Looking for Loudspeaker simulator plugin for headphones...

[grimepoch]

Now that I have your attention, this months Sound-on-Sound has a *great* article on mixing in headphones. First, I am well aware of how hard this is to do. However, that doesn't change the fact I want to do some writing at 3:30 in the morning and need a bit of a more realistic headphone space

That said, the article has reference to a few plugins, however, not only are they VST (which I do not own a wrapper) but they all appear to be NOT UB versions and the author does not respond.

So with that said, does ANYONE here use a plugin for this sort of this. One that crossblends some of the tone with some reverb and filtering? If so, please, let me know what you use or your experience with such things in DP.

Thanks!

[Spikey Horse]

Audioease have just made a plug which can make your speakers sound like headphones - no wait that's the wrong way round...

I expect you know of those headphones which are supposed to be 'good enough' for mixing - I forget the name/manufacturer but I remember they are very expensive but by all accounts very natural sounding (I mean compared to most headphones). They are more like small speakers which sit quite far from the ear, as you might expect. I'm sure someone will say which ones I mean.

[emulatorloo]

That said, the article has reference to a few plugins, however, not only are they VST (which I do not own a wrapper) but they all appear to be NOT UB versions and the author does not respond.

Out of curiousity what were some of those VST plug-ins called?

-

[pencilina]

I love these (around 100 bux)t:

http://www.gradolabs.com/product_pages/sr80.htm

the bass gets a little hyped in them but they're good for mixing

remember that stereo space/verbs/fx are more intense in cans I think this is something one can get used to if necessary

[Frodo]

Now that I have your attention, this months Sound-on-Sound has a *great* article on mixing in headphones. First, I am well aware of how hard this is to do. However, that doesn't change the fact I want to do some writing at 3:30 in the morning and need a bit of a more realistic headphone space

I need to hunt down the article and also to understand more of what this plugin you speak of really does.

My question regarding any simulation plugin for headphone monitoring is whether it introduces elements for critical listening which won't be there in the final mix. If this is not the case, I'm highly interested in checking out any plugin of this type. (More info, pleeez!)

However, to *write* at 3:30 AM is quite different than to *mix* at 3:30 AM. It sounds to me that for the purpose of simply getting a really good more-than-basic sound going in headphones it requires two or more sets of headphones-- one as flat as possible and another that has a respectable "sweet" sound more in line with how the music might be heard. I use a pair of AKG K240s, Sony V6s, and Sony 7509HDs. I've actually done a few final mixes when daylight hours were not at my disposal and cranking speakers were not an option.

Your "sweet" headsets need not be Sonys, but they ought to be a brand that do justice to the critical listening experience. Grado headsets are also wonderful, and probably one of the best kept secrets where headphones are concerned.

As with speakers, it's important to know your headphones intimately to understand how they translate or don't translate to other playback media.

For monitoring in general, I'll create an independent mono bus apart from the stereo master in DP and fold the entire mix to both places, A/B-ing the two at various levels high and low just as using the Auratone cubes way back when to the same effect.

Since wee-hour headphone monitoring is something I can't avoid, I've been checking out the Beyerdynamic's Headzone, which is a virtual reality headphone mixing environment for surround and stereo applications. Turn your head, and as with speaker mixing, the sound moves with it. At zero degrees forward, the listener has a solid stereo mix. Turn the head 90 degrees to the right, and the entire mix moves to the left side, and so on. This sounds a bit bizarre, but it *is* how ears and speakers work in a non headset environment. Mono fold down can easily be achieved with a Y adapter on the separate stereo headset output, while the surround headset remains the virtual reality environnment.

For $2500 it's cost prohibitive (I'd probably buy a second Mac at this point before getting these), but these headphones do address a need that has either been previously ignored or has been done very poorly to date.

But, fwiw, here's a link with some info that may offer some ideas to help you get to where you need to go.

http://www.headphone.com/guide/by-appli ... -high-end/

Grimepoch, I want to keep up with your search for the grail tool you seek-- please keep us posted.

[Dwetmaster]

This might be useful
http://www.wavearts.com/Panorama5.html

[Frodo]

This might be useful
http://www.wavearts.com/Panorama5.html

Dwet-- that thing looks amazing!!

They also have WaveSurround 4, and I'm trying to sort out if WS4 is a scaled down version of Panorama5 or a different type of spatial enhancer altogether. Panorama is reasonably priced, but WS4 is 1/4 that price. Hmm.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[Shooshie]

As one who is often forced to use headphones more than I would like, I think Panorama looks like it would be incredibly useful. If I'm imagining this correctly, one could use it as the final plugin, say, on the Master fader, and then mix the song as if listening to your near-field monitors. I've tried to develop tricks to help me mix with headphones, but none really are all that accurate. I work with headphones for a while, then go to monitors when I have the chance, then back to headphones. With Panorama, I think you could work with headphones and be confident that when switching to monitors you'd be hearing pretty close to the same mix. I was very impressed with their demos, though I wish they'd chosen some music rather than helicopters and battle sounds.

Shooshie

[Frodo]

As one who is often forced to use headphones more than I would like, I think Panorama looks like it would be incredibly useful. If I'm imagining this correctly, one could use it as the final plugin, say, on the Master fader, and then mix the song as if listening to your near-field monitors. I've tried to develop tricks to help me mix with headphones, but none really are all that accurate. I work with headphones for a while, then go to monitors when I have the chance, then back to headphones. With Panorama, I think you could work with headphones and be confident that when switching to monitors you'd be hearing pretty close to the same mix. I was very impressed with their demos, though I wish they'd chosen some music rather than helicopters and battle sounds.

Shooshie

There was one simple rock demo which appeared to have a certain depth with one instance on each instrument. I'm nearly sold on this-- want to download the demo first before dropping the $200 on it.

Shoosh!! The Socrates of Shred!!

I thought you were on a plane to seek fame and fortune!! Wherever you are, remember that we planned (agreed? promised?) to finally meet up somewhere between TX and the San Andreas Fault this year. I've got you penciled in, but it's underlined with a Sharpie!!

Safe journeys, friend.

[Dwetmaster]

Yeah I found it pretty cool when I bought their power suite bundle. You have to be careful because it had reverb and EQ to recreate the environment thought.

Do you guys know if there would be a way to assign this to my main output all the time??? Even when I'm not in DP? I mean like assign an AU plugin to the hardware output directly?

[monkey man]

Shoosh!! The Socrates of Shred!!

I thought you were on a plane to seek fame and fortune!! Wherever you are, remember that we planned (agreed? promised?) to finally meet up somewhere between TX and the San Andreas Fault this year. I've got you penciled in, but it's underlined with a Sharpie!!

Safe journeys, friend.

Somewhere between TX and the San Andreas Fault, hey?
Don't step on the furball when you get there.

Monkey prays for a meteorological anomaly, as it's the only (albeit highly improbable) way he might get to crash the party...

[grimepoch]

Thanks for all the amazing replies and interest on this subject. Like with most things audio related, we are going to have to get into doing this and see how it works. It's also possible to do this stuff without the need of dedicated plugins, but with the ones we have if we understand the physics behind what is happening.

The article talks about these two products:
http://www.midnightwalrus.com/Canz3D/
http://vellocet.com/software/VNoPhones.html

The first being a lot more controllable than the second. Looking through the article, it talks about what you need to achieve with your headphones that happens in the rooms you are working in. The most important of this of course is feeding some of the sound from each ear to the other ear, slightly delayed and filtered a bit due to what your head is doing. (So those with a big head might have to use bigger filters!)

The wave arts plugin certainly looks VERY interesting. I might have to play with that and see if it easily allows me to setup an environment that at least approximates my studio a little more than now (every little bit helps).

Recently I moved from Sennheiser HD560 headphones to Ultrasone S550 (I believe, not around them at the moment) headphones. All I can say is that these new headphones are amazing. I listened to every headphone I could get my hands on and these were the first that gave me what I felt was a very flat an accurate response. Most headphones either pushed the bass too loud or too soft. (These headphones have off access drivers in them). And, as they claim, since you can listen to the music at a lower level yet get a higher perceived volume out of them due to the off access, I get less ear fatigue.

All of this stems from the fact that when I record my vocals, they sound a LOT better in the headphones than in the loud speakers. I'm trying to close that gap a little.

[Shooshie]

As one who is often forced to use headphones more than I would like, I think Panorama looks like it would be incredibly useful. If I'm imagining this correctly, one could use it as the final plugin, say, on the Master fader, and then mix the song as if listening to your near-field monitors. I've tried to develop tricks to help me mix with headphones, but none really are all that accurate. I work with headphones for a while, then go to monitors when I have the chance, then back to headphones. With Panorama, I think you could work with headphones and be confident that when switching to monitors you'd be hearing pretty close to the same mix. I was very impressed with their demos, though I wish they'd chosen some music rather than helicopters and battle sounds.

Shooshie

There was one simple rock demo which appeared to have a certain depth with one instance on each instrument. I'm nearly sold on this-- want to download the demo first before dropping the $200 on it.

Shoosh!! The Socrates of Shred!!

I thought you were on a plane to seek fame and fortune!! Wherever you are, remember that we planned (agreed? promised?) to finally meet up somewhere between TX and the San Andreas Fault this year. I've got you penciled in, but it's underlined with a Sharpie!!

Safe journeys, friend.

Thanks, man. I'm somewhere a little east of the San Andreas... closer to Yucca Mountain. (actually, I'm just a hop and a skip from the great Pyramid, NY-NY, the Eiffel Tower; betwixt them and Red Rock Canyon... which puts my coordinates at Summerlin, Las Vegas, Nevada. Yep, business. Worse... audition. I've actually got a small case of audition jitters. It's been years since I auditioned for anything! And it's not the sort of thing where we'll know anything for a while. But... if it works... it'll be great. I'll probably move here then, at least for a while.

Pardon me for not answering too many questions recently. I did stay up late last night and let my mouth run on a few threads. Not sure I made any sense.

Anyway... gotta jump. See ya'll on the other side.


Shoosh

[monkey man]

...Pardon me for not answering too many questions recently...

You're a disgrace.

I did stay up late last night and let my mouth run on a few threads. Not sure I made any sense.

The Jedi Council posesses a long and accurate memory.
A sustained, committed effort shall be in order should there be any hope of entering into favour with it once again.

... Anyway... gotta jump. See ya'll on the other side.
Shoosh

Careful! A sustained effort, remember?
Geez, you'll cause someone a heart attack!

[grimepoch]

So I wanted to follow up on this thread after my first initial testing of the Panarama5 plugin. If you didn't know, they give you a 30-day trial to see if you want it.

Last night I brought it in on a track I am having some trouble with. When I sing the vocals and listen to them in the headphones, they sound great. When I listen to them through the monitors, they sound like crap. (Effect chain is dry->Neve1073-UAD->LA-2A->Dreamverb(10%)->wet)

So, I placed the Panarama5 plugin on the master-out and popped on my headphones. For the next half hour I went back and forth between the two of them (obviously bypassing the P5 plugin when listening to my monitors) and can say without question that this simple plugin might just be the answer I was looking for.

The defaults are nice, but I think you really have to tweak it for your situation. As the manual says, everyone's heads are different, and they give you a very nice handful of head transforms to work with.

Stage two of this experiment is to take and fine tune a preset to where I think the vocals sound the same both in the headphones and on the loudspeakers (in this case I am not so concerned with all the other parts of the song, but I am sure those will come up in the future). Once I have them as close as possible, I will work on the tone of the sound from the vocals. Then I will take a sound I like through the filter in the headphones and listen to it on the loudspeakers and see what it sounds like.

I will of course follow up on all this, however, it will be a few days as I just decided to build a vocal booth and it's going to be at least a few more days till I am done with it.