Mixing with headphones, (im)possible?

[fx23]

I know it's not recommended to mix on headphones. The fact is i leave in a tiny flat with the most horrible
acoustic that can exist: a ultra synthetic sounding room reverb, lots of phazes ect.
if i move my head of 30cm the basses sound completely different. And i make very bassy music (hardcore-psytrance)
hopefully a friend of mine has got a nice build studio and i can go and mix it there if it worth, but i dlike
to make much of the prepare_work at home before.

I had a hd25 and went to a HD650 a few weeks ago. I think i got more accurate results mixing with HD650
than hearing results out of the speakers in my room. Pb is i was born with only one ear so i don't
have the stereo , at least not at all with cans . I was thinking of making a mono pre mix and focus only on gains and frequencies, then finalize and work on stereo at the studio for one day or two, and make home made mastering with a powercore
or the protools they have over there.

Any tips or warnings about mixing with cans? Is it a really bad idea or
is it achievable with good cans such as HD650s without completely destructing the results?

[synnack]

There will be tons of people who tell you that you should not mix with headphones and that you should spend some money to treat the room you have effectively instead. There are many technical reasons for this. See here http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/a ... phones.htm

We all know that to be true, yet I would bet that at least half the people on this forum regularly mix with headphones on.

In my experience the best tip for headphone mixing is to TURN THE VOLUME DOWN. Your ears will burn out QUICKLY using headphones to mix. What you hear as not enough bass in the first 10 minutes of mixing will sound like there isn't enough bass in 30 minutes. To minimize this effect, mix at low levels. It's some sort of myth that you need to have music blaring to mix it properly.

Another tip is to mix in mono. This will avoid some of spatial anomalies of mixing with headphones. And has other benefits: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com/bl ... g-in-mono/

Also note that all headphones are not the same. Typical DJ-style headphones like Sony MDR-V700DJ are not really going to work for good mixes. But something like this can: http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/uk/home_en. ... headphones

oh wait, it looks like you do have the HD650's. You're all set there then (sorry i just woke up)

[fx23]

thanks tempus3r, gonna check those links.

[Cezband]

the link that tempus3r posted regarding mixing on headphones is really good, I found it really useful.

This article may also be a little bit of help, it's a query about mixing from a guy who is deaf in one ear. It talks about a completely different genre but some of the tips still seem applicable. Hope it helps!

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may09/a ... 0509_3.htm

[fx23]

thanks mate

[FuzzyKeys]

There are a lot of times I trust my Beyerdynamic DT-880's more the monitors. I'm finding them really true in the low mids which is where all of my previous cans had ruthlessly deceived me over and over again. Mixing with closed cans... I don't know. Very hard. When the ear fatigue kicks in and you can't figure out why the bass won't join the kick precisely in the center of your brain... yeah. No good.

I checked out the 112dB Big Blue Limiter a few weeks on a big recommendation from a friend. They have a 60 day fully unlocked demo policy for all of their plugins which I must say is both refreshingly humane and really smart from a business perspective. I'm definitely buying this limiter. But anyway, they have a plugin, Redline Monitor that's designed to simulate the stereo imaging of monitors if you're using headphones. It's overpriced at $99 but it's actually very good in my opinion.

+1 for ALWAYS turning it down on headphones, especially if you're mixing heavy bass material. Check your mixes in the car, on other speakers, really anywhere you can and you'll get progressively more accustomed to what you're cans are lying to you about. The same can and should be said for monitors though too.

[fx23]

thx fuzzykeys. HD650 are open headphones too, i mnot sure i will really benefit
from a stereo monitors simulation as it still relies on.. stereo, so... it needs 2 functional ears, but gonna check.
And after all what i read i start to think it can be finally an advantage to have only one ear for headphone mixing,
as my brain isn't perturbed by stero perception pbs
thanx for all the tips gys, was good reading.

[chilleddreams]

I tried Beyerdynamic DT990 at a friend's studio. I found that they match the sound of monitors better as other headphones I tried before.