Hello, I started this topic because when I'm mixing, the sound of the speakers and headphones are totally diferent sometimes, I said sometimes because when I'm hearing ,for example, Deadmau5 - raise your weapon (madeon remix) the sound is exactly the same in both speakers and headphones! I'm getting sick, that is a really anoying thing and I'm looking for some help.

speakers: Creative (I dont know the model). They sound quite good.
headphones: AKG- K240 MKII.

Thanks.

 

Have you got a different setting on the sound card control panel for cans and speakers.

I'd check that first.

 

Wow there is so much to try to figure out here, but I would start at looking at the frequency differences between your monitors and head phones. I can almost guarantee that your AKGs are way better than those cheap Creative speakers you have.

 

The headphones will always be different than the speakers becuase of the way humans hear. Can't get around that one.

Hearing is an auditory perception of frequencies which be altered a many ways. Check out the AES web site for some ideas.

Check youtube for some mastering 'Masters' opinions on this topic. Search for Bob Katz and check this out: Audio Myths Workshop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Much will be revealed....

 

Thanks for the responses : )

 

Remember that with headphones it's a very fixed perception of the frequencies, whereas with monitors, let alone with home stereo, car stereo etc. you have a vast amount of variables (placement, surfaces etc.) affecting the perception of the frequencies. I suppose that is a huge part of what a very experienced audio engineer can do, minimize the perceived differences across the different mediums, which is why you find that commercial releases tend to sound great pretty much everywhere, but when you start trying to mix your own stuff it is quite a challenge to get that same result. Just keep at it, watch recommended tutorials, and put in the time

 

I think most answers given so far are good and "right" BUT.. they are the right answer to the wrong question.. or the other way round...
The "debate" here should not be why monitors sound different from headphones but why with his monitors and his headphones "sometimes" music sound the same on both and "sometimes" it doesn't.

My guess is that crappy music will sound bad with both, but well recorded music will sound good with the good setup (whichever that is) and crappy with the bad one.

You should try and isolate some of each music (some that sounds the same on both and some that don't) and then try to listen to that music on some other system to see if there is any consistency with the listening experience you had with your setup.

 

@ JarAr, I reckon you're right you know.....If you've got a good recording/wellrecorded track, or a track that even the little creative speakers are putting out all/most frequency content of.

 

in the case he gives...deadmaus... it's all about the money.
he can afford to give the product enough love that it ends up optimised for alot wider range of sound reproduction, from little earbuds all the way up to pa systems.
that is by no means trivial or cheap to do across the broad media and reproduction systems we have today.

so yeh lampwiik is right its more that experience of the engineer, but also every other person in the chain, they would all be very , very good at minimising perceived differences, and get paid accordingly.

as to the question of why your own mixes sound so different in headphones vs speakers, i would start by reading about crosstalk between speakers and the lack of it in headphones to start with.
without a very nice mixing enviroment there will be alot of effect on the difference between them.

the most basic way to put it is with the speakers, your left ear can hear the right speaker at the same time as the left speaker, at least to a degree, no matter what you do.
in headphones, a sound panned all the way to the left is only heard by your left ear.
what you do to correct that is where the magic is!

 

extreme stereo isolation characteristic from headphones, frequency responses, room acoustics, monitors placement... these are some that sum up some of the above. The closer you can get your headphones to sounding like your monitors would be placing a monitor plugin on the master channel, ie 112db monitor. But remember they won't sound identical because there are other factors like the one I listed above that may have something to do too.

 

The reason for the difference is that you are mixing to sound good on your speakers in your room.

Deadmau5 has been professionally mastered, and so consequently will sound equally good on anything.

You need to think about treating your room.

 

its really simple - its how the tunes are produced and mixed down. you are talking about pop music which has the most amount of time put into it to make sure the sound is as generic across all speakers as possible.

personally i mixdown for soundystems because that's where the tunes are destined to be played. if they make it onto someones iPod then well, have fun listening through shitty earbuds/cans.

 

i ve always had this problem with the difference beween monitors and cans,i managed to use more headphones than speakers due to the place where i live,and i found helpful the monitor simulators by izone.
just keep in mind that ,just like monitors sound different form model and size to each other,so do headphones.
u can achieve a sound from your monitors if the u keeep the outputs separate for the speakers and the cans,and u work to equalize the sound from your phone constantly comparing it to the spund coming from your speakers,so u wont have surprises when swapping form a kind of listening to the other.
one thing people tend to forget is that the final mix doesn t have to sound good on expensive studio monitors,it has to sound good when it s heard through average speakers that average listeners use(pc speakers,car stero etc

 

i second that.
A proper room is the key !

And : a well mastered track will sound good even on a crappy system, that s why mastering is here.

 

I would say buy better speakers first... Especially if by "mix" you mean EQ, compression etc... If it's mix like a DJ don't know nothing about it !

 

Ill be honest, your listening to a very well produced, mixed and mastered track by a very very talented dude (Madeon)

Thats a personal favourite track of mine and i understand what your saying. I think a small part of this is nothing to do with the speakers or the headphones but your perceptions of the tune.

I can listen to that tune on an AM mono radio and think its amazing where as i can listen to a totally well produced tune on an amazing system and think its crap purely because i don't like the tune.

Headphones and speakers will sound different regardless of the source material so i think maybe your own analysis of your own music maybe a little bit harsh because of your "relationship" wit the Madeon track.

sorry if this doesn't make sense lol