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Topic: EQing headphones (Read 3244 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: EQing headphones

Reply #2
Certainly EQ can flatten frequency response.     But...   Don't blindly trust the curves (especially at the highest frequencies) and make sure the results are "natural" sounding.

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Can I use some global EQ (i.e. separate from the settings in the mix) to make it emulate something more neutral like studio monitors?
A good pair of headphones is probably "better" (flatter) than a pair of monitors, especially if the room isn't acoustically treated and measured/equalized.   ;)   Except with headphones, you don't "feel" deep-strong bass in your body like you do with speakers/monitors (assuming the monitors/subwoofer are capable of that).




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So I'm trying to use these headphones for audio production:
From Recording Magazine:
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As those of you who have followed this column for any length of time can attest, headphone mixing is one of the big no-no's around these parts.  In our humble opinion, headphone mixes do not translate well in the real world, period, end of story.  Other than checking for balance issues and the occasional hunting down of little details, they are tools best left for the tracking process.


Re: EQing headphones

Reply #3
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As those of you who have followed this column for any length of time can attest, headphone mixing is one of the big no-no's around these parts.  In our humble opinion, headphone mixes do not translate well in the real world, period, end of story.  Other than checking for balance issues and the occasional hunting down of little details, they are tools best left for the tracking process.

Yeah sure....I guess that is why most of the new music out there sounds like sh*t. Use both!

 

Re: EQing headphones

Reply #4
So I'm trying to use these headphones for audio production:

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5B%5D=2811&scale=30

It appears to start dipping at 2k and then exhibits a bump at 9k.

Can I use some global EQ (i.e. separate from the settings in the mix) to make it emulate something more neutral like studio monitors?

Check out the Android app Neutralizer. It helps you come up with a good eq curve for as many different headphones as you use it with.  It shows a FR curve of the resulting eq. You could port that back to some other system.

Re: EQing headphones

Reply #5
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Yeah sure....I guess that is why most of the new music out there sounds like sh*t. Use both!
Of course, use both...  Pro mastering & mixing engineers check their mix on a variety of systems (after doing most of their work with monitors).   If you're an amateur without experience, good monitors, or an equalized room, you should check your mix on everything you can get your hands on!

BTW - That advice comes from Recording Magazine's Reader's Tapes Column where amateurs & musicians send in there mixes to be critiqued.     After hundreds or thousands of submissions, people monitoring with headphones generally get poor results (or poorer results).    And of course, pros use monitors.

The exception would be if you are making a binaural recording or other special recording intended for headphone listening.

Re: EQing headphones

Reply #6
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As those of you who have followed this column for any length of time can attest, headphone mixing is one of the big no-no's around these parts.  In our humble opinion, headphone mixes do not translate well in the real world, period, end of story.  Other than checking for balance issues and the occasional hunting down of little details, they are tools best left for the tracking process.

Yeah sure....I guess that is why most of the new music out there sounds like sh*t. Use both!

Hostility towards headphone mixing is hardly a new thing. I remember receiving this advice decades ago. I have no use for it.

How headphones work for a person probably has a lot to do with personal experience. I've been listening criticallyfor extended periods of time,  to music longer than I have been licensed to drive which is over 50 years. I suspect that an effective translation from headphones to speakers and the real world  got wired into my brain early on. 

Consequently I am not infrequently told that my headphone mixes sound good on speakers. 

When I listen to a well-placed coincident pair of cardiod mics, the sonic scene I hear translates into the position of the performers that I see. Their may be some auto suggestion in that, but I use that info to place microphones and it seems to very frequently work out.

I have no idea why some people demand cross-feed circuits for headphone listening.

Actually, I can kinda-sorta translate from how headphones sound to me to how others may hear them and then I can kinda-sorta hear why people may want crossfeed.


Re: EQing headphones

Reply #8
Check out the Android app Neutralizer. It helps you come up with a good eq curve for as many different headphones as you use it with.  It shows a FR curve of the resulting eq. You could port that back to some other system.

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For a commercial option, there is https://www.sonarworks.com which has the SRH-440 listed as a supported headphone.
Thanks, I'll look into these. So is EQ largely additive which means that these are pretty much setup-and-forget solutions? (this means it wouldn't cause audio artifacts with anything done in the track)
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A good pair of headphones is probably "better" (flatter) than a pair of monitors, especially if the room isn't acoustically treated and measured/equalized.

This looks really flat.

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From Recording Magazine:
Other than my headphones the only speakers I have are the downfiring ones on my Dell monitor.