Post Production mixing/equalizing with Grado SR-80's

[Allen Nash]

does anyone have any opinion on whether or not this is adviseable? due to practical and budgetary limitations i won't be able to do post production work with speakers, something which some audio experts recommend. specifically, i know that the Sony MDR-7506's are a tried and tested option for mixing and I was wondering how the SR-80's would compare. is the frequency curve not flat enough (or any other concerns?) for getting the truest mix? any input is appreciated.

[Grinner Hester]

monitor from true monitors fed by your mixer


... or throw the dice like editing without scopes.

[Scott Shuster]

We actually use exactly the wonderful SR-80s you mention a lot of the time only because there are times when our studio setting does not permit the use of our big speakers and massive subwoofer.

We definitely prefer to use the room-filling sound as we edit, but talking about it tonight we really feel that the only reason we prefer the speakers over the SR-80s is because...our ears get tired wearing the SR-80s!!

But we do not sense any difference in the sound we are able to lay down on our DVDs depending whether we have done the work with the speakers on or the SR-80s on our head. The result is the same.

One thing you need to know about the SR-80s though: People around you can hear what you are working on: The SR-80s are "open" not "closed" headphones. So I hope you're not working where other people may be annoyed by a little noise emanating from the headphones. it's pretty minor but could be noticeable in an otherwise quiet environment.

[Glenn Chan]

In my experience, you hear too much on headphones so you either:
A- Worry about problems you don't have to fix. Small amounts of background noise may not need fixing if your target format is television.
B- Don't mix levels correctly since headphones have huge dynamic range (not only do they have huge dynamic range, they also block out background noise, so you hear a lot more than you normally would).

For a video, I didn't boost the dialog levels high enough so you couldn't hear the dialogue at all on a TV. (Of course, you could hear the dialogue well on headphones.)

To counter-act B, do a final check-through where you turn the levels on your headphones way down (i.e. use volume controls in windows, and maybe move the headphones slightly off your ears).

It won't hurt to double check on cheap speakers (i.e. the one on your TV/NTSC monitor) or something like Auratones (expensive-ish speakers designed to mimic cheap speakers, but without uneven frequency response or resonance).

[Scott Shuster]

I love the point Glenn made about checking on cheap speakers. We absolutely do that every time, knowing that not all viewers have a huge home theater with quadrophonic speakers scattered about the premises. We must make certain that reproduction in mono trickling out of a three-inch speaker on a SYMPHONY-brand TV works.

In fact our first videos were actually mixed using exactly such a speaker. It was early in our production life, we did not have even the headphones, much less the big system -- and the videos we did at that time turned out just fine. Of course if you're doing something that's really music-centric that's another matter altogether. But for a TV production where the music is not going to be released on a Billboard-chart-bound CD...well I hate to say it's "good enough," but often it really is. You really can do a lot of quality control just using those meters on your edit screen with the room (or headphones) sound switched off altogether.