Alternative to the new "headphone mix" plugin?

The concept of how to implement this functionality is really pretty cut-and-dry. Where different products differ is the degree to which they take the emulation process...probably the most sophisticated is Focusrite's VRM box, but of course it's hardware and not free. Mine has four controls for basics and an A/B switch.

mettelus
My bad, I should have clarified this better. What "bothers" me with VRM is say I choose "Professional Studio" and then begin cycling through just the monitor options (not listening position). Granted, I am not familiar with all the monitor choices, but what stands out is the tonal variation to monitor choice. A/B is a must without familiarity, and I would be more likely to "mix out" these differences. The 2 "broadcast" monitoring options makes sense, but switching between the 8 monitor choices doesn't - I honestly expected these not to vary so much. The default is "US Yellow Cone Pro," so I guess it is better to learn one and stick with it.

Not necessarily and part of the idea is to actually "mix out" the differences as best as possible. It's all about trying to get the the mix as consistent as possible on all the various emulations. They're not gonna sound exactly the same no matter what you do but just like regular mixing/mastering you want the material to sound as consistent as possible on all systems. So you actually WANT those variations.
 
Like even in a proper studio with real monitors your main monitors (Rockits for example) aren't going to sound like an Auratone... right? But you switch back and forth until the mix sounds good on both.
 
Before I get too crazy on details it's actually not all that great to flip through the emus all willy nilly as the track plays. That indeed just messes up your ears and isn't all that useful (it's how I rolled at first and I learned to ease up on that behavior). A bit of flipping around amongst the more similar systems within the same environment isn't too bad but going from the studio speakers in the studio environment straight to the laptop or TV speakers in the bedroom environment just ain't gonna help with anything (and serious burn out your ears).
 
How I do it is I'll get my mix started using just the regular headphone output on my main interface. Once everything is sounding good and even I'll switch over to the VRM and start checking it through some of the more "normal" sounding emus (like the Rockit emus and other "pro monitors" in the Studio setting). Those sound close to each other natural and will generally expose the first layer of crap. I'll do some tweaks until the mix is sounding pretty consistent on that first series of speakers. I'll disable the VRM and check the "pure" mix and usually it will always sound a little better right away.
 
Then I'll start digging into the "consumer grade hi fi" speakers in the studio and living room settings. This exposes another layer of crap. I'll do some more tweaks, check it through the PREVIOUS series of speaker setups I tried and my "pure" headphone output. I'll usually start checking it in my monitors at this point too (I can safely get away with a couple of plays of a track per day at low volume in my apartment... I just don't want to play the same tune over and over and over again lest the neighbors think I'm crazy or figure out I'm a musician).
 
So generally by this stage my mix is sounding much more consistent on all the emus, through my headphones (without the VRM) and through my monitors.
 
Then I'll start checking it out on the utter crap emus like the desktop PC speakers, the flatscreen TV speakers and the WORST one of all the Budget Micro System emu which is just freaking unbearable to listen to (pretty much like their real world counterparts). None of these are ever going to sound conistent with the nicer emus but they give me an idea of how the mix will stand up to being blasted through those types of systems. In a lot of ways I think this is the most important phase because if it sounds decent and I can hear all the elements of the mix on these utter POS emus while keeping them sounding nice through all the OTHER stuff then I've gotten that consistency I need.
 
BUT trying to make the mix sound "perfect" on those emus will destroy the mix on everything else so you gotta know what those types of systems sound like IRL (which I do because I've spent most of my music listening life listening on crap like that). You just kind of nudge things up, down, out of the way until it's even and not too harsh/boomy and that's all you can do. Once you get back to the better emus or bring it up into your real monitors/headphones it'll not necessarily sound "better or worse" because it can go either way and this step is mostly about making compromises in the mix so the mix CAN be listened to through such devices. IME it will usually detract a little bit from my "preferred" sound on the higher quality systems but it has to be done to get "real world" consistency.
 
After all that I'll start checking it out on the pile of consumer headphones I have around, through my monitors, through my various sets of desktop speakers and if I didn't have to worry about noise in this POS apartment I'd put it through my two good stereo systems. Usually it stands up well.
 
One other trick I do is to mimic the "Mono into a single Auratone" technique that pro studios use. To do that I hit the interleave button on my Master bus to dump it all down to mono and pump it through the Auratone Emu in the studio environment setting. Of course it ain't the same as the real deal (because it's going through headphones) but it does expose a lot of stuff as well (the whole point of that trick is to find any frequency masking through a small/weak speaker). I'll also check out the mix in mono through the other emus as well just because I can but yeah... it's a ghetto arse way of doing the Auratone/Mono trick.
 
Okay... so I will reiterate that as I do this I don't flip around all over the place between the emus. It's best to stick to one emu for a good hunk of the track (or the whole track) to listen for problems and a/b it with SIMILAR emus. Make your tweaks as it rolls. Stop, try another emu letting the track play (no intense flipping around). Using the MixControl feature in Sonar or using Save As so you can return to previous mixes and exporting into an a/b track where you load it up with your various mixes so you can easily compare what tweaks work and which don't etc are all things I do.
 
Flipping around like crazy is useless. Lots of breaks are necessary too I find when using the VRM because it's easy to have your ears adjust to a specific emu then you just start screwing things up. Usually when I think things are getting stupid I'll come back the next day, check again through all the emus and everything is golden.
 
There seems to be a real art/process to using this tool and it is a lot of extra screwing around but it certainly does seem to be worth it to me. I've also gotten a lot faster and calculated at it all the more familiar I get with the program and all the emus.
 
Long post is loooong but it might help folks get a little more out of their VRM units. There isn't really a lot of in depth instructionals about HOW to use it effectively. I had to figure all this out through just playing with it.
 
Cheers.