Whoa! I posted this last night and just checked in this morning. 19 replies in just the overnight. That's a lark!

Now I'm going to read through the comments.

I did get some mixed reports on my latest tune, as you can see here:-
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Nessus-created-using-Hive-m3232764.aspx
 
Some say low end is muddy, some that the mix sounds okay. I have yet to listen to it on a "hi-fi" system myself yet. We don't have a hi-fi in the home any more. Long story, but to cut it short, I lost a battle of the speaker wars many years ago, so I gave up totally.
 
A decade or so ago, when I did have a hi-fi, I would burn a new tune to CD just so that I could check the mix on my hi-fi and in the car. Not any more though... At least at the moment... I've a few years ahead of me yet and I may, in the future, get my studio back, and hence plug my nearfields in.
 
In the meantime, it's headphones for me, and I will have to call on favours of peeps here to check my mix on speakers.
 
cheers
 
andy 

I have a VRM Box.  I was initially in love with it.  I was convinced that it made things sound better.  But I've grown to realize that it also added things that weren't there and in some cases I would spend much time tracking down a phantom sound which wasn't in the mix in the first place, but added by the Focusrite software.
 
Now I do need headphones more than occasionally - if the wife is home, I don't subject her to my audio experimentation.  So, headphones are important to me.  But more and more I'm leaving the VR part of the processing disabled and just using the VRM Box as a headphone amplifier.
 
However, since about half the time the VRM Box doesn't handshake with the computer properly to establish the digital connection and I need to unplug and re-plug the USB connector several times before the computer and VRM Box are communicating.  When I have time, I'm probably going to replace the VRM Box entirely with a much simpler passive volume control for the headphones.

Unfortunately I am not blessed with a reasonably soundproofed environment (thanks to the stupid slag who told me otherwise when I was asking about this apartment) nor do I have the means to properly treat the room so I'm pretty much stuck mixing with my Senn 280s (which I like but I would have gotten the ATs if I had the cash).
 
So I got a VRM Box. I like it. It's just another sound source to check on. Usually I do the bulk of the work through the headphones as is. I'll turn on my monitors at low level (because I can't crank really them in here), try out some other headphones (I've got a bag of various cans and earbuds of varying quality), try out my little computer speakers and now... all the various environments in my VRM Box.
 
I figure if I can get it sounding decent through all those sources I'm close enough. If someone ever wanted to pay me real money for my compositions or I wanted to release a proper album sending the tracks to a proper mastering house would correct any remaining issues.
 
Seriously anything that's intended to be released as "professional" should be sent to a proper mastering house anyway. Aside from ACTUAL mastering engineers with a PROPER mastering set up, no matter HOW much we fool ourselves into thinking we can "do it ourselves" we will never be able to get that final polish needed unless it is totally by fluke.
 
The most infuriating part of it is all those buggers are doing is really nudging an EQ around and maybe adding some compression/limiting. They just know EXACTLY how it needs to be done and have the tools to HEAR what needs to be done.
 
Of course all that crap cost them insane amounts of money and years of experience to acquire/learn but it's still a pisser.

synkrotron
Okay... About the Redline Monitor plug...
 
I registered with 112dB and they sent me a 60 day license for the Redline Monitor VST plug-in.
 
I can only assume that it goes on the master bus as the last effect. At least, that's where I tried it.

From the initial link I posted at the top of the thread I became more aware of the usefulness of the open ear headphone options. I hadn't really looked into those seriously before. I learned something in that regard from that clip.

Synchrotron - you've had the Redline Monitor try out for a day or so now. Are you leaning toward it's helpful or ? You gave your first impression. I am wondering what your current impressions are?

Bottom line= If your good at it your mix will sound good on every system imaginable no matter how you did it. I normally use my NSM 10's but I've been on the road where all I had was some average quality headphones. But I know how they sound, so I can mix on those too. 
You just need to learn how to listen and know what your source is telling you. Go ahed and spend money.. it won't help until you learn how to listen.  
 

Beepster
Seriously anything that's intended to be released as "professional" should be sent to a proper mastering house anyway. Aside from ACTUAL mastering engineers with a PROPER mastering set up, no matter HOW much we fool ourselves into thinking we can "do it ourselves" we will never be able to get that final polish needed unless it is totally by fluke.

 
Hiya Beep 
 
I agree with this, totally. In fact, you could possibly say this for the whole process... Tracking, mixing and mastering are all specialities most of us only dabble at.
 
I know I'm never going to be a "pro" though, and being responsible for everything from conception to birth is simply a hobby of mine. And I like listening to the work of like minded people, as well as "proper" stuff.
 

lawajava
Synchrotron - you've had the Redline Monitor try out for a day or so now. Are you leaning toward it's helpful or ? You gave your first impression. I am wondering what your current impressions are?

I am undecided. Sorry... I just can't make up my mind about this software.
 
On the one hand, if I sit here and turn the plug-in on and off while my latest tune is playing, I do prefer listening through the plug-in. With the plug-in on, the mix does appear to flatten out the stereo image a bit. With it off, it appears to increase the volume a touch in each headphone, but I sure that it is not as simple as that.
 
It also feels like the bass is tamed, again, ever so slightly.
 
Is it colouring the sound? Possibly hiding things that I need to hear? I really don't know.
 
I placed an instance of Pro-Q either side of Redline Monitor so that I could look at the spectrum:-
 

 
The graph at the top is before Redline Monitor and the bottom is after. They look almost identical to me, so perhaps that is a good thing?
 
Clearly, this is beyond my own abilities of understanding. I am hoping that someone else will have a go of this and give their take... All it costs is a bit of time and effort.......
 
 
cheers
 
andy

It shouldn't affect frequency response, at least not directly, and not in a way that you'd be able to see on a graph such as Pro-Q's.
 
Where frequency perception comes into play is when you mix left and right channels together and get constructive/destructive interference from L/R phase differences. Certain mixing techniques, especially widening tools, can significantly effect the spectrum in this way.
 
And therein lies the value of VRM: if you mix and master entirely on headphones, you will not be aware that such problems even exist.

bitflipper
if you mix and master entirely on headphones, you will not be aware that such problems even exist.

Hi Dave,
 
Yeah... I'm getting the message 
 
Bottom line is, I need to dust off my nearfields, or at least drop a test file onto an SD card so I can listen to it in the car...

For decades I was unaware of just how bad a listening environment a car is.
 
Not until I started using my car stereo as an alternate mix reference (and performing acoustic analyses inside the car) did I realize that you will NEVER get a mix to sound as good in the car as it does in your studio. It's (literally) physically impossible.
 
Yet it remains a useful reference because it will often exaggerate weaknesses in your mix.