MOTUnation.com

Today is the last day of this 50% off introductory sale. I've been intrigued by this plugin, so I decided to go for it as a last-day buy. I also got an additional 15% off with the Easter Egg SAVE15 coupon code, which sweetened the deal.

http://www.waves.com/plugins/nx#introdu ... l-mix-room

I've only been using it for a few hours, but here is my initial impression...

Background/Disclaimer, etc.: I work a LOT in headphones. Way more of my time is spent tracking/composing than mixing, and most of that time I am working in headphones. I do also use headphones during the mix process, but of course, only in conjunction with speakers. I use phones to check panning and details. Also, since so many people listen on earphones nowadays, you pretty much have to check how your mixes are going to sound in that environment.

My 2-3 hour impression is that this plugin definitely makes a difference in terms of what panning sounds like in headphones. If you click the plugin on and off while monitoring, you can hear a big difference. However, another thing I know from experience is that reverb sounds way different when you compare a headphones to speakers -- specifically, what sounds like a proper amount of reverb over cans, sounds like too much reverb when you switch to speakers. I'm not sure this plugin addresses that issue. Clicking it on and off on the master bus, I don't really hear a big instant change in reverb and ambient spatial dimension. Need to try more tests....

Obviously, with just a few hours of testing, I need to keep working with this plugin more to decide if I think it is a gimmick or something I'll find really useful. I don't think I could ever trust it to do a mix without also checking with speakers, but who knows, maybe in a pinch... One thing they say is that beyond mixing, it leads to less ear fatigue when monitoring over headphones for an extended period of time...

I'm curious to get your thoughts on this plugin, Motunation. Has anyone used it? If not, what do you think about these kind of mix-over-headphones products in general? Has anyone tried other similar products?

Thx,
Babz

I'm going to check it out, Babz. Thanks for the review. A good headphone mix has to include a little of each channel in the opposite ear, the way we actually hear things. Conversely, the trouble with headphones is that they isolate the ears from opposite channels, and the mix is strangely interpreted by the brain. Whole different sound.

Does the Waves plugin do that? Is it feeding a controllable level of the opposite channels, slightly delayed, to the opposite ears? I guess my questions will be answered when I click on the link; right? Ok... I'll go do that.

I used to have a great little headphone mixer plugin that I kept on a separate output track labeled "Headphones" of course. I don't remember its name now. Red-something. The developer, unfortunately, died suddenly and all development on it ceased, as far as I know. It's about time for a replacement to come along, after all these years.

thanks again, Babz,
Shooshie

Yeah, I remember that one, Shoosh. Got it but never tried it, of course...

Hey Babz.

I know nothing about these "sims", but have a thought to share:

My guess is that an impulse response captured with a flat stereo-mic pair (or binaural mics) and preamp, from your seated-mixing position, of your speakers, will be the only thing that will approximate through headphones what you'd otherwise hear in the room. You could try running the IR in ProVerb on the master / monitor bus.

That said, in theory if others have captured IRs of this nature of ideal mixing-room setups, from, obviously, the mixing sweet spots, whacking them into ProVerb as described (Mix parameter set to 100%) should put you in the ballpark, or in this case, the ME's seat.

Obviously this IR approach wouldn't be able to capture all the nuances of the source-speakers' behaviour, which is why I suspect there are commercial opportunities where more in-depth modelling such as that which this Waves Nx plug-in sports is concerned.

To answer your 'verb / ambience "question":
I reckon the reason you're not noticing as huge a difference as when you add / remove / add your headphones is that the modelling is (an assumption here) based on whichever monitors (selectable within the plug?) are selected within an ideal or at least very-high-end room. Unless yours matches the frequency response, RT60 time and so on of this room, the big difference you hear should be expected IMHO. IOW, your room is more live-sounding ('verb) and this, along with your monitor placement (size of the triangle between your head and the drivers, nearby reflective surfaces such as your desktop / mixer / racks) would affect the stereo spread you spoke of.

Just an impulsive response (pun intended) to your request for thoughts. Be well, Babz.

Ok, I checked out the videos. What I described above is exactly what they are doing with NX.
Waves NX Explained

There's one significant advantage with Waves NX: you can listen to 5.1 mixes through your headphones and hear them as you would in a room. Or so they say.

Might be worth the $100.

Shoosh

monkey man wrote:Yeah, I remember that one, Shoosh. Got it but never tried it, of course...

I think it was called Red Line. Or Redline. Or something like that. Seems there was more to the name than that. It was nice, and I thought it produced a pretty "room-like" headphone mix. Of course, the Waves plug offers 5.1 mixing, too, and that alone might be worth the price of admission.

Shoosh

Yeah, definitely Red something-or-other. I remember at the time assuming it was IR-based.

There's also the BeyerDynamic Virtual Studio Monitoring Plug-In, a freebie from a while back. Also IR-based I reckon.

The waves effort undoubtedly takes this sort of thing to new heights. Hopefully those of us who have Wave allergies can benefit from the eventual trickle-down effect.

I've had this for a couple of weeks, and it can help with mixing stereo on headphones in instances where monitors are not available or feasible to use, but I would not trust it completely (in other words verify it on regular monitors).

One area of potential is developing audio for VR applications. Waves isn't specifically saying such AFAIK, but NX it relies on motion tracking, which is in the realm of 3d VR, so I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually go that direction.

Here's another great headphone monitoring option:

http://sonarworks.com/

This Master track plugin works for a variety of different headphones, which they have already calibrated for you.

I've been using it with Beyerdynamic 770 Pro's when needed (like not wanting to bore or bother anyone)

You can get a great result with just the headphones, but I've been double-checking and doing the final touch ups to the mix back on the studio monitors.

artfarm1 wrote: I've been using it with Beyerdynamic 770 Pro's when needed (like not wanting to bore or bother anyone)

You can get a great result with just the headphones, but I've been double-checking and doing the final touch ups to the mix back on the studio monitors.

Thanks for the tip. I use the Beyerdyamics as well, so this plugin looks quite interesting to me.

What might be cool, as a next generation step, would be if the could combine something like this with some sort of speaker modeling. So it would not only make headphones sound like speakers, but you could select different models of speakers. We seen mic modeling, and I seem to recall some have attempted speaker modeling (Roland I think at one point did). Don't know how well it works. Just an idea.

Babz

monkey man wrote:Yeah, definitely Red something-or-other. I remember at the time assuming it was IR-based.

Found it, Shoosh:

https://www.112db.com/redline/monitor/

So Babz and others, how are you feeling about NX at this point. (Did you get NX Shooshie?) Is it translating well for you when you move back and forth to your speakers?

labman wrote:So Babz and others, how are you feeling about NX at this point. (Did you get NX Shooshie?) Is it translating well for you when you move back and forth to your speakers?

I did not get it, but I probably will at some point. I avoid mixing in headphones these days, not because people say it's a bad way to mix, but because it aggravates my tinnitus. After headphones, my ears ring like the bells of Notre Dame.

I can tell you from what I've seen of their demos that this is a good thing. They are doing all the right things, so unless they royally screwed it up in the implementation (not likely, this is Waves we're talking about), this should produce a headphone mix (even if not the exact same sound) that is nearly identical to your speakers, once you've set it up.

Shooshie

The Beyer speaker emulation for phones is quite good to my ears.
I use it sometimes when speakers are not available.
Good value for the price, IMHO.
Hey, it's free...