How to balance how the recording sounds between quality headphones and cheap headphones - so that between them sounds as good as possible

#1

I heard my recording on cheap headphones and it sounds very bad. I understand that cheap headphones lack a range of sounds, the warmth of the bass and the sharpness of the high sounds. But when I hear a regular song in cheap headphones it sounds good, not like in quality headphones but there is still a preservation of quality sounds that are close to the original quality [And does not sound as bad as my song in these cheap headphones]. In my case, it would sound very unlike the original, in cheap headphones, very different and poor.

I tried to work on the recording with the cheap headphones so that it sounds good, and indeed it is possible to raise the level to better performing in the cheap headphones, but then it lowers the quality in the quality-headphones. I try to balance them in my work on the recording, but no matter how much I try to balance, hours, it does not sound good in both.

#2

I have the same problem and have no idea as to how to solve it . But I guess the truth of the matter is the majority of the public listens to music on cheap equipment , ear buds, , iPhones etc. . As such , optimizing on those devices should be the most important . I still can’t tho he to sound decent on any cheap
System . Hopefully someone can enlighten us :wink:

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#3

Thanks for the comment.

I decided I was going to look for all sorts of ways and methods that people offer through YouTube on this specific topic. It does not always fall on the right instructional video, but if you dig deep enough into such videos, it seems to me that you can formulate all sorts of angles that will support success.

#4

Oh and according to one thing I was told, we need professional and good monitors - that basically their job is that they are a zero, clean sound, that’s the job of the monitors. And it is better to hear from the monitors about a rather low sound volume, so that the effects, etc. are not out of proportion to the hearing. Then there are all kinds of playback systems that take your sound to different places, but at least you engineered the sound with the purity of monitors.

#5

Yes , I been messing around with stuff for about 50 years . Years ago I bought acoustic research speakers , the cleanest sound I ever heard . They are a very old acoustic suspension system, not the ported stuff that is everywhere today . The only drawback is the power requirements are high since the speakers are in a closed system . Very flat frequency response . But if I mix on those it still doesn’t sound as I would like on typical audio systems these days. I remember the discussions about having a car in the studio and playing the mix back in the car because that is how people really hear the music . This is a very interesting topic and I sure wish someone with magical skills could help us out :slight_smile:

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#6

When I’m having the problem you are having I use IZotope Total Balance 2.
I wear hearing aides and Total balance 2 give me a visual picture of the sound as a line drawn across the screen. It been a useful tool for me.

#7

It’s in the illusive Mastering process, it’s not easy if you created and mixed the recording because it sounds “ready”. No song is the same, the elements making up the track, and the frequency of each, have to find their own place on the eq. Save it down as a mix and open the mix in a new project, apply and manipulate a few tools like multi-band eq, multiband compression, limiters and saturation to it, try subtly at first then hard, find the balance between. Respect your ears and don’t listen to the same thing for too long. Trust your ears when you find the sweet spot.
Having said that, I’m no expert, just passing on what I learned