The "ear-bud mix" was a problem for me until I made more extensive use of the mono button during the mix. I was finding that things like some of the stereo reverb settings I used were sounding muddy in mono, and this forced me to find alternative reverb types that sounded reasonable in stereo but survived a mono test.

Funnily enough, I had checked the offending mixes on standard headphones, and they sounded acceptable. There is something different about the acoustic coupling of ear buds to the ear canal that is significantly different from that of outside-ear sources, whether that be loudspeakers or standard headphones.

Thats a really valid point about the use of mono Bos...I must keep that in mind.

Strangely enough, I just sent a copy of the offending mix in WAV file format to my Samsung phone via USB and played it with the google player, convinced it can't really be that bad, can it?

It sounds like the monitor mix...WTF???...now I'm going to go back and see if I can find out why it sounds so up to sh*t through my monitor station.

I had the monitor level on about 3 when I first listened to it, then I plugged the earbuds straight into the interface headphone socket which was not much better...so I don't think I was driving the hell out of them, but now I am wondering if they are just not rated for the task.

But the point you raise about the acoustic coupling to the ear canal with earbuds as opposed to over the ear style headphones and speakers for that matter, and the effect it must have on how we hear and interpret the sound gives considerable food for thought. I remember the first time I tried earbuds years ago...the sensation was like I had two speakers placed hard up against each side of my head (which essentially you do).

I thought I was either losing my touch, my hearing or my mind at one stage with this mix o_O

The only time I use earbuds to refference mixes is when I work live. I do my mix and get my in-ears (earbud modified with molded silicon) to reference the mix. It's sometime easier to pinpoint problems and frequencies with my in ears.

In the studio, monitors and headphones are enough to get me on the right path..
Thing is, when listening with monitors, some of the right channel gets to your left ear and the left to the right. . . this isn't happening with headphones or ear-buds unless you use a room simulator...

pcrecord, post: 440208, member: 46460 wrote: Thing is, when listening with monitors, some of the right channel gets to your left ear and the left to the right. . . this isn't happening with headphones or ear-buds unless you use a room simulator...

True, but how does that explain the differences between headphones and ear-buds? The answer could well havc more to do with human anatomy and physiology than with audio engineering.

Maybe bone conduction is causing some amount of cross-feed with headphones that you don't get with earbuds because their actual acoustic output is lower due to being closer to the eardrums.

Boswell, post: 440210, member: 29034 wrote: True, but how does that explain the differences between headphones and ear-buds? The answer could well havc more to do with human anatomy and physiology than with audio engineering.

Of course anatomy and proximity maybe at play. . . Thing is ear buds fill in closer to internal bones and internal ear, that may be a lead ;)

I'm only guessing here, because I don't know, but I think that some of these above posts are headed in the right direction: the fact that ear buds are actually inserted into the ear and are making contact with the bones and cartilage of the ears - while headphones are simply speakers that you wear on your ears - is probably a factor.

Beyond that, I don't know. An ear doctor might be able to provide insight - but I can't help, because the day they were teaching that particular class at Harvard Med I was studying "pharmaceuticals" instead... :p

DonnyThompson, post: 440215, member: 46114 wrote: Beyond that, I don't know. An ear doctor might be able to provide insight - but I can't help, because the day they were teaching that particular class at Harvard Med I was studying "pharmaceuticals" instead... :p

You know, I thought that was you sitting in front of me in that class Donny...;)

But all jokes aside, the contributions to this thread has made this an interesting topic of discussion.

I did go back after reading Bos' post where he mentions using mono more, I did check the mix in mono and although there was not a lot of discernable difference when the reverb plug was switched off and on while in mono (I used Studio Ones' native Open Air plug-in and the Bricasti M7 Studio K's M-S impulse response) I ended up changing it anyway...but taking this advice and using mono more in the mix is sage advice.

The project I'm working on at the moment is important so I've been putting the day's end products onto my iPod and listening when I get into bed, using my IEM moulds. Looking for mistakes really. Perhaps little odd noises, or glaring mix problems,nor that quiet wrong note. While I have spotted a few issues, virtually every track I mentally approve I then find more errors in when listening on the monitors a day or two later. This makes me wonder why I don't hear these on in ears? I don't think hearing these things should be hard. Maybe it's this near the centre problem? The issues come from things in or out of phase near the centre?

paulears, post: 440226, member: 47782 wrote: The project I'm working on at the moment is important so I've been putting the day's end products onto my iPod and listening when I get into bed, using my IEM moulds. Looking for mistakes really. Perhaps little odd noises, or glaring mix problems,nor that quiet wrong note. While I have spotted a few issues, virtually every track I mentally approve I then find more errors in when listening on the monitors a day or two later. This makes me wonder why I don't hear these on in ears? I don't think hearing these things should be hard. Maybe it's this near the centre problem? The issues come from things in or out of phase near the centre?

I'm sure you don't listen to 24bit 96khz files on your ipod. Did you make an mp3 or wave file ?
Any export and/or rendering would affect the audio
Also I'm sure the DA of the Ipod doesn't match the quality of the one in your studio.. ;)

320K Mp3 for the iPod, and to be very honest that drop in quality and transparency from the DAW to the mp3 is tiny compared to the physical mistakes I hear. The current project involves over 20 tracks of backing vocals - harmonies spread all over the place, and detecting a sniff, or throat tickle that can't be seen is a pain. I also found a tom hit that I'd not noticed was almost tuned to a bass note, so I heard what I thought was a muffed bass note, only to discover it was the mid tom going boooooong! These things I can hear on the IEMs - but now I'm worried that maybe this isn't foolproof, as some things just seem to vanish. On speakers I detected a very strange ting - tracked down to a harpsichord sound that got forgotten about in the automation.

I think I may well be in the minority, but I actually like the mp3 'tone', and also loved the old mini disc Atrac system. I realise what they do, and how bad they are, but I liked it. There again, I always recorded on cassette with dolby B on, and replayed with it off, and the HF down a tad.

Sean G, post: 440223, member: 49362 wrote: But all jokes aside, the contributions to this thread has made this an interesting topic of discussion

i'd say. (y)

Sean G, post: 440223, member: 49362 wrote: I did go back after reading Bos' post where he mentions using mono more

(y)
Mono is our best friend.

audiokid, post: 440254, member: 1 wrote: i'd say. (y)

(y)
Mono is our best friend.

I agree, I do use mono a fair bit in the mixing stage to check things as I mix, but in this case I never did prior to inserting the reverb on the send. :rolleyes:

Having said that, I think the primary offender was a 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch adapter on the end of the earbuds going into the monitor station...I swapped this one out with another and there was a marked improvement. The $2 adapter I bought 15 years ago at Radio Shack proved better than the gold plated one that came with my monitor headphones. {facepalm}

I still believe this topic has merit and is worthy of further discussion, considering how the way we aquire music has changed listening habits today in the digital age.

Sean G, post: 440202, member: 49362 wrote: Whats the point in compromising a mix that sounds great through monitors just for the sake of making it sound half decent through earbuds?

I have been struggling with that question since the day someone told me to do it. I mix it, it sounds great on the monitors, speakers, headphones etc. Decent on a phone, but lousy through ear buds. Why compromise the integrity of 3 diff listening devices, to make the 4th, and crappiest, sound good? I will try the mono thing, but as of yet, I've not been able to find a happy medium.

bouldersound, post: 440211, member: 38959 wrote: Maybe bone conduction is causing some amount of cross-feed with headphones that you don't get with earbuds because their actual acoustic output is lower due to being closer to the eardrums.

It's a good thought, but IEM's like the JH-Audio 13's et al do the same thing but sound great. They are formed to fit the ear so it would be less stress perhaps then ear buds but they feel "heavier" in the ear than ear buds. I think it's mostly due to the cheapness of the drivers. Because "expensive" ear buds, don't sound like that. There is only so much performance the EB's can deliver, and stay that cheap.

The Bi-naural effect with headphones/buds is def different. This is easy to see with panning. It's harder to get variations between center and hard left/right than on monitors. And this is just my guess, but I think it's due to the speed with which the sound reaches the processing point. Something that was medium left before, is now hard left. Bc of the distance to the ear, the panning effect is now exponential.

I have to think about it more, and perhaps play with some examples, but I think this is how the mono idea mentioned earlier might help. The stereo effect obviously isn't working the same, and might be responsible for cancelation issues, phase problems etc. The multiple driver design of the JH-13's may be superior in that they don't cause this.

Just speculation that may help the discussion along. I'd love to figure out this problem too.

If something sounds good on monitors, in good headphones and in good IEMs but not in earbuds, it's the earbuds' fault. People using them are probably accustomed to the bad sound anyway.

bouldersound, post: 440665, member: 38959 wrote: If something sounds good on monitors, in good headphones and in good IEMs but not in earbuds, it's the earbuds' fault. People using them are probably accustomed to the bad sound anyway.

lol, that's how I feel about it. How much performance can we expect from something that costs $15 retail?

For the people who manage to make it work though, I'd be really curious how.

Brother Junk, post: 440664, member: 49944 wrote: Because "expensive" ear buds, don't sound like that. There is only so much performance the EB's can deliver, and stay that cheap.

A valid point. I'm not sure that the latest Peter Gabriel or Sting album would sound good through $4 earbuds, either.

bouldersound, post: 440665, member: 38959 wrote: If something sounds good on monitors, in good headphones and in good IEMs but not in earbuds, it's the earbuds' fault. People using them are probably accustomed to the bad sound anyway.

Another solid point. Listeners have become "accustomed" to what we consider to be "bad" ( or at least, "less than good") sound quality. We are more discerning than "civilians" are, because it's our job to be... but at the end of the day, most music released is being listened to by younger people who've never had anything to compare their cheap ear buds to. They've only ever known that particular type of listening method. And, the people old enough to remember listening to music through hifi systems in the past have become jaded as they've jumped on the earbud bandwagon. There are still, without a doubt, audiophiles out there... but they aren't the general rule of thumb anymore.

My personal wager is that the cheapest, worst sounding speaker-based hi-fi system would still sound better than the best earbuds... further, I'm not entirely convinced that the old Silvertone mono record player I have in my attic wouldn't still sound better than the typical $6-$10 ear buds that people buy at the local Dollar Store.

I've seen quite a few of the "Beats" headphones being used lately, maybe these are better ( ?) because at least they are actual headphones - as opposed to ear buds, which are inserts, of which have the "decoupling" nature previously discussed.

While I will continue to pay attention to how mixes sound on various/newer car sound systems, ( because I think that this is is probably the second most popular listening method), I don't believe that I'm going to start mixing "for" ear buds, or be all that concerned with how my mixes sound on the all-too common, overly-popular and cheaply priced $8 ear bud models ... I'm gonna stick with using monitors as my main reference (for the time being, anyway).

@Sean G, bouldersound, audiokid, paulears, pcrecord, Boswell
That all being said, I do think that this is a good thread, and a topic worthy of discussion....because this is the world that we now live in, and we have to ( at least) take this listening system into consideration... whether we like it or not. ;)

IMHO of course, ;)

d.

We should start another thread...the $5 earbud mix challenge...where we all mix the same stems with nothing but cheap earbuds and repost the results.

It would have to be an honesty system though...no checking them on monitors until you have posted your mix back to the thread.

Who's up for it?

I'm in Sean, it's an interesting idea ;)

In the past, I had cheap speakers to compare my mixes on. But since I got the Yamaha HS8, I don't feel the need anymore.. My mixes translate well enough on other systems..
I wouldn't use earbuds to confirm my mixes are ok but the earbud mix challange would be fun ;)

DonnyThompson, post: 440687, member: 46114 wrote: We are more discerning than "civilians" are,

lol...we are, "The few, the proud, the audio marines."

But absolutely. You mentioned car audio. I did that for many years. Sound quality competition. Basically, you have to make your car sound like a home hi-fi system would. Personally, I thought my car sounded better than all but one hifi system I've ever heard. The better system I heard was at a hi-fi shop in New Mexico, and iirc, it was two 500w (I want to say they were 750w each but it sounds high) Krell mono block amps and the flagship B&W's in a heavily treated room, and a CD I know like the back of my hand, Dark Side of the Moon.

I loved that genre of audio. Rooms can be a pain in the ass to get to sound right. A car, depending on the car, can be a nightmare. If any of you are into car audio (SQ only, I don't do SPL) in the Boston area, feel free to hit me up. DonnyThompson I'll be tuning another pro car soon for World Finals. I don't know exactly when yet, but I'll have it for a month. Once I get it tuned and square, if you want to send me some stuff I can tell you how it sounds in a good car.

Anyways, where I was going with this is that I occasionally do favors for people and help them tune their cars. A lot of money gets dropped on these cars. They have to have processing, usually active crossovers, phase change from the deck, dual 30 band eq's (L/R) bi,tri,quad, amping etc. It's a lot of money to compete with these people. But I'll get the car, and listen. The person only wants ONE thing fixed....say, the center image is not tight enough or whatever. I'll listen to the car, and, forget about the center image, tonally, it sounds like a fart played through a rusty tuba. The bass is way too loud, the 200 hz area is making audio mud, 1khz is way too high (the cause of the center image trouble) the treble is killing my head, the 6.3khz is driving an ice pick through my ears.

So I'll take a track that THEY are familiar with, and show them with my headphones, or monitors, what it is supposed to sound like, and it is absolutely shocking to them. They are in disbelief. One guy is a Dire Straits fan, as am I. He put the headphones on and listened to Sultans of Swing for the first time, the way it's supposed to sound, and a big smile went across his face. He wants to learn, so he is coming back when he feels he has his car sounding more like it should.

My point is, if these people, who are striving to re-create hi-fi audio, think this is what it sounds like, what standard are the rest of the people at? They aren't using poorly mixed cd's, it's all test CD's. Sheffield Labs, Focal's discs, Iasca, Slap, etc. They just don't know yet, what a given material is supposed to sound like. But if the standard they are going by is formed through ear buds, man, I feel sorry for everything they are missing out on. Personally, I have about 15 discs, that I know backwards and frontwards. If those sound "correct," than anything else you put in, that's how it's supposed to sound (and it's usually very good).

I've been to my local Hi-fi shop, and actually found everything I auditioned (except for a sub that was WOW) to be lack luster. Even the flagship, heavily treated room, flipping though 4 pairs of speakers that I could never afford (I would just build them myself) and not one of them sounded right. Not one pair! I'm new to this place, and mingling with people who mix so much day in and day out. But I imagine you would understand the feeling of switching to a pair of speakers, with material that you know very well, and as soon as it comes on, you say to yourself, "Nope, that's not right." Flip to the next pair...,"Nope, that's even worse." Next pair... "That's not right either." Last pair, "These are your flagship speakers?" Then I look around the room and I see the treatment. They say it was specially designed, blah blah...but I can walk around and hear stuff resonating at 40hz etc. Where the room is live is, well, I don't want to say they are wrong, but it's not where I would have done it.

So, if even these people, both the ones selling the equipment, and buying it, have a poor sense of what something is supposed to sound like...I dunno. I think the only non audio tuning people (whatever you want to call it) who really have any clue are the headphone buffs. While imaging is often off, at least tonally you start to develop a sense of what sounds "right" vs "wrong." I haven't really come to terms with trying to "dumb" the mixes down so they sound good on EB's. What for? If they want good sound, they should upgrade their equipment. I shouldn't have to downgrade the mix.

That being said, I've seen people who can do it, but I have yet to figure out how, and they keep their secrets close to the vest. I lost one client specifically because of this. "The other guy mixes so it sounds good on EB's too." And I listened, and he was right. But I don't know how he does it.

The EB challenge sounds like fun. I have both the EB's that come with the iPhone, AND the Samsung Galaxy. Would we have to pick just one set of EB's? And are those cheap enough? (I know absolutely nothing about EB's)

p.s. Sorry for the rambling, lengthy post. I haven't had coffee in a few days, and this morning I had some and it's hitting me hard ...hyper-caffeinated emoji!

Oh, those long posts makes me think of a lady that is not on the forum anymore.. She had a think for SM57 lol..
Anyway !

Our job is to make sure our mixes/masters sound good on any system. It sometimes mean creating different masters for different media. One for CD, one for Radio, one for streaming sites like Youtubes. As for now, I'm not that far in the mastering craft to create 5 different masters but I can recognise the benefits.

@Brother Junk : I wish you could post some of your work. It would help knowing you better and putting words in context of achievements.

They should all be the same earbuds.

iphone earbuds?

Sean G, post: 440704, member: 49362 wrote: iphone earbuds?

I have those ! well, half the planet have those ;)

pcrecord, post: 440705, member: 46460 wrote: I have those ! well, half the planet have those ;)

I thought they would be the most dispersed earbuds on the planet...and we can rest assured that if we used them that at least we would all be using earbuds that most likely all came out of the same sweat-shops in China.

I could take my pick..I just realised I have earbuds from Apple, Samsung, Blackberry, Nokia, LG and a pair I think from my last domestic flight...and these are only the ones I can lay my hands on ATM.

I have no idea why I keep these, but every time I get a new phone another pair end up in the drawer or box.

My dog Jojo ate half of the ten pair I had laying around. I think it might be her way of telling me that earbuds should be banned from the house. LOL

Either that or Jojo likes the taste of earwax ! ;)

My dog eats my ear plugs if he can reach 'em. And if he can't reach 'em, he'll try.

DonnyThompson, post: 440708, member: 46114 wrote: My dog Jojo ate half of the ten pair I had laying around. I think it might be her way of telling me that earbuds should be banned from the house. LOL

That reminds me of a funny story from my past...a few years before my Dad passed away, he was losing his hearing. He tried the typical hearing aid that sat behind the ear , much to his displeasure, so us kids decided to get him one of those discrete tiny ones that fit inside the ear canal.

Well one day it went missing and we turned the house upside down for it, as it cost well over $4K at the time (going back about 20 years ago mind you). It turned out he had dropped it on the carpet, and Pepé his pet miniuture Chihuahua has found it first and chewed it to pieces...it was covered in all these tiny bite marks and little sharp flares that there was no way that this thing was going back in his ear.

In desperation I called the place where we had not long ago purchased this very expensive, but now just a chew-toy hearing aid, who advised me to bring it in.

The next day I drive over an hour to the hearing specialist. I'll never forget the look on the face of this mature-aged hearing technician when I presented it to him in the box it came in, he opened the box, paused, peered up at me over his glasses and said "you are kidding me, right?..."

Another $4k later, I told Dad if he ever took the thing out of his ear again unless he was going to bed, I would proceed to super glue it into his head.;)

Sean G, post: 440709, member: 49362 wrote: Either that or Jojo likes the taste of earwax ! ;)

I honestly think that it's her way of telling me that she prefers that I use Alesis Monitor Ones. LOL

Sean G, post: 440711, member: 49362 wrote: Well one day it went missing and we turned the house upside down for it, as it cost well over $4K at the time (going back about 20 years ago mind you). It turned out he had dropped it on the carpet, and Pepé his pet miniuture Chihuahua has found it first and chewed it to pieces...it was covered in all these tiny bite marks and little tiny sharp flares that there was no way that this thing was going back in his ear.

In desperation I called the place where we had not long ago purchased this very expensive, but now just a chew-toy hearing aid, who advised me to bring it in.

The next day I drive over an hour to the hearing specialist. I'll never forget the look on the face of this mature-aged hearing technician when I presented it to him in the box it came in, he opened the box, paused, peered up at me over his glasses and said "you are kidding me, right?..."

Another $4k later, I told Dad if he ever took the thing out of his ear again unless he was going to bed, I would proceed to super glue it into his head

Oooo boy... that was one really expensive lesson. ;)

DonnyThompson, post: 440714, member: 46114 wrote:
Oooo boy... that was one really expensive lesson. ;)

Who needs college/student loans when you got a dog!