Mixing professionally on headphones with Emrah Celik
- Thread starter Pier
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Bee_Abney
How long have I been out?
Great, thanks. While I do mix on headphones, I'm not sure just how many hours of a podcast about mixing on headphones I could listen to. Probably on headphones. But I'll give it a try.
I know Paul Third from YouTube, but not Emrah Celik. I should probably listen to some of their work, to see if I like the results they are getting.
I've been very happy with the results I've been getting using Fostex TR-50RP MkIII headphones (planar headphones). I'm also able to psuedo-master in a way that translates to different environments much better than relying on monitors in an awkwardly-shaped room. I highly recommend this approach if you can't get a professional monitoring environment.
I know Paul Third from YouTube, but not Emrah Celik. I should probably listen to some of their work, to see if I like the results they are getting.
I've been very happy with the results I've been getting using Fostex TR-50RP MkIII headphones (planar headphones). I'm also able to psuedo-master in a way that translates to different environments much better than relying on monitors in an awkwardly-shaped room. I highly recommend this approach if you can't get a professional monitoring environment.
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jcrosby
Senior Member
This is a list that has Harman EQ settings for a TON! of headphone models.... With an app like Soundscource you have a headphone EQ you can toggle on/off globally as needed, no need to use an EQ within your DAW...
(Here's the original article I found that linked me to the reddit thread... Also worth reading for people working mostly or completely in headphones. And I agree, this EQ sounds more natural than Sonarworks' correction).
2 Most Important Headphone Calibration Plugins+ Mixing Room
Headphones Mixing Plugin: Free Headphone calibration software. Headphone EQ and a Crossfeed / Virtual Mixing Room VST to Mix your Songs.
www.mastrng.com
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Pier
Senior Member
Yeah these are the Oratory measurements and EQ settings!
Also check this website which gets measurements from multiple sources including Oratory:
It will give you the EQ settings for many different equalizers. If using SoundSource on macOS I recommend the parametric EQ AUNBandEq by Apple which comes included in macOS.
If using FF ProQ you need to convert the Q values because they use something different than the rest.
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Pier
Senior Member
And this is the crossfeed plugin they mention in case someone doesn't know it:
jcrosby
Senior Member
I've been using it for years. I've tried a bunch of different virtual room plugins, and they all have a noticeably comb-filtered character that I find really unpleasant... Can Opener on the other hand is really transparent.And this is the crossfeed plugin they mention in case someone doesn't know it:
I've found a Harman EQ + CanOpener + Soundsource a really nice combination.
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Pier
Senior Member
It's amazing. With my NDH30 it feels like listening to monitors.
Got VSX for Christmas. I am shocked at what a difference it has made for me. And being able to listen in difference 'spaces' on the fly. I wasn't overly impressed at first until I heard the metronome clicking and thought I'd left my monitors turned up. lol Then... after spending more time mixing with them and listening to my results after learning the 'spaces'....my opinion took a hard turn.
I'm not using my speakers, any more. I can officially gage how things are gonna sound in multiple spaces (car included) and know that a song is gonna sit like I thought it would.
The car has always been a tough one for me. I could swear I had the low end right....til I was listening in the car the next day. Since going with this, I know exactly what it's gonna sound like and that is an amazing and freeing feeling. Because I can do it at 2am. : )
I'm not using my speakers, any more. I can officially gage how things are gonna sound in multiple spaces (car included) and know that a song is gonna sit like I thought it would.
The car has always been a tough one for me. I could swear I had the low end right....til I was listening in the car the next day. Since going with this, I know exactly what it's gonna sound like and that is an amazing and freeing feeling. Because I can do it at 2am. : )
Bee_Abney
How long have I been out?
Get some sleep! Your greatest tool is your brain, and all that.
Alex Fraser
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As a slight aside - I've stopped worrying about how mixes translate to cars after a brief spell working at a dealership for an expensive German brand.
Every new car out the box comes with the bass cranked up to insane levels (it sells cars) and some even have extra reverb added as a "surround effect." Chasing tails stuff.
But that's a personal preference, I understand the merits of what the vid talks about.
Every new car out the box comes with the bass cranked up to insane levels (it sells cars) and some even have extra reverb added as a "surround effect." Chasing tails stuff.
Agreed. And personally, I gave up on EQ curves, spatialisation and the rest of it once I twigged my ears and brain could (and annoyingly would) overrule anything those tools were telling me.
But that's a personal preference, I understand the merits of what the vid talks about.
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What a fascinating conversation — thanks for highlighting it, @Pier. I’ll admit I was a little thrown when he suggested using the Harman curve as an EQ target for mixing. Maybe I’m misinformed about the Harman Target, but to my understanding, it’s just the product of Harman polling a bunch of listeners to find out what tonal profiles they liked — in other words, it’s a consumer preference curve designed to help the headphone industry move units, not an attempt to engineer the sort of flat/neutral response you’d typically look for in a mixing environment. To say you should mix on headphones EQ’d to the Harman Target seems like saying you should mix on speakers EQ’d to match your Sonos Fives or something along those lines.
Now, that’s not to say you can’t achieve brilliant results using Harman for mixing — you can get used to anything, after all — and it may even be that there’s something about the nature of headphone mixing that makes Harman’s specific deviations from neutrality desirable. He mentioned in the interview that it emulates the natural bass boost audio acquires in a room, which sure, maybe? Just seemed odd to hear Harman talked about as if it were specifically optimized for mixing, when as far as I’ve ever heard it’s basically the opposite? I’d be worried about producing mixes with underpowered bass if I used it, but maybe that’s just something you have to expect and adapt to.
Now, that’s not to say you can’t achieve brilliant results using Harman for mixing — you can get used to anything, after all — and it may even be that there’s something about the nature of headphone mixing that makes Harman’s specific deviations from neutrality desirable. He mentioned in the interview that it emulates the natural bass boost audio acquires in a room, which sure, maybe? Just seemed odd to hear Harman talked about as if it were specifically optimized for mixing, when as far as I’ve ever heard it’s basically the opposite? I’d be worried about producing mixes with underpowered bass if I used it, but maybe that’s just something you have to expect and adapt to.
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Pier
Senior Member
This is a common mistake and I was also under this impression for years.
The Harman curve tries to represent how full range (20-20khz) flat monitors would be perceived in a real room.
The thing is, flat monitors are measured in an anechoic chamber with no reflections with a neutral measurement mic. Of course the response will change when you take into account an actual room with reflections and the sensivity of human ears to different frequencies. This is why the Harman curve has an emphasis in the low end and mid range. Even if you stood in an anechoic chamber listening to a flat monitor, you would not perceive it to be flat.
The other important point to understand is that, while you can measure a speaker in an anechoic chamber, this cannot be done with headphones. The "chamber" is created by the combination of the headphones cup and the ear. When measuring over ear headphones (not IEMs) they use rigs with an actual fake ear with a mic at the end of the ear canal.
EQ profiles for headphones try to target the Harman curve because the preferred subjective response of most people is that of a flat monitor in a real room.
Well, I’m delighted to be wrong about this! Thanks for the correction.
Thanks Bee! For some reason though that's when my brain seems to be firing on all cylinders. :-P Always been that way.
FWIW, a good high-current headphone amp is an important piece of the puzzle for mixing in headphones, imo. Planars are usually in the 24 ohm to 32 ohm range (as well as a number of dynamics) and even though a typical headphone output jack on an interface or whatever can provide sufficient volume, it 99 times out of 100 does so at the expense of considerable distortion, as easily heard if you have the means to do an A/B with a good headphone amp, and also easily confirmed by viewing the THD vs impedance graph in the datasheets of the usual chips used for this purpose. Clean into 600 ohms or higher, not so much into low double digit impedances. I have no affiliation, but will say that the JDS Labs Atom Amp 2 is a stellar performer at pretty much any price point imo, yet is priced extremely competitively. I recently purchased one for someone as a gift and compared it to my custom built amp and it is at the same level.
I switched to headphone mixing about a year ago, very happy with the results, I also have a well treated room (+-6db down to 80hz) and a set of amphion speakers with sub, and have been getting better translation using cans.
I think the idea of not being able to mix a final product on headphones is a thing of the past.
I think the idea of not being able to mix a final product on headphones is a thing of the past.
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Pier
Senior Member
Definitely.
Julian Krause on Youtube regularly measures the performance of amp headphones in audio interfaces. See the attached image for his latest measurements.
On the podcast I linked, Paul Third recommends the Topping L30II. Super low distortion and abundant power for something like $150.
I'm using an M4 which has a decent amp but the L30II is very tempting.
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Bee_Abney
How long have I been out?
I guess you are a night owl and you just have to roll with it. At least you are alert at some point!
You can find a lot of good info about headphones and amps at the audiociencereview.com site. Those guys live for measuring stuff, being audiophiles, lol. That's where I discovered the JDS Labs Atom Amp 2. A recent review by them for a new product.
BTW and fwiw, I also purchased a set of Hifiman HE400SE planars for $109 (another audioscience find) as a gift to go with the Atom Amp 2, and those crazy things thru the JDS amp and an Oratory curve are really close to my $1300 Audeze LCD-X 2021 thru custom amp and Oratory curve. I guarantee the mix solution would be no different using either solution. Crazy good for crazy cheap.
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Pier
Senior Member
Yep I'm a user there as well!
BTW this is the correct URL: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/
@Paul@Sydney is also quite enthusiastic about the HE400SE
