The Panic Room, Mastering Class 101 #2: Monitoring & Objectivity

[dale_a_smith]

I'm surprised what Ermz said about the HD650's as plenty of engineers swear by them. I use Beyerdynamic DT880 pros. very good headphones. very comfy to wear.. As I don't have a decent room for mixing, I do everything on them, and use my Hi-Fi and car stereo for referencing.

 

[kass]

Supposedly, the Audeze LCD-II are the headphones sent down to us by Zeus.


1000 bucks.

Hailed as the best in the world.

Check out this response curve....

Its like a ruler, below 500hz

I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want some.


I mix now on some Beyerdynamic DT770s. Going ok so far. Shy in the bass though.

 

[fatalforce]

At first I thought you meant Chris "Zeuss" Harris but now I realize you mean the Greek God hahaha.

I have had the HD650s for about 5 years and I've learned them quite well. I know how things sound and how well sounds translate through them. I guess high end headphones are a matter of taste.

I also think people under-estimate headphones and I'm glad Plec has pointed this out.

 

[Ola Englund]

Great tip! If you REALLY want to learn to mix with headphones, get your girlfriend pregnant. Silence after 6 pm will have its toll

 

[Plec]

Just to save some time, I'm just copying from an email sent to Ermz about this, and I hope he don't mind.

"Headphones are nothing short of a life saver a lot of times!

In regards to low-end you can't beat headphones, ever, not even the best rooms can compete since you don't have any acoustics to worry about at all so I understand why you like to do that. It's very very hard to find good headphones though. I've even started to collect "vintage" ones since they've totally changed the newer models without telling anyone.

My favorites by far are the Beyerdynamic DT770. You must have the 250ohm model and not the black ones with a lot of isolation plus you must find a pair that was made before around 2006. I have four of those now since my oldest pair are around 12 years old and starting to fall apart but still sound awesome! When you tell people about the DT770 usually there's quite a bad reaction, but when that's the case it's usually because they've heard a 60ohm pair and or post 2006, which just sounds like shit to me and everyone I've had A/B them.

I am looking for a new headphone reference but haven't had any luck finding any as of yet. The best ones I've tried in a while where the Shure SRH840 and they've also got a lot of hype about them. I thought they were very good, but again delivered too much low-end. I got a recommendation from a mastering colleague to try the Sennheiser HD600 which are supposed to be excellent and not much like the 650's you tried that he actually brought up as a bad example. Haven't gotten around to trying them out yet though."

 

[beechstudio]

Any of you guys checked this out?

http://www.focusrite.com/products/vrm/vrm_box/

Seems very interesting to me!

 

[LeSedna]

I sort of discovered a similar kind of things :

TB isone : http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/
Redline monitor http://www.112db.com/redline/monitor/

Redline is supposed to be (too?) subtle, whereas Isone is more pronounced, it changes a lot your mix. It gives you actually a feeling of being in a room in front of monitors.

The question is : is that sort of plugins a good thing in mastering with headphones ? I'm lurking through headphones topics these days because I may have to travel a lot in a few months and will certainly work in a laptop with my headphones, and I'll have only that. I wanna know if mixing or mastering with something like Isone won't be a bad habit.

 

[DominikJW]

If you REALLY want to learn to mix with headphones, get your girlfriend pregnant.

Pro tip of the week

 

[WarlockStudios]

Hey Plec great thread! I just disregarded doing anything but tracking through cans because the ones i've got are shite but I decided to give it a punt and get a decent pair. I went with the Shure SRH840's as they were kinder on my budget than the Beyerdynamics. They sound great and everything is much crisper and clearer than through my monitors already my productions are improving CHEERS! On a side note whilst researching different headphones I saw that the Beyerdynamic DT880's are 250ohms and are obviously a newer model than the 770's so maybe the reason for this is that the 880's are the pre 2006 version and the new crap 770's are made a lot cheaper as there is a price difference - maybe worth a test and note for others who want to get the Beyerdynamics but are having a hard time finding pre 2006 ones. I definately hope to give them a try one day and see how they compare.

 

[Greyanaroth]

On the beyerdynamic thing - these are the dt770 PROS or the regular dt770s? Because apparently there's quite a bit of difference between the two, sonically as well as construction wise. I have the 80 ohms dt 770s, and although they're a little easy on the high end, they have great low end content! Not too much, but just enough and boy do these go down LOW!

Surprisingly, everyone in Germany seems to swear by the 770 pros! I got the 990s, but to my ears they were too scooped and shrill! But they do give an amazing reference for levels and stuff!

I also suffer from the same "crap room" problem WRT mixing on monitors, and trust my headphones implicitly. I do tend to get slightly elevated snare levels, but for getting the vocals to sit right, nothing can beat monitors! Even in a crap room ;-)

I'm really interested to know whether these are the 770 pros or the regular ones! Cuz the 60 ohms ones are NOT the pros! And they do suck For the record, the 770 pros are for 200$.

Oh and the hd 25, which is once again touted as a studio staple, is also kinda ok. Not enough low end content. But it's GREAT for mixing live in festivals where you don't get a PA check ;-) Just push up the faders! You do however need to go easy with the extreme high and low end in such a scenario - typically the first song is time enough to fix that!

 

[tonymiro]

Whilst it is possible to master on headphones it's not something that I would do exclusively. We tend to use them more to check certain issues such as reverb tails and some fine detail. If you do decide to master on headphones I'd still recomend that you check translation.

 

[TheDustbowl]

On the subject of headphones