Is there a consensus headphone choice?

I don’t know if it has been mentioned, but I think the Slate VSX headphones sound really good. They’re designed to be flat so you can use the software with them. I haven’t personally even used the software yet haha but I like the flat response they have as headphones on their own.
 
Thenewexhibit said:
I don’t know if it has been mentioned, but I think the Slate VSX headphones sound really good. They’re designed to be flat so you can use the software with them. I haven’t personally even used the software yet haha but I like the flat response they have as headphones on their own.
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Someone mentioned these, I think @Bruce Sokolovic earlier in the thread. And I was gonna bring those back up last night but they seemed to be unavailable to purchase recently. What exactly does the software help with?
 
skolacki said:
If I try a preset with the phones at decent volume it does get me in the ballpark. It never really sounds great to me though. Too sterile and dry. Maybe I just need to bump up the reverb and enhancer. Are you guys doing anything to make phones sound bigger? I have the Drop Sennheiser 58x. Also have the ATH-M50s.

I use my Waza Air phones the most. Nowhere close to being accurate but they sound huge. Like you’re playing in a big room. Lot of fun. I get some good tones out of the Wazas themselves but also run the fractal into them. Wouldn’t recommend them for mixing but for late night jamming these are great.
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How exactly are you connecting your Waza Air phones to the Axe FX? I'd like to try it!
 
nickd said:
How exactly are you connecting your Waza Air phones to the Axe FX? I'd like to try it!
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That’s an old post. I haven’t been using the Waza’s much lately. Guess I finally got used to phones with my FM3. Plug the dongle into the output of your Axe. Guitar plugs into the input of the Axe. I was using output 2 line level on my FM3. I made a clean and flat preset for the Waza with no effects. Not accurate but fun. There’s a timeout function in the Waza settings. If the dongle doesn’t detect movement it will shut off after awhile. You can disable it.
 
Jipps0525 said:
Someone mentioned these, I think @Bruce Sokolovic earlier in the thread. And I was gonna bring those back up last night but they seemed to be unavailable to purchase recently. What exactly does the software help with?
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They may be out of stock at the moment. However, I haven’t even used the software. I just use them as regular headphones. I believe Justin York has these as well and just uses them as headphones, so given his great ear, I bought them when they were on sale based on his comments about them as a means of additional referencing.
 
I used hd650's for about 12 years and switched over to the Slate VSX a year ago. They are incredible with or without the software. The early iterations used plastic brackets and broke, but slate would always replace them. My plastic ones broke after about a few months but slate replaced them right away with ones with metal brackets. There is a reason why they are always sold out, you are just guessing with everything else!
 
Jipps0525 said:
Someone mentioned these, I think @Bruce Sokolovic earlier in the thread. And I was gonna bring those back up last night but they seemed to be unavailable to purchase recently. What exactly does the software help with?
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the software puts your ears in studios and other listening environments like cars, SUVs, a club and even models other famous headphones. If you really want your sounds to translate on the widest variety of systems, this is the way. Sound design in one of the world class modeled studios, then check your sound in a car, on a boom box and on AirPods without ever leaving your desk.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
the software puts your ears in studios and other listening environments like cars, SUVs, a club and even models other famous headphones. If you really want your sounds to translate on the widest variety of systems, this is the way. Sound design in one of the world class modeled studios, then check your sound in a car, on a boom box and on AirPods without ever leaving your desk.
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Can it sound design for bars clubs casinos? Gigs like those?
 
Jipps0525 said:
Can it sound design for bars clubs casinos? Gigs like those?
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it sound designs for anything. The premise being you get the most neutral, balanced response from some of the models like the mastering room or one of the studios. When you're crafting tones in there, what you hear is what you'll get. Then, you test your sounds in rooms and environments like a club, a car, other headphones etc. I no longer chase my tail with my mixes. What I hear in the headphones is pretty much what I hear everywhere. Crafting tones in rooms or environments with problems may sound good where you're at, but you'll quickly hear the problems once you're out of that space.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
it sound designs for anything. The premise being you get the most neutral, balanced response from some of the models like the mastering room or one of the studios. When you're crafting tones in there, what you hear is what you'll get. Then, you test your sounds in rooms and environments like a club, a car, other headphones etc. I no longer chase my tail with my mixes. What I hear in the headphones is pretty much what I hear everywhere. Crafting tones in rooms or environments with problems may sound good where you're at, but you'll quickly hear the problems once you're out of that space.
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The thing is I don’t really do any recording or
Mixing/mastering yet. I just practice and play live. I plan to dabble in that stuff eventually and maybe this would push me there but is it still a useful tool for someone who doesn’t do mixing yet?
 
Jipps0525 said:
The thing is I don’t really do any recording or
Mixing/mastering yet. I just practice and play live. I plan to dabble in that stuff eventually and maybe this would push me there but is it still a useful tool for someone who doesn’t do mixing yet?
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Yes. Because playing live will put you in a variety of different rooms. If you want the best chance at having your sound translate from room to room well, you need to construct sounds in an environment you hear the truth in.
 
∞Fractals said:
I’ve heard Bruce’s mixes … They are excellent.
(If I could only get close one day.)

He is speaking from experience.
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Thanks for your endorsement! Only took 20 years of awful mixes to get here hahaha.


There are a few schools of thought here.

1. Treat your area. The smaller the area the harder to treat. Most of us are in challenging to treat areas. To professionally treat a room to the point of getting accurate mixes you don't have to keep running out to the car for, you are looking at several thousand dollars. You can try and DIY and have varying degrees of success, but without accurate measurements you're flying blind at best.

2. Lose the room entirely. This means headphones. The more accurate the better.

3. Slate headphones or similar. Psycoacoustically designed to model other listening environments. I don't know how close they model Barefoot or ATC monitors in a great room. I haven't sat down and compared. I do know my sounds never translated better until I got these cans.

Ignore all of the above and pepper as you go along. The odds you'll nail a sound you love everywhere are against you, but over time you'll hear the deficiencies and can correct them (if you're really listening!). Do you want to sound muddy/bright/midrangey the first 10-? gigs until you get it sorted? I can't answer that. Better get to know your way around the front panel and keep the performance tab handy.

People may argue against all of the above. That's ok too. Maybe their experience is different. This has been my experience. 500 bucks for a set of cans really changed the game for me, personally. They're returnable for a full refund (make sure of that before you buy, I got a return promise because I too was skeptical).

Edit* and even after you do all this, you're still at the mercy of whoever is doing sound. All that bottom end chunk you love? GONE. (and rightfully so). A pointer I can give is let those guys worry about that. Write sounds that inspire you to play and sound good to you. Don't worry about the mix. That's the mix engineers problem. He has the tools to do what he has to to make it all work together. You can always run YOUR sound to your monitoring.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
and even after you do all this, you're still at the mercy of whoever is doing sound. All that bottom end chunk you love? GONE. (and rightfully so). A pointer I can give is let those guys worry about that. Write sounds that inspire you to play and sound good to you. Don't worry about the mix. That's the mix engineers problem. He has the tools to do what he has to to make it all work together. You can always run YOUR sound to your monitoring.
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^^This^^

The FOH engineer can definitely make or break the sound but bad ones generally don’t last because the venue wants to make money, and that means having a good sound to draw customers who buy drinks.

One of my tests is to stick some friends on a preset I like and let them play as I wander the room listening to it through FOH and from the bleed of my EVs acting like a back line, and from next to the gear. I watch their expressions and ask them how it felt and sounded to them. If I like what I hear and how it plays, and they’re grinning and laughing and playing their asses off and tell me they loved it, then I think it’s decently dialed in.
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
^^This^^

The FOH engineer can definitely make or break the sound but bad ones generally don’t last because the venue wants to make money, and that means having a good sound to draw customers who buy drinks.

One of my tests is to stick some friends on a preset I like and let them play as I wander the room listening to it through FOH and from the bleed of my EVs acting like a back line, and from next to the gear. I watch their expressions and ask them how it felt and sounded to them. If I like what I hear and how it plays, and they’re grinning and laughing and playing their asses off and tell me they loved it, then I think it’s decently dialed in.
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I don't have any friends: how would you solve this then? 😉
 
Would anyone be able to help me analyze this? Im recently becoming more and more sensitive to the eq differences between my listening devices. Im attaching links so y'all can see the frequency responses. Out of all 3, I like the iLoud Micro Monitors the best. They have the smoothest tone; with these I dont notice any highlighted frequencies when Im playing my guitar in isolation. My Shure SE535's sound great when I use them live with my band. I guess theyre able to carry a full mix well and still let my guitar come through for me. When I use them for practicing in isolation or with tracks, I hear something that dulls my tone or my attack. It's like I have to pick harder to work for notes. With my Beyerdynamic DT770's, it's even worse. Idk what it is, but they dull my tone alot and make it very flat to my ears. Can anyone explain why? Im not sure what im looking at with these frequency responses and what they ultimately mean.

iLoud micro monitors:
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/iloudmm/index.php?p=specs

Shure se535
https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/shure-se-535.php#gsc.tab=0

Beyerdynamic DT770
https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/beyerdynamic-dt-770-pro-80.php
 
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