EQ my headphone before work with audition ,help

[JohnVo]

hi

i have a problem to work with audition when i plug grado headphone

but i found these settings makes grado headphone sounds almost neautral

31hz ~ 12.0dB

62hz ~ -2.1dB

125hz ~ -7.3dB

250hz ~ -5.0dB

500hz ~ -5.0dB

1k ~ -4.4dB

2k ~ -4.4dB

4k ~ -5.3dB

8k ~ 4.3dB

16k ~ 2.9dB

and

preamp @ 0.0dB

parametric equalizer settings:

low cutoff ~ unused

mid center 1 ~ 3000.0hz @ -11.2dB (0.50 Q)

mid center 2 ~ 4310.0hz @ 18dB (0.23 Q)

high cutoff ~ 5260.0hz @ -18dB

well i work on several machine ,which have different hardware , most of the time audio card drivers doesn't give me the option to set up the EQ like i want

what can i do?

is there a program free that can i use?

thanks

[Bob Howes]

Equalising for headphones--or even the best monitor speakers for that matter--is rarely a good idea and rarely works well.

May I suggest an alternative approach that you probably won't like but which DOES work.

First make a recording--it doesn't matter what but it's best if it's typical of the sort of material you'll be working on.

Edit and mix your recording, adding EQ, reverb, etc. etc. until it's exactly the sound you want when listened to on your headphones.

Then make a bunch of copies and listen to to your mix on as many different playback systems as you can--CD i your car, on your phone, on the music system in your front room, on your silly audiophile friend's expensive hifi--basically anything you can find.  As you listen, keep careful note of things that sound wrong:  too much or two little base, how the voice sounds,  too much emphasis on highs, etc, etc. 

Then, bearing all your listening tests in mind, do another mix on your headphones and repeat all the listening tests.  It won't take much of this before you get the idea of what things need to sound like on your headphones to sound okay on a wide variety of playback devices.  As I say, even you buy expensive monitors and acoustically treat your room, you still need to "learn" the sound.  (That's why I'm using the same monitors I got in 1983...I'm too lazy to change.)

I know it's not the answer you want but hope it helps.

[JohnVo]

hi

thanks

but for example with foobar and graphic equalizer dsp i can get a great sound

you suggest to make some tests , edit my cd with grado and after listen them and trust of my ears ? i did not get it

i use mostly sennheiser they are better bilaciate

in short sometime i have to use  sennheiser and sometime grado

i don't if you use grado , but if you can try foobar + the dsp

thanks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Giovannivolontè wrote:

you suggest to make some tests , edit my cd with grado and after listen them and trust of my ears ? i did not get it

No, I don't think you did.

There are several things at work here. One is that with the best will in the world, EQing things in the monitoring chain is trying to make an unnatural fix to something that's naturally broken. And when you do that, your 'fix' always puts compromises - often in the form of phase errors - into it. That's why, even on expensive monitors, the 'room EQ' adjustments available are minimal, and ideally you don't use them; you fix the room. The trouble with headphones is that you can't 'fix' the listening space, but your perceived 'error correction' is still introducing those errors, just the same as they would with speakers.

What you have to do is to accept that the direct driven sound (no dodgy EQ) is technically the best way to monitor what you are doing. And that's the thing; you are monitoring, not listening. They aren't the same thing. What you are having to learn is what, in the monitoring, you are having to compromise in order for your sound to be good on a variety of other systems. IOW it doesn't have to sound 'good' whilst you are mixing it - you only need to know what you have to do with that particular monitoring to make your mix sound good on other systems.

There are various ways of doing this - Bob's only suggested one. What they all involve though is training your ears. The normal one is to find a variety of tracks (not necessarily yours - commercial ones are preferred) that sound good on other systems, and listen to them a lot with your headphone system until you've got used to what they sound like with it. Then, if you can produce mixes that sound similar (even though you think that at the time they sound compromised), they will also sound good elsewhere. Yes you may have to fine-tune this process a bit, but that's always going to be necessary; no two pieces will ever sound exactly the same.

It's not a quick process, I'm afraid. I made the momentous decision to change my monitoring system 6 months ago, and I'm just about getting used to it. And this is an expensive system which I'm probably never going to change again all the time I'm working. It's in an acoustically treated room, and putting on a pair of decent open-backed Sennheiser headphones produces virtually no difference in the sound, even though the spatial response is completely different.

And that's the other thing about headphone monitoring - that inevitable spatial difference alters the way you perceive sounds anyway - especially the bass, It's really difficult to get bass response correct using headphones; they react completely differently from speakers.

So I'm afraid that it's a case of no pain, no gain...

[JohnVo]

Hi

SteveG

by the Sennheiser and Grado sound so different

i prefer Sennheiser , even many i see use mostly Grado

the problem is that sometime i have to swtich from/to  Sennheiser Grado , and i haven't time to adapt my ears

i guess you use Sennheiser right?

thanks SteveG

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

I checked on typical frequency response curves for Grado headphones, and they aren't that flat at all; Sennheisers appear to perform rather better, which is why far more people use them. But the response of all headphones varies somewhat according to how you wear them, so you have to be a bit careful in a way that you simply don't with monitor speakers.

Yes I only use Sennheisers, although I have a couple of pairs of Beyers as well. They are nowhere near as good, though,

Ideally, just stick to one pair of headphones - you will find it much easier to achieve consistent results this way.

[ryclark]

As Steve mention's above some headphones are made to sound good for listening to music, like the Grado, whereas some others, like many of the Sennheiser range, are better for monitoring. Generally open back headphones tend to have a smoother low frequency response but lots of people don't use them because of the sound leakage both from the headphones to the outside world and from the outside world into your ears. So if you are on your own editing in your studio which is fairly quiet open back headphones would be fine and probably sound quite a bit better than closed back ones. But not so good for foldback to artists in a recording studio or on the train to work.

[Bob Howes]

Let's not forget that the role of monitors for mixing (whether speakers or headphones) is NOT to make things sound good.  There job is to be accurate and let you hear your recording warts and all so you can mix to improve the sound.  I've only heard Grado a couple of times but they would not be my choice--I like Sennheiser HD 25s or HD 280s when I need to use headphones.

However, like Steve, I prefer to do my mixes on monitor speakers in a room with some acoustic treatment--I'm sure not as good as Steve's but I've "learned" the sound.

Steve's suggestion of using commercial recordings is another way of achieving what I was suggesting.  Indeed, I have a variation on this--I've been mixing for many years and often trot out my own mixes that I know exactly how they sound and use those to help me judge.  Most satisfying thing I've done was bring out a recording I did for a small local theatre (and knew it sounded good there) and, over lunch one day, play it on the system at our large local receiving house--DB Audiotecknik Line Array and subs, and about a quarter of a million watts of amp power.  I felt pretty smug when it sounded good there!

[JohnVo]

hi

i like a lot (edit I Love ) the Sennheiser HD 598 , but i can't use always

thanks

Merry Christmas