With calibrated studio headphones, we can hear completely flat frequencies without spending a million dollars on isolation and architects. It’s funny how my trusty headphones became my only sound source for an entire year. I learned so much about their calibrated, and uncalibrated performances on the road.
What are calibrated studio headphones?
Calibrated studio headphones are headphones that are connected to a system using a plugin that compensates for the natural frequency response of the headphones. For mixing, you’ll get the closest to a completely flat sound by evening out the nuances of the frequency response. It wasn’t enough for me either, so let’s talk about a trip that changed my life and how calibrated studio headphones solved many of my problems on the road.
The machine has a ghost
How many times have you worked on a mix and couldn’t wait to share it with your friends, only to have it sound different (and awful) when you play it? Normally, my girlfriend and I record cover versions of songs we love. She sings well and I am a multi-instrumentalist, so things work out well. Her dad joined us for pizza one night. Our song sounded horrible when we played it through a tiny JBL GO Bluetooth speaker, but we were very excited to show him. The reputation of a good studio and engineer is built on consistency. To do that, you need your headphones to let you hear the true frequency spectrum unbiasedly. In order to prevent speakers from biasing your work, you can control the coloration that speakers add to the signal. Let me tell you how I found out about the company and software that made it happen for me.
My life was changed by a trip
It wasn’t that long ago that I decided to take a year off from mundane responsibilities. My online mixing and mastering gig was doing well and I was eager to see the world. I packed my laptop, my trusty pair of DT770 PRO by Beyerdynamic, and my interface, and took off to Europe. After leaving my studio at home, I returned my monitors to their original boxes and stored them in my parents’ attic. As I made my way to the plane, waving to my family behind me, I was so excited. I thought a lot would happen to me, and I wasn’t wrong.
Amazon has the DT770 Pro for sale.
Taking the road to wor
The first gigs I did were a complete disaster. After seeing Russia, I went to Moscow and did the city tour and night out thing, while mixing and mastering from my hostel bed. I was meeting people and having a great time, but for the first time in my life, one of my mixes was rejected.
Beyond Latvia
Four mixes had been rejected by the time I got to Latvia. I wasn’t at home, so I didn’t have my monitors to double-check as I did at home. I was, quite frankly, a little desperate. The girl I met at a bar one evening in Latvia was working for Sonarworks. When I rejected my first mix, I went into their headquarters to check out their software. They were just starting out with this beautiful dream of bridging the gap between sound creators and listeners. After I left them my headphones and they gave me a calibration file to use with them, I loaded the plugin into ProTools and ran it on the main bus. My mixes were no longer rejected, but complimented from then on. One year later, I returned home, and Sonarworks now employs millions of people worldwide. In spite of listening to it over and over, I couldn’t find the flaw the client was pointing out. Did my ears stop working? I lost a lot of time and money on it. When I called home, everyone was very supportive, so I kept moving forward.
Headphone calibration
Are you tired of listening to music or watching movies on your headphones and feeling like something is off? It might be time to calibrate your headphones. Headphone calibration is the process of adjusting the sound settings to ensure a more accurate and balanced audio experience. By calibrating your headphones, you can enhance the overall sound quality, improve clarity, and even boost bass levels if that’s what you prefer. There are various methods available for headphone calibration, including using specialized software designed for this purpose. Headphone calibration software allows users to tweak different audio settings such as equalization, frequency response, and volume levels. With just a few adjustments, you can customize your headphones to suit your personal taste and listening preferences. So why settle for mediocre sound quality when you can easily optimize your headphone performance through calibration? Give it a try today and elevate your audio experience to a whole new level!
Headphone calibration software
Headphone calibration software can be a game-changer when it comes to achieving the perfect audio experience. With advanced technology and user-friendly interfaces, these tools make it easy for anyone to calibrate their headphones to suit their individual preferences. Whether you’re an audiophile looking for precision or just someone who wants to enhance their listening experience, investing in headphone calibration software is definitely worth considering. So why wait? Take your sound quality to the next level today with headphone calibration software!
Why Do You Need Calibrated Headphones AND Speakers?
My colleagues and students often ask me this question. I often get asked, “hey, I just spent x amount of money on acoustics and monitors, do I also have to calibrate my headphones?” Well, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. You can do some mixing tasks at home with your laptop. If you want to have that freedom, you’ll need to calibrate your headphones as well. You can read my article here on whether expensive headphones are worth it.
Calibrated headphones and low frequencies
Today, more and more music is created around killer beats. This is perhaps the most sensitive section of the frequency spectrum. You can work on a killer beat in your headphones, but then take it somewhere else, and it sounds too big or disappears. It needs to be big and fat to move your feet. While this may seem insignificant when working with friends, clients expect a killer mix. You can’t explain your biases to them. Taking the groove out of their creations is like telling Slash not to bend notes.
The mids make everything clear
If you have a nice country tune without percussion in it instead of mixing a big four-to-the-floor production, how can you bring the WOW factor to it? Most unclear mixes have an answer in the mids. If you can distribute vocals, guitars, and the upper registers of the bass evenly, you’ll have a perfect mix. Mids are everything from 200 Hz to 2000 Hz. Typically, headphones come with some bumps and boost around 1000 Hz, which can be misleading. Calibrated headphones can do wonders in that frequency range, since our ears try to overcompensate for the signal, which leads to muddiness and unintelligibility.
It’s Just As Important To Have The High End
In my opinion, some of my colleagues and students tend to forget just how important the high end is once the beat sounds killer and you can understand all the harmonic instruments.You won’t satisfy your clients if your mix sounds shrill. Additionally, if every time a cymbal or cowbell is added, everything gets squashed and/or distorted, ruining all your work with the lows and the mids. The “Abbey Road Reverb Sound” is created by applying low and high pass filters to the reverb. It prevents high-end shrills and low-end muddiness. But what about instruments without reverb that need to breathe? Let’s say a flute, cymbals, and a violin. Getting their high end right is crucial for them. It’s not uncommon for headphones manufacturers to tame down the high end to make them easier on the listener’s ears. With the right calibration file, you can dial in the exact amount of high end so they sound brilliant but not shrill. You can read my article on how to mix and record without monitors here.
Audio systems of different types
To avoid using calibration on your headphones, you can go for different pairs to double-check your mix. All of us who have seriously worked in the music business have done this a million times, and I strongly recommend you do it still. This approach has the only flaw of going from one biased sound to another biased sound, and you sometimes can compensate for something that is not lacking because you have a ghost in your hearing, or a ghost in the machine. In my studio, I usually have a JBL GO, AirPods, regular iPhone headphones, and high-end audiophile headphones. I run my mixes through them to see if anything else is needed. I don’t choose one, I run the same song through all, that way I can avoid biases.
Conclusion: Playing in the big leagues
In addition to mixing and mastering using unbiased tools, most of the music you hear was mixed and mastered using this kind of bias correction. All efforts are directed towards getting rid of listening biases, from acoustically treating a room with thousands of dollars to calibrating the system with Sonarworks or any other method. Mixing songs for fun is fine, but if you want to hit the major leagues, you have to play by the major league rules: your mixes must rock from any speaker. Furthermore, calibrated headphones give me an extra boost of confidence. I now feel free to make drastic changes and take chances knowing that the result will be consistent. You can save a lot of money by calibrating your equipment. I still use my DT770 PRO and they still feel like a home for my productions. I wish you a happy (calibrated) mixing!