Warren Huart on What You Need to Successfully Mix with Headphones

My main pair of headphones is of course the DT-770 Pro. Now my aunty bought me a cheap pair of wireless headphones for Christmas, and apparently they work great for mixing low-mids! It's like car speakers but even more honest I'd say. If you're not in a well treated control room with good monitors, headphones like these are simply magical.

Would you guys use an external headphone amp for mixing? I've heard the headphone preamp on the audient id14 isn't the greatest

Are you serious? Woman In Chains. That song is absolute perfection. The problem is it’s so powerful that I can’t get through it. That song is something else. And my wife giggles at me. 🥸 So do you have another song that has all those same elements?

I fell in love with my DT990 pros, they are super affordable and sound insanely good! I got some Adam TV5s too as monitors to switch too but I would recommend the Beyerdynamic DT990s (open back also changed the game for me)

I bought my first set of 100 quid phones in October (DT 990s), and now I hardly have my KRKs on at all. Haven't mixed anything outside of tracking sessions yet though. So I will be referencing between the KRK's and the phones at some point I suppose. Have an album of songs deliberately written and engineered to sound like The Cure (we're a tribute band)... Just bought SSL UF1 and UC1... and why don't we have a Sweetwater in the UK?

I love editing on headphones - Mitch - nothing like a good pair to pick up those little details. But for mixing in the main? Gimme my NS-10's!😃

Im a producer for 30 years. And after all this time, and all Genelec, Focal, PMC, Atc, Adam's, etc Monitors i had and still own, i was falling in the inthinkable. But yes, since i tried out the Ollo Audio S4x i confess that my monitors now are doing the oposite porpose to me, i mix on the Ollo's and check some stuff on monitors. Jesus i love those Open Back Ollo Audio Headphones. I really think that anyone should try them.

This was very helpful for me. Thanks.

What a great message 👍 The reality of how your audience consumes audio changes your game!

Can we get Mitch playlist ?

A really really good video. Thanks so much 😎

Great interview guys... Also as "Frank" mentions in the comments from about 12 days ago, crossfeed is incredibly important when understanding the stereo field when mixing in headphones and especially awesome when you're working with your personal head profile (from an in between ear delay time/phase aspect). Pretty incredible stuff going on these days for sure. Aaaargh, then you both talk about it around 44mins LOL

It's crazy how we are getting to the point more and more we do not need multiple monitors.
Translation used to be a horse and cart type game and now it's almost too easy.
Although, as soon as something becomes too easy, people start trying to push the boundaries more... so the job remains challenging... not as though... much harder to be a real master these days

He wasn't exaggerating about those low synth notes at the beginning of the Sarah McKlachin song. Any chance you could publish the 30-song reference playlist along with notes about what you're listening for in each? And or do a video on the playlist?

What Warren says about reverb about 5 and a half minutes in. So true 👍👍👍

Hot topic, great info. Also awesome host, masterclass in letting the guest doing there thing. 🙏😎🖤🐓

I've been mixing many years on headphone only and now i've a pair of Kali LP6 in a pretty decent room but far from home so i use it 3/4 hours/week when rehearsing with my band but the rest of the time i mix on headphones.
My experience with headphones is that you can get lost in details very easily, i've lost months and months trying to have perfect guitars and overheads in my headphones... but on speakers i was pretty satisfied with the sound. The other problem is the low/mids, on headphones i always end up with to much low/mids (sometimes 7/8 db !) on the snare, kick and bass. Now that i'm aware of that i can mix with more confidence.

Yamaha HS8, JBL 306, headphones for detail and Adapter Metric A/B is my best friend.

Rane RH50

❤ yes

I love Mitch, he has a permanent voice over voice ha ha

Where in the interview was open vs. closed -back discussed?

NS10's for hi-fi speakers? What were they thinking back then, but I do understand somewhat of the time domain response in the design. Agree totally with mixing for the best resolution listening systems. But how to determine loudness level when our ears are the flatest at around 82-84dB & such a variation of sensitivity exists between headphones?

I use headphones to mix daily. You need a great pair of headphones though if you’re taking your sound seriously.
I’m using Beyerdynamic DT-1990. They sound fantastic.
As far as finalizing though, that’s done in open air and then enjoyed on the headphones.

What a great conversation

I often use the headphone when I need to surgically set parameters, checking the phases, correlations among tracks, reverbs etc BUT I finalize everything using the monitors because I noticed the headphones don’t allow you to focus the mid, the body of the low end, the foundation. Sorry I’m not native speaker, I don’t know how to describe it

I‘d rather listen more to Bob

Awesome 🙏

I track through Audio Technica m50x's and mix on Audeze mm500's, I use the Canopener 3 plugin for some Crossfeed or use the Crossfeed function on my Chord Mojo 2 DAC. dSoniq Realphones plugin works great as well.

I like how passionate Warren is in whatever he's talking about

I mixed some tracks with a lot of moving stereo content. I found that moving my head within the stereo field brought out many details that I hadn't expected. You can't possibly hold your head perfectly still, while moving your head in headphones makes no difference. The only reason I subject myself to the sonically tiring effort of listening to headphones is because I see so many people listening to earbuds etc. and I want my music to be amenable to them.

Have fun, make it sound good! Here’s a trick, take different mixes you’ve done and cut them together. An edit. Take a flat lifeless mix and make it interesting section to section. You’ve cherry picked the magic and precision you wanted. Then send to a mastering engineer.

NS10’s …pffft. Nothing like the majesty of referencing on the mighty Auritones…lol

Andrew Scheps comes to mind.

Headphones, because I don't want small room acoustics at home. Mine are Shure SRH440

 airpods Pro gen 2 👍

You don't want that direct connect sound pressure in your ears all the time.

I use good earbuds with construction sound proof headsets that will Stop any bleeding from the buds.

Haha when turned on Warren wouldn't stop talking for 10 minutes straight, but he's great!

Sonarworks all the way!!! It helps me tremendously on my Adam Audio A7x's with a Sub 8 and also profiling headphones that I can use in my downtime at work.

I have to disagree 😏.
When I was 15 on a tour bus with all my mates driving through Germany in a goodwill tour, the endless looping of “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins over my Walkman headphones while staring out the bus window at the countryside, the sound was killin

I agree with him but isnt it just different? arent headphones just 2 mono channels pretending to be stereo? Hence most people mix with studio monitors because you can have a better perception of sound depth but hes right when he says that sometimes when you put on your headphones you can hear air, pops and clicks much easier

What’s the plug-in he’s talking about at the start?

Reaper with DT990pro and im good, check on earbuds as well

Aren't the Audeze headphones better than anything else on the planet. Sure they cost but they say once you have heard them everything else sounds pretty average.

The new Sonarworks virtual monitoring is dope

❤