keeps saying that, while i am still trying to get my mix's to a tollerable level. Ive never had a problem with sub and anything, i swear mine go down to like 15-20hz (ath m30)

Sorry for the quoting mistake, SunkLo!

Love how this software thread turned into a 'mixing sub bass on headphones vs monitors' thread.

Again, if you have an untreated or in any way acoustically shitty room, good set of cans can be much more accurate in the lower end. Yes, you can hear bass notes lower on a set of better studio cans then even on a higher grade 6" monitor, and quite a bit flatter too (still talking untreated room) because you're not dealing with acoustics except for within the can. About not feeling the bass in the cans: sure, you don't feel it in your chest, but you do feel it in your head and ears, and if you know your cans well and frequent decent sounding clubs, you'll surely know what it will sound like in a club.

If you get to know your cans, you can get mixes that translate really well to clubs. I have tested this, found it to be true. Okay, stereo image this and that, if you only have cans, you'll also have to learn how your cans translate, otherwise I agree that probably a set of monitors is better for that.

Optimum low budget solution for an untreated room is a set of 5" or 6" monitors and a good set of cans to be able to crosscheck. Since your average 5 or 6 incher won't go below 50 or 60hz, and an untreated room is shitty for bass especially, you are probably better off mixing sub with cans that go down much lower, as low as you need since you wouldn't really want go below like 36-38hz for club music anyway. Monitoring with a sub? Definitely need a very well treated room for that.

I mean, if I play music on the sub I use for general listening in my room, or just start playing equal volume sine notes up from like 35hz, I can very clearly hear that around 75hz is much louder and shakes my whole fucking room much more then notes falling into another range. Still enjoyable for listening? Sure. Good for mixing? Not at all.
You have a treated room and a decent sub? Then go for it.

I just don't know any more... I hate you guy with your logical arguments that make me change my mind and the way I think of things.

Well this thread from gearslutz backs up what I'm saying - use both headphones and monitors with or without a sub:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much- ... ixing.html

I saw an interesting thread on this forum the other day - how to be average. And rule no 1 was accept what people say at face value. So, while it may make sense to ask on production forums about this sort of thing, it also makes sense to read up on things for yourself and do research, then find the solution that works best for you.

And I have to point out that everyone has admitted that a full range setup with treatment is best, so it just depends on how seriously you take your music and what resources you have to put into it. Why settle for mediocrity if you want to make amazing tunes?

Fabfilter make excellent plugins and do bundles. If you email them they usually give a student discount (if you are one)
If you do go fabfilter, you will have top quality eq, limiter, delay ect...

Im not an expert on any of this by a long shot, but i will say you need a suited interface if your going to work on the low end on headphones. I dont even have 'proper' monitors, just a set of adequate wharfedale speakers. I tried working on my old mans Sennheiser Hd650's and every time i tried it was like half of my low-lows just vanished. After a lot of uneducated guesses and listening to the same phones on a different interface i came to the conclusion my saffire 6 simply has a fucking awful mic preamp. And yes its cheap im not whining, but if you plan to work on phones alot, get an interface thats good at it. But to get back on topic, did you spend your money yet, and if not, is there some specific stuff your looking for atm?

Dude 650s are baller mode, get a headphone amp. They usually rank near or at the top of the list of mixing headphones. You just have to drive them properly. I guarantee you'll get better results with those and a spectrograph vs a large portion of monitoring setups out there.

SunkLo wrote:I guarantee you'll get better results with those and a spectrograph vs a large portion of monitoring setups out there.

............................................________
....................................,.-'"...................``~.,
.............................,.-"..................................."-.,
.........................,/...............................................":,
.....................,?......................................................,
.................../...........................................................,}
................./......................................................,:`^`..}
.............../...................................................,:"........./
..............?.....__.........................................:`.........../
............./__.(....."~-,_..............................,:`........../
.........../(_...."~,_........"~,_....................,:`........_/
..........{.._$;_......"=,_......."-,_.......,.-~-,},.~";/....}
...........((.....*~_......."=-._......";,,./`..../"............../
...,,,___.`~,......"~.,....................`.....}............../
............(....`=-,,.......`........................(......;_,,-"
............/.`~,......`-...................................../
.............`~.*-,.....................................|,./.....,__
,,_..........}.>-._...................................|..............`=~-,
.....`=~-,__......`,.................................
...................`=~-,,.,...............................
................................`:,,...........................`..............__
.....................................`=-,...................,%`>--==``
........................................_..........._,-%.......`
...................................,

Why are you saying that? Almost all pros use monitors and headphones! A spectrograph is no replacement for feeling the sub bass! I'm not sure if you've ever heard sub bass in a club, but it's very different from hearing it on headphones.

He's clearly saying that compared to some monitoring setups, the phones will be better.
This is a logical.

I use beyerdynamic dt990 because it is best for my situation, any other monitoring setup in my current production room would be pointless.

Electric_Head wrote:He's clearly saying that compared to some monitoring setups, the phones will be better.
This is a logical.

Sorry, the guy annoys me, I saw him pushing headphones on other threads too. Anyone who knows anything about mixing knows that they're not ideal for sub bass.

And CLEARLY I was saying that a combination of both monitors and headphones is best. Why would anyone argue against this tried and tested method? I've worked in studios in the past - all of them had monitors and headphones. Every single one. So sure, if you want to make tunes in your parents house or are too poor or lazy to fix your room up, take the advice of some random bum on the internet.

But, if you want to be a pro, do as the pro's do. Read and research and find out the correct solution. And almost all professionals use both monitors and headphones, fact.

Electric_Head wrote:I use beyerdynamic dt990 because it is best for my situation, any other monitoring setup in my current production room would be pointless.

Your headphones are on the ass end of the pro headphone scale and you're recommending them? So you've spent £120 on your monitoring setup? Wow, you must take your music career really seriously.

Don't be a dick.
It is what i can afford.

I came here to have a discussion.
Thanks for insulting me.

I seem to manage with my shitty ass end of the pro hadphone market.
At least I'm not using $5 phones and arguing they are best.
I gave an example from my point of view as a basis for discussion.

But whatever, be a dick.