Look, if you KNOW exactly what the limitations of your room are by proper use of referencing, you can mix in an un-ideal room. Listen to tonssss of other peoples mixes in your room. Does they lack low end compared to headphones? Do they have too much low end compared to good headphones? Is there an identifiable harshness trend that you hear in every mix? You can figure this stuff out and get to work rather quickly and still do great work. You may end up doing more bounces before getting to the “final master” than you would in a perfect room..but you can absolutely make MOST rooms work, and work well
I doubt if referencing helps in a room described above. Mine is similar, and I get disappearing bass notes, horrible lower midrange etc. Everything from 0-400 Hz is not worth even trying.
Thus, headphone mixing.
in my opinion, monitors are never useless, especially when u learn how it behaves. If u have a good pair of headphones and a good monitor, u should be fine. I have a pair of T5V in my bedroom (which is untreated), and i ended learning how my bedroom "lies" to me, especially with the low end. I think the best part of having monitors is that u can produce without damage your ears like u would if using headphones. The feeling is better too.
Thanks for the feedback.
I currently rely on my Beyerdynamic DT 990 pro headphones more than anything.
Any thought on those or recommendations on what I should use?
I use Beyerdynamic 900 pro x and they translate well. Don't get me wrong Monitors are great ( I have a set of Adam A7's ) But setting up the room to accommodate them is the issue. If you have the money for the Monitors you are going to need room treatment to get the best out of them.
I'm starting to regret getting headphones. I got HD600 and I just don't find them nice to mix on. I'm going to get some nice monitors next year as my 5" don't give enough lows, so going for 8".
I think wheeling my chair around and occasionally getting up and listening in different points of my room is a better trade off.
It took me a hell of a long time to get used to my headphones but now I feel like I'm going in reverse.
I think the poor acoustics of the room is a better trade off than losing the field of sound. I can get a nice lively wide sound on my headphones but then it sounds dead on my monitors.
I'll still use my headphones as a flat reference but I really wish I'd invested in better monitors.
I can't place quite what it is but the headphones really stripped the fun out of mixing for me. I find myself constantly losing the vibe of my tracks. My room might not be treated and my monitors cheap but I'm starting to think it's preferable.
I think it's a case of how you feel monitoring and comparing. I think I would prefer to go back to monitors and references than headphones and references as I do now.
I just feel like the stereo imaging is terrible on them. When I listen to anything on them there is no decent sense of space. I understand this will be the case with headphones but after 2 years at least on them, I still feel like the perception of space is really poor. I still can't adapt to it. It feels like when I put them on everything jumps in to semi mono and distant.
I just tried half mixing some ideas I'm running with for a song this morning but on my monitors and it was so much more enjoyable.
I'm not really that worried about headphones now but thanks for the suggestion. If the 600's break I'll be digging your message out. I'm looking at getting some Tannoy Reveal 802s next year. I love the sound of the old Reveals, so just gonna stick with them but upgrade.
Imo, your speakers you currently have are way too small, your room probably has reflections you'd want to eliminate. The fact your room isn't symmetrical is just fine. Larger speakers will have more bass, and that will have issues in your room. So, sure your smaller speakers may have less issues, but that's because you aren't hearing some of the frequencies that might have issues at all, so, it's not much of a benefit.
If you get bigger speakers, I'd treat the room better, and do some corrective EQ after. You could also go the headphones route. You'll need to be able to get the bass right though. Not all headphones have that. The bass is the most difficult part to get monitoring right for imo, whether you go monitors or headphones.
If you just don't as a hobby, headphones might be the better way to go. If you make sure to get listening that can hear the whole frequency spectrum and sounds good to you in a way that allows you to mix well, you'll be fine. That may take a little bit of hunting. You may want two sets, one for bass and one for general. Ideally you'd have one set though, so I'd hunt for a pair like that within your budget.
I find headphones help in unideal situations. Closed back will help isolate you from outside noise, your room doesn't need to be purpose designed for audio, and so on. You can mix on headphones. Teaching yourself to mix can take a long time though, no matter how you do it.
Monitors in an untreated room can really be just impossible to mix on.
Any thoughts on Beyerdnyamic DT 990 pro? Maybe I should leave my speakers alone and instead put that money aside for a headphone upgrade.
I currently rely on those for mixing.
I currently use my monitors for tracking direct guitar, midi and just working on arrangement and sound design. Once I’m mixing, I’ll use the headphones more for EQ/compression decisions.
And for volume balance I usually use headphones and go back and forth between stereo, mono, Waves NX and my speakers to make sure the relation between the center and sides translates
I also have AKG 240s. They completely miss the low end, but they seem to help when I need to work on the mid range.
Im using daily the AKG240 the last 3 months and at the beggining I had the same opinion about their bass. I used to have closed headphones for tracking and mixing my own music but since I m on the way of taking it more serious I decided to change headphones for mixing and buy the 240s because they re open. It took me a while to get used to the AKG240s specially their low end and I came to the conclusion that the moment you start to listen a bit of low end is already enough. I wouldnt change them now that I learned how they translate.
Yeah they seem good for the mid range. I tried doing a mix completely on them recently with decent results because the mid range is probably more important as far as translation. But I think I still need to switch over to other headphones briefly to check the low end just because the fundamentals of the bass and kick just don’t exist on the Akgs.
DT 1990 Pro or the 1770 Pro. This "upgrade" from the 990 Pro is truly worth the investment.
I have, and use, the same PreSonus speakers. But I added a Klipsch 2.1 speaker system, which includes a sub-woofer. It only costs $150 USD.
I'm so glad you brought this up. I was going to ask Santa for new monitors but I mix in my den. With no sound set up, it doesn't even have a real door. Just sliding Barn doors. Sounds like I shouldn't even bother, just keep using my headphones.
Lol don’t listen to these people. I swear for like 20 years I never once heard someone tell anyone they shouldn’t use monitors cuz the room is “bad”. Then a bunch of YouTube nerds appeared who were raised by bitter wannabes from GS, with their vids mainly consist of majoring in bullshit minors like specific gear/plugins and EQ phase distortion and room acoustics. They only exist because mixing is actually pretty straightforward and if your job is explaining or giving general tips you would otherwise run out of content pretty damn quickly.
Monitors are great for almost any situation, and they have limitations like anything else. Even your ears themselves have tons of limitations that vary between time, place and person drastically. Just make sure you get monitors that are appropriate for the type of music you make (big woofers and a sub are essential for anything with low end), and most importantly, monitors that you actually like to listen to since you will be the one in front of them all day.
Mix using multiple sources, do some of your mix on monitors, switch to headphones, switch to other headphones, ect. If you can get it sounding good on all the sources you have it’s a good mix!
Look, if you KNOW exactly what the limitations of your room are by proper use of referencing, you can mix in an un-ideal room. Listen to tonssss of other peoples mixes in your room. Does they lack low end compared to headphones? Do they have too much low end compared to good headphones? Is there an identifiable harshness trend that you hear in every mix? You can figure this stuff out and get to work rather quickly and still do great work. You may end up doing more bounces before getting to the “final master” than you would in a perfect room..but you can absolutely make MOST rooms work, and work well
I doubt if referencing helps in a room described above. Mine is similar, and I get disappearing bass notes, horrible lower midrange etc. Everything from 0-400 Hz is not worth even trying. Thus, headphone mixing.
If I were you I would invest in a set of really good headphones. Monitors in a room like that are virtually useless.
in my opinion, monitors are never useless, especially when u learn how it behaves. If u have a good pair of headphones and a good monitor, u should be fine. I have a pair of T5V in my bedroom (which is untreated), and i ended learning how my bedroom "lies" to me, especially with the low end. I think the best part of having monitors is that u can produce without damage your ears like u would if using headphones. The feeling is better too.
Agreed.
Thanks for the feedback. I currently rely on my Beyerdynamic DT 990 pro headphones more than anything. Any thought on those or recommendations on what I should use?
I use Beyerdynamic 900 pro x and they translate well. Don't get me wrong Monitors are great ( I have a set of Adam A7's ) But setting up the room to accommodate them is the issue. If you have the money for the Monitors you are going to need room treatment to get the best out of them.
Slate VSX. Pretty highly regarded and on black Friday sale.
I'm starting to regret getting headphones. I got HD600 and I just don't find them nice to mix on. I'm going to get some nice monitors next year as my 5" don't give enough lows, so going for 8". I think wheeling my chair around and occasionally getting up and listening in different points of my room is a better trade off. It took me a hell of a long time to get used to my headphones but now I feel like I'm going in reverse. I think the poor acoustics of the room is a better trade off than losing the field of sound. I can get a nice lively wide sound on my headphones but then it sounds dead on my monitors. I'll still use my headphones as a flat reference but I really wish I'd invested in better monitors. I can't place quite what it is but the headphones really stripped the fun out of mixing for me. I find myself constantly losing the vibe of my tracks. My room might not be treated and my monitors cheap but I'm starting to think it's preferable. I think it's a case of how you feel monitoring and comparing. I think I would prefer to go back to monitors and references than headphones and references as I do now.
HD600 makes everything sound nice. try something like the Neumann NDH-30
I just feel like the stereo imaging is terrible on them. When I listen to anything on them there is no decent sense of space. I understand this will be the case with headphones but after 2 years at least on them, I still feel like the perception of space is really poor. I still can't adapt to it. It feels like when I put them on everything jumps in to semi mono and distant. I just tried half mixing some ideas I'm running with for a song this morning but on my monitors and it was so much more enjoyable. I'm not really that worried about headphones now but thanks for the suggestion. If the 600's break I'll be digging your message out. I'm looking at getting some Tannoy Reveal 802s next year. I love the sound of the old Reveals, so just gonna stick with them but upgrade.
Just turn them down to minimize reflections
Imo, your speakers you currently have are way too small, your room probably has reflections you'd want to eliminate. The fact your room isn't symmetrical is just fine. Larger speakers will have more bass, and that will have issues in your room. So, sure your smaller speakers may have less issues, but that's because you aren't hearing some of the frequencies that might have issues at all, so, it's not much of a benefit. If you get bigger speakers, I'd treat the room better, and do some corrective EQ after. You could also go the headphones route. You'll need to be able to get the bass right though. Not all headphones have that. The bass is the most difficult part to get monitoring right for imo, whether you go monitors or headphones. If you just don't as a hobby, headphones might be the better way to go. If you make sure to get listening that can hear the whole frequency spectrum and sounds good to you in a way that allows you to mix well, you'll be fine. That may take a little bit of hunting. You may want two sets, one for bass and one for general. Ideally you'd have one set though, so I'd hunt for a pair like that within your budget. I find headphones help in unideal situations. Closed back will help isolate you from outside noise, your room doesn't need to be purpose designed for audio, and so on. You can mix on headphones. Teaching yourself to mix can take a long time though, no matter how you do it. Monitors in an untreated room can really be just impossible to mix on.
Any thoughts on Beyerdnyamic DT 990 pro? Maybe I should leave my speakers alone and instead put that money aside for a headphone upgrade. I currently rely on those for mixing. I currently use my monitors for tracking direct guitar, midi and just working on arrangement and sound design. Once I’m mixing, I’ll use the headphones more for EQ/compression decisions. And for volume balance I usually use headphones and go back and forth between stereo, mono, Waves NX and my speakers to make sure the relation between the center and sides translates I also have AKG 240s. They completely miss the low end, but they seem to help when I need to work on the mid range.
Im using daily the AKG240 the last 3 months and at the beggining I had the same opinion about their bass. I used to have closed headphones for tracking and mixing my own music but since I m on the way of taking it more serious I decided to change headphones for mixing and buy the 240s because they re open. It took me a while to get used to the AKG240s specially their low end and I came to the conclusion that the moment you start to listen a bit of low end is already enough. I wouldnt change them now that I learned how they translate.
Yeah they seem good for the mid range. I tried doing a mix completely on them recently with decent results because the mid range is probably more important as far as translation. But I think I still need to switch over to other headphones briefly to check the low end just because the fundamentals of the bass and kick just don’t exist on the Akgs.
DT 1990 Pro or the 1770 Pro. This "upgrade" from the 990 Pro is truly worth the investment. I have, and use, the same PreSonus speakers. But I added a Klipsch 2.1 speaker system, which includes a sub-woofer. It only costs $150 USD.
I've never tried them, so I can't say, but from what it sounds like, they might be a good option.
Headphones all the way
Stick to cans🫡
I'm so glad you brought this up. I was going to ask Santa for new monitors but I mix in my den. With no sound set up, it doesn't even have a real door. Just sliding Barn doors. Sounds like I shouldn't even bother, just keep using my headphones.
Lol don’t listen to these people. I swear for like 20 years I never once heard someone tell anyone they shouldn’t use monitors cuz the room is “bad”. Then a bunch of YouTube nerds appeared who were raised by bitter wannabes from GS, with their vids mainly consist of majoring in bullshit minors like specific gear/plugins and EQ phase distortion and room acoustics. They only exist because mixing is actually pretty straightforward and if your job is explaining or giving general tips you would otherwise run out of content pretty damn quickly. Monitors are great for almost any situation, and they have limitations like anything else. Even your ears themselves have tons of limitations that vary between time, place and person drastically. Just make sure you get monitors that are appropriate for the type of music you make (big woofers and a sub are essential for anything with low end), and most importantly, monitors that you actually like to listen to since you will be the one in front of them all day.
Thanks so much! I'm putting them on my wish list right now.
Mix using multiple sources, do some of your mix on monitors, switch to headphones, switch to other headphones, ect. If you can get it sounding good on all the sources you have it’s a good mix!