speakers VS headphones

Before I got to the bottom of your post I was going to say "well, as long as your mixes still sound good, what does it matter"? Therein lies the crux of the problem.

You're going to have to buck up and use both, I think. I mix lots in cans as well, mostly due to the fact that I don't want to disturb the household late at night, but also to check fine-tuning. My room isn't tuned, nor do I have the finances to do a proper job. But when it comes to checking overall tone, placement, depth, etc., I refer to my monitors. Then I do a final check on my stereo system and in my car.

I think you need to start using both monitors AND cans. There's nothing wrong with using cans, but as you've experienced, you can't rely on them completely. Of course, if you're not intending on anyone else listening to your stuff, than what do you care? If you do, then you gotta bite the bullet.

I think you've pretty much come to the conclusion on your own. Don't you think?

Same here. Everything sounds better on headphones. Better still on my little Shure SE210 in-ear monitors.

However, the headphones are lying to you. It takes more work to make it sound equally good on monitors, but that's the only way you'll have a chance that the mix will translate to a wide variety of playback systems.

I have a similar problem with studio monitors versus car stereos. When I first bought my current vehicle, I thought the stereo sounded pretty good. That was five years and a couple of monitor upgrades ago. Now, I can barely stand to listen to anything in the car except talk radio and news.

Same with the hi-fi in the rec room. It's got some decent 3-way JBLs with 18" woofers - great for movies, but I rarely listen to music on it anymore. I tend to listen to music for enjoyment on either my studio monitors or the Shure earbuds. Everything else sounds like crap now. It's an unavoidable side-effect of raising your standards for critical listening. Can you imagine how it must be for mastering engineers who listen on $80,000 speakers for their day job? What do they listen to at home?

Me too. But I've learned not to trust them!

Use them to track. Use them for sound design. But don't ever believe that you can mix in them!

ORIGINAL: KenJr

The downside of mixing in the cans a lot is you can irreperabily damage your hearing. I mix at low levels and usually only a couple days a week for a few hours so *hopefully* I'll be OK.

Yeah

I recently got a pair of over-the-ear, closed back isolation headphones. They sound great, but I've noticed the ringing in my ears has come back. Almost as bad as when I used to play out live. I already have the volume down super low, but it has a way of creeping back up when I'm not looking.

Re: mixing on headphones... I believe the future of music = headphones. When was the last time you saw a kid listening to music on a stereo like we did back in the day *cough wheeze hack*? Kids are all on ipods. Over the next 10 years, I wonder if we're going to see an industry shift toward mixes that are made for headphone listeners (and/or PC speakers). Times are a-changin.

Imagine a guy in chair instead of the guitars, and that's..about 3-4 feet at the most.

My opinion is that you should mix through monitors/speakers as opposed through cans. Why? Because most people who listen to your mix will be listening thru speakers and not with headphones.

Previously, I said "me too" .......use monitors not cans... here's my 2 cents as to why:

Speakers.. the stereo kind and headphones are designed to give a certain sound coloration. Generally this coloration is perceived by the human ear to be "sweet".... especially compared to the "flat sounding" reference monitors.

On the other hand, reference speakers are "supposed" to have a flat response... basically not favoring, flavoring or coloring the sound you are hearing...an accurate representation of what you have recorded. So theoretically, you are hearing an unbiased sound...exactly what you should want. Making this "flat sound" actually sounding good, on the reference speakers, should give you a good sounding mix on a wide variety of speaker systems from high end home stereo systems to boom boxes, car stereo speakers to Ipod earbuds.

Use whatever you want to use on the tracking stage of the recording process.... but when mixing do your mixing on flat refernce monitors. When you think you are done, listen to your mix on a variety of other speaker systems BEFORE you release it.... be sure it sounds good on all kinds of speakers.

SIDE NOTE: Above, I mentioned that reference speakers are supposed to be "flat frequency response" ..... however, go to your local pro music department and compare them..... there is a different "coloration" of the sound depending on the model and manufacturer.... go figure!!! They still beat using cans & stereo speakers to mix.

Ditto on the volume levels.... mix at a low to medium level... your hearing will last longer and your ears will not fatigue as quickly at lower volumes...

ORIGINAL: ralphwiggum

My opinion is that you should mix through monitors/speakers as opposed through cans. Why? Because most people who listen to your mix will be listening thru speakers and not with headphones.

LOL where do you think most people listen to music these days? Maybe in their car or on their PC...but 90% listen on an iPod, Zune, etc...

My way so far (and I am by no means an expert !) goes back to what someone else mentioned - phones and then ther car stereo - but taken further I will listen on other common systems that people are using these days; like a decent pair of computer speakers with a woofer on my office computer (I think great sound by the way- listening to CDs and XM Radio on line..) I will take down written notes of tweaks I think need doing after listening on these systems, go back to the studio and redo some things - with phones / occassionally monitors....then try it again. With the relatively cheap cost of CDs, to me this has worked out to be good. I agree with the post about when is the last time the typical listener fired up some high quality speakers? or monitors in a treated room for that matter.