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Bose headphones for a home studio mixing?`

fnordlyone

fnordlyone

Jun 12, 2013
1,207
573
south Louisiana
www.talkbass.com
#1
Hello, home recorders and all geeks of sound engineering. I'm a bassist who loves clean sounding grooves. I'm very newb on every front, but my main goal is to record songs.
I've a MacPro with Presonus interface and I'm using their Studio One v2. I cannot afford any of this, but definitely can't afford quality mixing monitors. I'd like to know if I can mix with some quality consumer head phones like the Bose aforementioned?
f n o r d !
 
#2
Bose are not good choices for mixing duties in my experience. The ones I've tried have a baked-in voice that rolls off the deep low end, and have some peaks/valleys through the midrange and treble to create a pleasant listening experience, not necessarily an accurate one. None of this equates to a good choice for mixing. You want the deep low end to be there so you can know if you need to dial it in or out (most likely out) for playback on other systems.

In general, mixing on headphones exclusively is a bad idea as it takes the time component out of the mix, and can also lead to stereo image choices that sound odd on a non-headphone based playback system. Research "binaural mixing" for more of the pitfalls associated with mixing exclusively with headphones. I still use them to check the bottom end, to see if panning has gotten too wide, and generally just as another system, but I would never use them as my only source for mixing. That said, they may be better than crappy monitors in an untreated room, so... Good luck... :p
 
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#5
I've also been on a tight budget, the best mixing I've gotten is plugging my laptop into the aux in in my car. Added bonus is I can mix against any discs I've got in the changer. I usually do it at the park where there's plenty of other people sitting in the shade of their car reading or whatever. I really only use my headphines for editing.
 
#6
Hmm… headphones: bad.
MattZilla said:
I've also been on a tight budget, the best mixing I've gotten is plugging my laptop into the aux in in my car. Added bonus is I can mix against any discs I've got in the changer. I usually do it at the park where there's plenty of other people sitting in the shade of their car reading or whatever. I really only use my headphines for editing.
Click to expand...
Now, does the mix change when there aren't "plenty" other people in the park? Does it affect the clarity of the bass line if the people are in the sun rather than the shade?-- and what should they be reading? :whistle:
f n o r d !
:headphone:
 
#10
headphones are a terrible idea for mixing , color the sound far too much , grab yourself a mid priced set of powered reference monitors and mix away, I got my mackies on sale for under a hundred fifty and get decent mixes out of them
 
#11
I have S1v2Pro on a PC in my home studio. My adult son who lives in another state has the same software on a Mac. We both use a Presonus 44VSL interface as our default. Excellent software. When you get a chance, think about Melodyne and EZ Drummer. Money is what it is, so work with what you have and keep recording and making music. If you can swing $100 at some point, consider the Sony 7506 headphones. Very versatile in terms of recording, mixing, and mastering. I, as many others, could go on about the best intro equip to use but if you don't have the budget for it, so be it.

You might want to check out homerecording.com as a place with a lot of good info on home recording. They are not quite as helpful/friendly/welcoming as the folks here on TB, which is why I don't get there very often these days, but they do have a fair amount of knowledge.

BTW, if you go to the SoundCloud page somewhere in my profile or wherever, you can hear the quality of the bass we get with these setups and decide if you like or font like something in those neighborhoods. There are 80s rock tunes and some soft rock tunes available from our last 2 releases (positive comments on bass etc from reviews, which are on the website). PM me if you want a free download code to get full releases.
 
#12
For basic monitoring for tracking they can work fine. I typically track with cheap set of Sony headphones, I've also used Bose, even used my powered turtle beach Xbox set. But for dialing in an amp or mixing as others have mentioned you want something more neutral otherwise you'll go listen to it in your car or something and it'll sound a lot different. Bose like most of the headphones you can pickup at your local electronics store are designed for a different purpose. They do sound great Imo for listening to completed recordings though.
 

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