I usually record using headphones as a reference,and to avoid to be killed by my neighbors,expecially now that i m recording loud elctric guitars.
TOday,after recording a track i was curious to listen to it through the monitors,so far i had everything set up relying on the cans (akg k271) and isone monitor simulator.
Well,when i turned the nearfiled speakers on (edirol ma 15d),and deactivated the speaker emulator....a completely diffeent world,for the worse.
So the question is: which one is the real sound i should rely on while mastering?Should I try over and over with the equalization until the sound of the monitors is as close as possible to the good sound i hear from my headphones,or ix and master directly though the cans?
I know that eventually the music is going to be heard through cheap pc speakers,and i assume that it has to sound good on them,so should i load a finished song from a cd into my sequencer,create a track with the speaker simulator and another one without it,and setup the eqs on both tracks until they sound as close as possible to the pc speakers?

 

seriously talk about? use an monitor simulator ?. *no*

Very bad idea. *yes*

Mixe with decent monitors.
If you can not, listen to your favorite artists and pay attention to the difference between your production and commercial track you heard and you need to work your head resembles audio quality

Sorry for my bad English

 

yes seriously,besides listening to my favorite artists wouldn t help that much since the equipments r slighly different

 

Really, the best way to mix a song when you're not sure about how it should sound on your monitors is to use a reference track that sounds similar to the one you're mixing. Just compare the sound occasionally, at the *same RMS loudness*, while you're mixing or mastering and try to nail the sound as close as possible. With time you'll learn how to do it without using a reference track, but this method can always come in handy. Even the greatests mixers and mastering engineers do it without any shame.

 

That's the proof of the awful translation of your headphones. That means that all the sunshines and rainbows you heard on your cans was just available for only your cans, not for the overall world.
In your situation between speakers and headphones, go with the one which sounds bad, because you must admit, truth always hurts so if the speakers sounds bad then they should be more honest revealing than the cans and their bad sound would make you striving to make a better mix.
If your room isn't treated properly, then the translation of your mix will be bad too, but at least, if you rely on your speakers, then you should make your mix sound good on both, speaker & cans, but not outside your room(anywhere else) unless you use at least thick blankets on your wall.

 

can t it be the opposite?i ask because the cans r universally acknoledged for being good,while the speakers....those were the only ones i could afford,if the cans make something sound better than it actually does,is it possible that the speakers make it sound worse than it actually does?

 

Like a few people said before, reference tracks are your best friends. It doesn't matter what you use to mix/produce/master, well it kind of does but the point is you don't have the luxury of a studio and you need to use what you have available to you and those are your headphones. So to you they are your real sound. Listen to all kinds of different music on them and get to know how things sound on them and then translate that into your own tracks. Take note of the lows, highs and mids, how reverbs and delays sound and how different songs have different stereo effects on your headphones.

So forget the simulator. Your headphones will do the job just fine, along with reference tracks. Analyze the reference tracks as you listen to them. Import a commercial song into your DAW, put a spectrum analyzer plugin on it and write down the RMS, max peak, and all other values from it, look at how the frequency curve looks like, and that should give you a guide for when you mix your own music.

 

Isone is very good, though use a setting for mixing only, it will give you a stereo image with your headphones.

And like other members are saying here, listen to reference tracks, before - @the mix and after, and give your ears a break every 15min.

 

I've had a lot of experience with the topic at hand. Reference tracks IMO are only relevant during the mastering process. I will say you must learn your headphones and study how it translates on various playback environments.You also need some good headphones if your monitoring situation is less then ideal. It took me a very long time and many pairs of headphones to realize how much of a difference having a solid pair of headphones makes. Most headphones wont accurately reproduce bass and unless your an experienced mixer and you know how to control your low end, you'll end up making poor mixing decisions to compensate. It takes practice and a lot of trial and error. For example, I have a subbass,so when I mix on my headphones I know exactly how it will translate on the Sub and what processing I can use to get consistent results.Invest In your ears. Get some good headphones
Check Out Audeze
If you don't have the money start saving!

 

Truth, when you know your headphones, for learning the headphones, referencing would be very helpful.

 

I use a set of Bose cans for mixing. I use a set of Alesis M1 Active 320's for mastering and also to listen to the final mix before mastering.
Neither of these are the finest quality and I can't afford the finest quality. I justify it by knowing that most of the folks who hear my tracks are going to be either using headphones or crappy computer speakers. I also take my final master in the car with me and play it on the car stereo...I have done this ever since my first attempts. When I heard what I thought was a great production through the car speakers I almost had an emotional breakdown. What a disappointment. BUT....how many people will use their car stereos? Many? None? Who knows?
Make your music to sound good on all platforms. Some compromise will be required.
IMHO, of course.

 

SCi-Fi wihtout monitors for me or horror, better to say.
"I will say you must learn your headphones and study how it translates on various playback environments.", the most important, but I can't make it happen.

Everything that you all said about reference tracks/ headphones are ok. or coool, fine. And I even tried to understand how everything works in mixing/ music production with classical music/ orchestration. I really really did my best with mixing more then 2/3 channels for one track (piano...) but at the end, no luck here. I gave up of producing music, electronic music.
Very disappointing result.
I didn't do it right again after lot of trial and errors.

REally really really I agreee with you guys, it's awesome what you said but it didn't work for me. Low frequencies sound waves are complete mistery to me with headphones.

(and compression, )

Any help would be appreciated, pls. I am a bit stuck and tired of this.

BE careful, sound easy when you say so but in real life... maybe I need a bit of luck then

 

^ That

Studios often use a "luxury" set of speakers, a "decent" set of speakers and the cheapest generic speaker to check sound. Your job is to make the transition between all three as smooth withouth making one lose the punch or crispy that it already had.


Also make sure that your headphones or monitors aren't boosting some signals/frequencies. Sometimes people work on headphones that have a slight boost on Bass and set everything lower than it should be. Once they move towards the speakers, the bass is non-existent. You could take your demo and play it either on a car stereo, friends house, school, church, sister stereo, iPhone headphones.. anywhere else just to check how it sounds on different speakers.

P.S. Best buy is a great place to demo your stuff. They often have decent set of speakers/headphones and give you the chance to connect your iphone/cellphone to it.

 

check the related articles on sos : http://www.soundonsound.com/search?Keyword=mixing+headphones u will be much smarter after it

especially these ones :
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/mixingheadphones.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/articles/mixingheadphones.htm

 

Be patient and don't give up. It takes a lot of time. I also have a cheap set of speakers that I use, I always make sure to take the bass boost off so that the bass doesn't disappear when I switch my monitoring device. I then listen on my audiotechnica m40fs headphone monitors. Get to know your monitors as all inexpensive monitors will lie a bit. Really the moment of truth for me comes when I play a mix in the car stereo. I think that most people are like me and listen to music mainly in the car. As long as you can balance a mix for lots of different systems you are golden. I try my mixes on as many systems as possible. I suggest that you do this too. I hope that this helps and good luck with your mix!