![]() The Sennhieser HD280 Pro is a popular choice for this application this model provides 32 dB of passive sound isolation out of the box. Some closed-back headphones do a better job of this than others, so this is something you’ll want to pay attention to when you go to buy a set. You’ll be able to hear the music while recording and not worry about tainting the take with extraneous noise. With a live microphone, though, the type of bleed you’ll get from open-back headphones and (especially) speakers can cause big problems during mixing or even completely ruin your recording.Ĭlosed-back headphones, when designed well, will minimize sound leakage. When recording virtual instruments via MIDI tracks or when recording an instrument through direct injection, the type of monitoring you choose to use is flexible - speakers and open-back headphones are just fine. ![]() Use Closed-Back Headphones When Recording With MicrophonesĮspecially while overdubbing, some sort of monitoring is a necessity. 5 Tips for Using Headphones in Music Production 1. I’ll be dividing the recommended plugins into three categories: those that flatten the frequency response of the headphones via EQ curves that are custom designed for each headphone model (or even each individual pair), those that simulate the experience - on headphones - of listening to quality studio speakers in acoustically tuned spaces, and plugins that do both of these things. A headphone-based production environment in a DAW that makes use of appropriate plugins can yield results that were simply not possible before these tools were developed. In this article, I’ll be sharing five tips for using headphones as a tool in music production, and I’ll be listing nine plugins that enhance the translation of headphone mixes. Plenty of playback still happens on speakers too (so speakers can’t be ignored), but the importance of the headphone listening experience is now at the forefront of music production. Audio professionals must now mix and master for headphone playback first due to the ubiquity of headphone listening. Additionally, consider how music consumers who once sat at home and listened to vinyl records on their home hi-fi speakers have made a decisive change in their listening habits - now usually opting for mobile playback using headphones/earbuds. Thankfully for those of us working in less than ideal situations, there have been a number of software tools that have been recently developed which make a set of good quality headphones a realistic choice for plenty of audio work. When these things are taken into consideration, one can see why headphones used to be shunned by professional mixing and mastering engineers, aside from an occasional spot check here and there. Headphones also completely remove room acoustics from the equation, because with speakers, the sound that’s inevitably reflected off of the walls, floor and ceiling in any room will play a major role in the overall sound that’s perceived. With speakers, on the other hand, the left ear hears both the left and the right speaker and vice versa. Headphones beam each of the stereo channels directly into one single ear. During mix sessions in the control room, you’ll likely see a variety of loudspeakers and nobody wearing headphones.Ĭonsider that headphones provide the listener with a drastically different sonic experience as compared to speakers in a room. Have a look at photos or footage from any professional recording studio from the pre-digital era, and what you’ll likely see are musicians wearing closed-back headphones while recording overdubs (so the music feed wouldn’t leak out of the cans and into the microphone, which would pollute the recording). But headphones were not to be used for mixing due to the fact that mixes done on headphones tended to translate poorly to speakers. When I first started in music production over twenty years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that closed-back headphones could be used for monitoring during tracking and any type of headphones could be used for certain editing tasks. I found myself in a position where, if I wanted to work in my home studio while the baby was sleeping, headphones were my only option for monitoring. But can we rely on headphones for music production tasks like editing, mixing and even mastering? I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago when I became a new father. Cans are an attractive option for those who don’t want to disturb the neighboring apartments late at night or wake up the sleeping roommates. Anyone who’s attempted to regularly produce music in a space shared with others who may not be particularly appreciative of being exposed to studio monitors blaring at 85+ dB for hours and hours on end has likely thought of using headphones as a monitoring alternative.
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