[studio] headphones for composing/mixing/mastering dance music
Hei Ho!
First of all I would like to share with you my current situation, so you can understand why I´m looking for a pair of new Headphones: I have a pair of Studio-Monitors, but sadly it´s impossible to mix on them (especially at night), because the neighbours house is very next to the room where I´m in. ( Naaaah, I can´t switch the room:stuck_out_tongue:)
So I wanted the opinion of you guys:
1.) Is it possible to archive a great mix, more precisely, a great/professional result, by just mixing with headphones?
2.) I already own a pair of headphones, the V-Moda Crossfade M-100´s
Do you think they´re good enough for producing Electronic Dance Music?
I would really appreciate it, if sb. could give me the pros and cons on producing Dance music with headphones
and on producing with the V-Moda´s. And if there´s anything, where I shoudl be careful - just tell me
(I´m not searching headphones for a Vocal-Booth or sth., just for a decent pair of Studio Reference Headphones)
what it really comes down to is knowing the characteristic sound of your headphones vs the rest of the world and that comes through just using them a lot. when a mix sounds a certain way in your phones, you will start to know how its going to sound on your car system vs your ipod vs your home monitors , from constantly testing tracks on all available sources.
heres a pretty good breakdown of some popular phones:
thanks very much for your answer!
A good friend of mine owns the HD25´s and they´re awesome!
But the M-100´s will hopefully do well!
At this point it´s important for me to get my Audio Interface. Already waiting two weeks for the Focusrite Forte.
Until it´s there I will sleep in my car,
I would really appreciate it, if there were more opinions on Producing with headphones. So just let me know what you´ve experienced so far.
I wish everyone a wonderful and productive weekend.
Keep it up!
It can be done, but it’s not as easy as mixing on good speakers IMVHO. But, if you’re willing to spend enough time taking your mixes to other listening environments to see how well everything is translating, and then making adjustments, you can definitely work in the cans. Like anything, it’s going to take time, and the harder you make it on yourself by not getting the proper gear, the longer it will take.
I’d recommend the Focal Spirit Pro’s myself, those are the best all around studio headphones I’ve used that won’t drive everyone around you crazy since they’re not open-backed.
You can indeed produce on headphones, though as already suggested it’s not as easy as using speakers, especially for things like spacial placement (panning).
You’ll find it really helpful to get to know a good spectrum analyzer too, such as Voxengo Span, which is free. Listen to lots of commercial songs that you like and want to emulate through your headphones, watch the spectrum analyzer, and whilst you’re producing constantly A/B your tune with 2 or 3 commercial tracks.
When producing in headphones it’s important to take regular breaks too. It’s easy to get carried away and crank up the volume - this will fatigue your ears and alter your perception of how things should sound.
If you have bags of cash the Audeze LCDs are amongst the best headphones on the market and are probably better than most monitors at the same price point!
I’ve heard great things about the Focal Spirit Pro’s.
I don’t mix solely on headphones, in fact, I rarely use headphones other than to check panning these days, but I love my Beyerdynamic DT-880’s. They’re semi-open so others in the room will be able to hear, and you’ll also hear external noise. But, very good, pretty flat headphones.
As others have said, you have to get used to your headphones, or monitors for that matter and how things translate away from them.
I’ve been lately falling in love with M50x for my monitoring purposes. The isolation with these headphones is excellent with no coloring. I would highly recommend it to anyone starting out mixing with headphones.
Here are some of the best studio headphones I came across with a quick Google.
Mixing, yes, but definitely not mastering by a long shot.
Ear fatigue sets in pretty fast though and you can end up changing things around badly when your ears start “blocking out” certain frequencies over a long session.
+1 on the Sony 7506’s - Comfortable as hell and reasonably neutral. More subtle, but far reaching low end which is far less tiring IMHO than the constant “Umph” of HD25’s.
First of all, I would like to add that I am a very big fan of VModa Crossfade 100 and it is truly a very stable headphone but unfortunately you cant do everything with it.For producng dancing music i will now advice you to go for some open back set.In my experience Sennheiser HD600 and beyerdynamic DT 990 pro are the two best frombig brands but i dont like HD600 due to its price tag so i would go with DT 990 Pro.
Some balance and level issues can be trickier with headphones. Just as when you use good monitor speakers in a well treated control room, with a good set of headphones: headphonesencyclopedia.com - headphonesencyclopedia Resources and Information., you’ll be able to hear so far into the details of a mix that each instrument will be clearly audible even when its level is too low. If you are not used to working at this level of detail, you may still find that when you go back and check your mix on speakers, such imbalances become much more obvious.
It is possible to do your mixing using headphones only but there is such thing as ear fatigue. Your ears will get tired if you only use headphones, it is always better to have studio monitors as well to help your ears rest when you are getting tired.
I personally use AKG K240. It is one of the best studio headphones in my opinion.
I personally use the Sony MDR-7506. They’re not the greatest for mixing, but if you’re on a budget, they’re good enough. I know of a few people who use the Audio-Technica ATH-M50x. Heard some very good things about them.
I think the most important thing to look out for if you’ll be using these is the frequency response curve. You want to find the headphone with the flattest frequency response.
