mixing and mastering at home

horse

If you don't have the kit / environment to hear a good natural representation via speakers, is it best to mix and master on headphones? And if so, any recommended headphones for this purpose?

I do listen on different stereos and hifis, but they all behave so differently, particularly with lows and low-mids that I find it hard to know where the middle ground really is.

I don't need pro results, but am after decent demo quality

Cheers

HollowAxis

Probably, headphones are better than nothing.

I have Beyerdynamic DT880s, I like them.

It's also really worthwhile having something like the Avantone Mixcube.
Check mixes in Mono on a small closed cabinet speaker. If you can get a balance there and on a decent set of headphones you'll be much further along than if you just used bad monitors (Or even great ones) in a bad room.

All this for mixing.
I wouldn't ever call any track I've finalized at home 'mastered'.
Anything I've wanted done properly has gone to an actual mastering engineer who specializes in only that.

Cirrus

Yeah, if it's a choice between some totally coloured HiFi systems in acoustically compromised rooms vs headphones, definitely chose headphones. There are so many options out there, the key is to get a reasonable flat pair that are comfortable for extended listening. I'm sure there will be plenty of particular make/model recommendations.

Trying to mix through HiFi is absolute hell on earth - how are you supposed to make a good sounding mix when you know that what sounds good in the room isn't Good, and have to aim for some particular kind of bad sound to get it to translate?

HollowAxis

I think in general also, headphones for mixing purposes should be open backed.
Closed back ones tend to fiddle with the bass. As @cirrus said, you want the flattest ones you can get.

blobb

I use monitors & headphones and then check mix via any playback source I can find: HiFi, Walkman, Car stereo, kitchen cd player. Where will your mix be heard? If it's only for you to listen to on your HiFi then it doesn't matter. If you want to put it on the radio, a different kettle of fish. Some more insight:

Mixing with Headphones:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/articles/mixingheadphones.htm

Headphone calibration software is now available, if you want it

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may15/articles/sonarworks-reference.htm

horse

Thanks guys. Sounds like some decent flatter response headphones are called for then. Fair few options seem to be recommended, I wouldn't really be able to compare any of them (or if I could, how would I know which is most neutral anyway?), so would it be fair to say that going with any of main recommended sets will likely work ok for me?

Cirrus

I suppose you could go to a pro audio dealer (DV247, Absolute Music etc) and actually try some headphones side by side. When I got my last pair (Shure SRH880s) I tried maybe half a dozen similarly priced headphones and picked what to me felt most comfortable for tracking/ listening.

You'd bring some music that you know well, listen and decide which headphones sounded most accurate/ clear - avoiding ones that are too boomy down low or hyped in the treble or harsh in the mids etc. When you do a quick side by side it's AMAZING how totally different various models can sound, and how shit some expensive ones actually are.

Danny1969

I'm not sure it's possible to get decent results with headphones, well you might be able to but it will take a lot of 2nd guessing as normally people on cans will over cook the bass, under cook the panning and guitars to compensate for the way he hear things on headphones. They are very useful for editing but mixing .... not so much. Small speakers at low volume will give you a better idea. 

randomhandclaps

Cirrus is dead right in that when tried side by side it's staggering how different relative pairs of headphones can be.  It's the same with monitors too.  With both my advice is always spend time acclimatising yourself to them by listening to music that you are REALLY familiar with and/or that which is in the ballpark of where you want to be over and again. 

IMO more important than the particular monitors, headphones or space is familiarity with it.  It's one of the reasons for the NS10s success in that they where predictable in their environment that even when moving to different spaces producers and engineers could have at least one reference point of familiarity whilst acclimatising to the rest.

steamabacus

randomhandclaps said:

With both my advice is always spend time acclimatising yourself to them by listening to music that you are REALLY familiar with and/or that which is in the ballpark of where you want to be over and again. 

IMO more important than the particular monitors, headphones or space is familiarity with it.

Absolutely this!

I feel there are as many pitfalls with headphones as with speakers (if that SOS link is the same article I've read, even they say to listen on monitors to judge bass end mixing decisions.

Get to know your mixing evironment, position whatever speakers you have in the room to minimise problems, maybe even acoustically treat the room to whatever degree is achieveable.

One thing that drastically improved my mixing evironment is placing the monitors on Auralex MoPads - blocks of acoustic foam that acoustically isolate the speaker from the desktop it's standing on. You could probably save money and just get some pre-cut acoustic foam blocks from somewhere like eFoam.co.uk and DIY a pair.

Danny1969

When doing my best mix's I used all 3 pairs of monitors in the control room which were NS10's, Panasonic HI FI speakers and HK computer desktop speakers. None of those were originally designed for studio use and none were expensive

My favorite speakers to mix on were Goodmans but the other guys hated em so much they were blackballed out of use

@steamabacus I used you foam block idea to decouple the NS10's from the desk consule, worked a treat and were cheap as chips

p90fool

I hate mixing on headphones, I find it useless for anything except checking your headphone mix.

While a bad room with cheap speakers may give you unrealistic results, bear in mind that if commercial releases ok on that setup so should yours.
To that end, I have a folder of commercial reference tracks in various styles to which I constantly cross refer when I'm mixing.

It may be an age issue, but I don't trust the objectivity of my ears or my audio memory for more than about half an hour these days, without going back to some reference material to find out how far I've drifted from my goal.

thomasross20

One thing that gets my goat is some people place more value on the mix than the music itself.

thomasross20

I use headphones (oh noes) but also check the mix on various other sources. No proper monitors, unfortunately.

octatonic

thomasross20 said:

One thing that gets my goat is some people place more value on the mix than the music itself.

They are both important- no amount of mixing makes a shit song sound good but also you can't polish a turd.

Mastering at home is like trying to operate with kitchen utensils.

It is bloody work and you generally butcher the patient/music.

I have no real advice other than do your best.

The whole point about sending music out for mastering is a different set of ears in a different acoustic environment.

Note I've said 'different' not better, although they often are.

Mastering at home is usually the same set of ears in the same room so what can you really hope to achieve?

You don't need a different 'mastering process'- just mix it as well as you can and use a brick wall limiter to avoid digital overs.

Maybe ask a knowledgeable friend to have a listen.

Cirrus

p90fool said:

I hate mixing on headphones, I find it useless for anything except checking your headphone mix.

While a bad room with cheap speakers may give you unrealistic results, bear in mind that if commercial releases ok on that setup so should yours.

I'm not a fan of it either but if it's a choice between that or a badspeaker/ room sound it's a compromise worth taking IMO. Plus, good headphones come in handy in a wide variety of situations so they're a good investment.

The problem with a bad/ coloured setup is you can listen to commercial mixes and think they sound ok - hell, people do it with hifis, computer speakers, car stereos all the time - but that doesn't mean that your mix will translate if it sounds ok on the same setup because with a coloured monitoring situation you can't hear what's not working as easily - it's not just about identifying what sounds ok, it's about hearing what sounds bad and correcting it. A subtle difference to be sure but an important one. When I've listened to music on genuinely good flat monitoring at places like Fluid Mastering in London and Circle Studios here in Brum, it's struck me that good monitors make it easier to hear what you need to fix. You fix it on the good playback system, then you can take it to all the other compromised playback systems in the world and know it'll sound its best.

Try to fix it on a bad playback system and all you're doing is correcting the problems with the monitoring, not the problems with the mix. No matter how experienced and smart you are, it's hard to tell which is which during a mix and it introduces a lot of second guessing.

horse

I'm going with @octatonic's 'do your best' advice. I think for those who work at a pro level, or have had access to really good facilities it can be hard to entertain the idea of compromising to the level that I'm willing to, a bit like when you get used to a higher standard of living. I'll post up some tracks when we're done and see what you guys think.

cheers all

octatonic

horse said:

I'm going with @octatonic's 'do your best' advice. I think for those who work at a pro level, or have had access to really good facilities it can be hard to entertain the idea of compromising to the level that I'm willing to, a bit like when you get used to a higher standard of living. I'll post up some tracks when we're done and see what you guys think.

cheers all

I meant it quite genuinely, mate.

Regarding the bit in bold- for me it in't about compromising as much as I realise that there really isn't much you can do because the necessary tools aren't available.

I've been in exactly your position in the past- do your best is really all you can do unless you can justify the extra expense.

You can try to build a house without a hammer but eventually you will just have to buy a hammer- bashing nails with rocks just isn't an efficient way of working.

There are loads of online mastering facilities that are worth checking out although some of them are basically just running it through Waves plugins and charging you for it.

I'm happy to have a listen.

steamabacus

It's always better to do something to the best you are able than to do nothing because you 'don't have good enough equipment'. If it's good enough for someone to like it, it's good enough. The vast majority of people couldn't hear 'good sound' if you slapped them around the ears with a wet fish (what, you don't like the sound of wet fish?). How many times have you heard people listening to something that sounds atrociously distorted because the playback device is turned up to 'max' ? ("It's more loud, innit")

Deijavoo

I mixed my last ep (my first time) on poor headphones and poor monitors. You can click on my signature links below to hear. This time I have the same monitors and much better headphones, seems to be easier to pick things out and translate to stereos. Maybe that's just experience

horse

@octatonic - knew what you meant mate - and it works for me. Putting together band recordings at home to save on studio costs does mean that due to kit and experience we won't get the same quality results, but its a hobby, and I think the results will be good enough for our purposes, and something we can take pride in. I don't think you're typically meant to record drums in your drummers kitchen for example, but due to some of the advice re recorderman on here it don't sound too bad!