Ableton Forum

Is it okay to work under terrible sound quality conditions when you're working on simple ideas or a rough first draft of your song? Say, when you're on the road, plugging your white iPod ear buds directly into the integrated sound card of your laptop for instance...

You can always get back to your studio and a nice quality setup for the actual mixing and mastering phase right?

Do you work like this? Or does everything have to be perfect from start to finish sound wise?

I'm curious.

Seems like a pretty obvious answer...lol

well of course... if you are prepared to do some serious mixing later... what's the problem? you may get a few surprises though

i made one of my favourite tracks on the train from london to glasgow with some ear buds i bought in the station for £10, because i had forgotten my headphones. i was actually pleasantly surprised when i got back to my monitors

I don't even know where my ipod earpuds are. But where ever they are, they are in their package and in a mint condition

So, no. I have my HD-25s and i take them where ever i go.

rosti wrote:I don't even know where my ipod earpuds are. But where ever they are, they are in their package and in a mint condition

So, no. I have my HD-25s and i take them where ever i go.

likewise. I think it's okay to work under less than optimal conditions...

...that being defined as using my Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro's instead of monitors.

Get yourself a pair of



Etymotic ER4-Ps

of course ok...thats what much of music will be heard thru right?

i use them to check my mixes. get it right in the cans (AT-MH50)... check it on the monitors... mix a little more on monitors... back to cans... back and forth. when i feel that i have it right i burn to CD and check in the car. i keep fine tuning.... when all of those are right i go to iPod ear buds. if it's good there i'm

Huh, cant vote. On the laptop I use Sennheizer HD580. Those are not ear buds!

I use the ear buds occasionally during mixing to cross reference against monitors and Sennheiser headphones.

What a loaded question. Do you prefer the best product on the market, or the worst bullshit option that came for free with that one thing you bought that one time?

I'm not anti-headphones, though I do prefer almost every pair of headphones and earbuds ever made to Apple's offering.

I used to work for Apple. We handed those earbuds out like some of you will be handing out candy tonight.

I probably have over a dozen pairs scattered around my room; the only time I use them is at the gym when I don't want sweat screwing up any of my nice headphones, or if I'm going somewhere that I expect my headphones may be lost/broken/stolen.

Earbuds don't stay in my ears so I can't use them.

simmerdown wrote:of course ok...thats what much of music will be heard thru right?

Yeah and most people listen on yamahas or adams or genelecs.

You need to be able to hear what your doing, if it sounds good on those it'll sound good on anything.

twisted-space wrote:if it sounds good on those it'll sound good on anything.

not at all necessarily ...