13-05-2014, 11:18 PM
my "monitors" have such an uneven frequency response that I do all of my fine EQ/compression work in phones... my room acoustics are also much worse than average, so headphones are really the only option for finesse until I can improve my circumstances. I use the monitors mainly for coarse mixing, getting the rough balance, and for stereo imaging.
An important contribution to this discussion is the limitation of headphone stereo imaging in reference to frequency masking. Many of today's mixes are so dense that stereo panning is an essential EQ tool... you'll never be able to sort out all of the frequency masking issues with EQ alone when there are 12 heavily overdriven electric guitars fighting for the same frequency area without seriously compromising the quality of sound, so we use panning to accommodate... but when the side channel is radically separated as it is with phones, with all of the timing and "bleed" issues Olli highlighted (great explanations from both Olli and John, by the way) you can actually mix yourself into a corner. When the two channels have a real acoustic space in which to combine, there will obviously be a greater probability of frequency masking, so headphone mixing can trick you into thinking your panning and EQ work has satisfactorily separated the instruments... but when you pop the CD in the car, which is the absolute worse case scenario with this side channel masking problem, you wind up with a thick mess. I fell victim to this maybe 15 times before I figured out what was happening :/. Apologies if I'm stating the obvious... just felt like a useful contribution.
An important contribution to this discussion is the limitation of headphone stereo imaging in reference to frequency masking. Many of today's mixes are so dense that stereo panning is an essential EQ tool... you'll never be able to sort out all of the frequency masking issues with EQ alone when there are 12 heavily overdriven electric guitars fighting for the same frequency area without seriously compromising the quality of sound, so we use panning to accommodate... but when the side channel is radically separated as it is with phones, with all of the timing and "bleed" issues Olli highlighted (great explanations from both Olli and John, by the way) you can actually mix yourself into a corner. When the two channels have a real acoustic space in which to combine, there will obviously be a greater probability of frequency masking, so headphone mixing can trick you into thinking your panning and EQ work has satisfactorily separated the instruments... but when you pop the CD in the car, which is the absolute worse case scenario with this side channel masking problem, you wind up with a thick mess. I fell victim to this maybe 15 times before I figured out what was happening :/. Apologies if I'm stating the obvious... just felt like a useful contribution.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!