Hi.
the truth is I currently don't have enough money to buy a good pair of monitoring speakers but I just happen to have a HD 280 pro(sennheiser). is it possible to do the entire mix and mastering stages with just this headphone? what are the pro/cons compared with monitor speakers?

 

Sort of. The fact is, you'll need speakers. If your ears are good and you're sharp enough to compensate, they don't need to be monitors. But with or without monitors (and especially without) you need as many references as you can get. There might be some slight problems outside the frequency ranges of consumer speakers that you would've heard with monitors -- I remember when I got mine, I realized my headphones were really boosting 8k and causing me to think everything was sibilant, which of course regular speakers didn't really have an opinion on. But you can probably make things sound pretty okay.

I did the same thing as you - bought monitoring headphones first because I needed to be able to mix and track. There were some things I caught when I listened to my headphone mixes on monitors for the first time. Little tweaks that had to be made, certain parts were too wet, etc. But some of them were still quite good aside from that.

 

Yeah you cant really get away from it if you want reliable and accurate mixes all the time. I like to think of it as Mix for speakers with speakers and mix for headphones with head phones and when you find a happy medium that works for both you are close to done. As for mastering i don't use headphones at all except for in the end for checks but thats just me.

I don't want to be absolute and say you cant do it solely on headphones but i wouldn't recommend it. That said work with what you have so when you get you know what to do.

Hope this helps

 

You can definitely mix and master solely on headphones. There are just a few things you have to keep in mind. The most important aspect with mixing on headphones is to get to know how they sound (or how they represent sound) inside out. This means listening to professionally produced music and taking notes. Take note of how the low end sounds and how the highs are as well. Listen to reference tracks before and while mixing.

Also, you need to take frequent breaks, I recommend like a break every half an hour to 45 minutes tops. Headphones fatigue your ears very quickly and your ears quickly adjust to whatever you're listening to and and you'll lose sight of what you're trying to do.

The thing is it's reallyeasy to get carried away with headphones unless you know exactly how they deliver the sound.

 

thank you all.

 

This is not correct.

It's not because headphones sound different. Every monitor out there has it's own characteristics.
You have to know your system, be it monitors or headphones.

It is because of stereo imaging and the way our ears/brains work.
If you mix solely on headphones you will screw up the stereo image.
This might not be so prominent when it comes to electronic music, since only you as the producer really know how it should have sounded. When it comes to stereo miked recordings, it is absolutely crucial (this does not apply to dummy head microphoned recordings, but those are exceptions altogether).

Read here:
http://www.csounds.com/journal/issue14/PseudoStereo.html

Speaker simulation software is able to compensate this problem, but within limits - as described in the article above.

Besides from the stereo problems, there are some common errors that are widely spread amongst mixes done with headphones.
As a general rule, you hear much more detail with headphones. So, on the one hand headphone mixes are often much to dry, because delay, reverb etc. are over-represented on the headphones. On the other hand, there is often not enough compression because you will hear the effect of pumping etc. much to early on headphones.
This is something you cannot compensate with speaker simulation software.

To sum up: mixing and especially mastering cannot be done solely on headphones.


BUT: I assume you're just starting. So, this should not be the first thing to worry about. Just hook up your computer to your stereo and you're good to go

 

thank you. you said the problem is not so prominent with electronic music. I don't wanna record anything. I just wanna use VSTs and the piano roll. what do you think?

 

I agree with faud. You can def mix/master with some proper reference headphones. But I think this argument differentiates with the genre of music being mix/mastered. Rock/Jazz/Orchestral/any music with overall natural instrumentation would be best mixed with monitors for obvious reasons. Now with synth based music...it's a different story.

 

Hi Gerald,
do you actually have a point to fortify your statement?
"You can def" is not really what I would call a persuasive rationale...

 

Read what master said about Mixing on headphones..tbh it works pritty well

My link

 

You understand what he says there, do you?

That's not what I call "pretty well".

Just because he can't cope with a sweet spot the conclusion is not "you can mix and master solely on headphones".

 

There's an interview from Sonic Academy of Audien, an EDM guy. He actually mixes his productions with headphones. Sennheiser HD600 to be specific. Also keep in mind for those on a budget, getting monitors only solves a part of the issue. The room treatment is just as important.

 

That's not all I said. But since that is all you choose to quote I am going to pass on "fortifying my statement".

You know what. Half-ass passively rendering peoples personal opinions and experiences rationally unpersuasive is 5 star premium douchery good sir.That's two shining shits short of trolling.

Js. In the future...you might wan't to try simply asking for a explanation. Ya know, instead of asking then accusing them of being unpersuasive and irrational.

 

Practically this discussion is pointless anyway. What are we talking here? Some Top10 big shots? Of course, they don't mix (and don't need to) on headphones. We talking mostly amateurs here.

Let's be honest: the music of people asking that kind of questions normally will only be played on channels like Soundcloud or Youtube with cheap headphones or notebook speakers, listened by a couple of friends of SC followers. So who cares anyway?

I'm an amateur, and I mix (and master) everything on cheap speakers in an completely untreated room (and sometimes on headphones as well) because for me it's not worth it to spend hundreds or even thousands of bucks for my music only a few people witll ever listen to.

I'm even too lazy to check if my mix translates on a dozen of different speakers, I rather spend my time composing then running around fixing frequencies most people won't hear anyways...

 

Way to go! You can't mix shitty music into an awesome smash hit - so making awesome music is absolutely what you should concentrate on