There are two new articles in Audio Technology which I find very interesting.
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Audio Technology articles on mixing with headphones
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Zensō
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This is an excellent series so far. Looking forward to the third installment.There are two new articles in Audio Technology which I find very interesting.
Zensō
Major Contributor
Mixing on headphones is becoming more common. There are considerations and a learning curve for sure, but it can be done successfully. Since >80% of music is now consumed on some sort of headphone, it makes sense that mixing/mastering on headphones would become more prevalent.
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According to content on ad driven platforms like youtube and forums. What I haven't encountered is formal educational literature concerning "headphone mixing". If that doesn't suggest that it wasn't ever a viable practice, consider that advertising departments exist to help capitalize on untapped segments of the market. Other than that, "relieve" a pro of their monitor speakers and show me how they are thriving under the new conditions.
Zensō
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There’s an example in the Glenn Schick video directly above your post. Times do change, some adapt, others choose to not explore new possibilities. It’s all good.
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What mixing I've done over headphones was problematic. I came up with something of a formula if I had no other good option. To me, with a couple of caveats, mixes over speakers don't surprise me when listened over phones. Mixes over phones usually surprise me when heard over speakers. The first artilce in the OP even describes the same experience. Good over phones, not over speakers for binaural. BTW, maybe I have some HRTF way out on the tails of normal, but binaural either doesn't work for me or barely works compared to what others report. In the end article one didn't really describe why phone mixing or mastering is good, basically only saying with phone listening being most common listening then speaker sound isn't as important.
Mastering engineers end up doing more cleaning up(on speakers) of the mixing engineers work, because "mobile studios" are a growing thing. Conveniently this was left out in the promotional video you linked to. "Times do change."
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The 2nd article matches some of what I've found. Firstly I am not a pro mixer nor have I been doing it my whole life. For me I now use L-C-R mixing for multi-mike recordings. My preference is minimalist stereo miking, but sometimes practical factors make that a less good choice. With LCR, everything goes fully left, right or equally in both (center). Works better than it sounds like it would. I may do differing compression or frequency contouring for different tracks within a given LCR position. So if I do that, it sounds weird on headphones. I find changing panning from 100% left or right going with 85-88% sounds effectively identical on speakers, and makes the headphone listening no longer weird sounding instead sounding much like it does on speakers. I've basically added my interaural crosstalk like you experience with speakers for the headphones.
Should you make a phone based mix if most listeners use those which sounds good, but which collapses into not good over speakers? Who knows? I've certainly seen quite a few binaural recordings that are not good at all over speakers. Making phone-centric or speaker-centric recordings goes against the common idea of something that translates over almost every device. Chesky for one has switched to binaural from crossed figure 8 recordings. They do some other process said to make the recordings good over speakers too. I find it only partly successful and miss the quality their old recordings had.
Should you make a phone based mix if most listeners use those which sounds good, but which collapses into not good over speakers? Who knows? I've certainly seen quite a few binaural recordings that are not good at all over speakers. Making phone-centric or speaker-centric recordings goes against the common idea of something that translates over almost every device. Chesky for one has switched to binaural from crossed figure 8 recordings. They do some other process said to make the recordings good over speakers too. I find it only partly successful and miss the quality their old recordings had.
Zensō
Major Contributor
LCR mixing is interesting. I’ve played with it quite a bit but have my reservations due to the issues with mono summing. I can definitely see how it would be effective for certain types of minimalist recordings though, especially if reducing the hard panning as you described.
I‘ve found it’s possible to create mixes fully on headphones that translate well and require little to no modifications when checked on speakers. It‘s taken a lot of experimentation and practice to get to that point, which I’ve been working on for the past 4-5 years. It was not as simple as just throwing on headphones and making the mix sound good, it took time to learn how various decisions on headphones translate to speakers and vice versa. I do believe anyone can adapt and learn how to do this if they choose to invest the time. A good crossfeed plugin is essential (for me), as well as headphones and monitors that are EQ’d to match which helps during the acclimation/learning phase.
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