r/mixing

What I’m looking in them for:
- Mixing & mastering
- Recording vocals too
- Clear vocals without harsh/piercing highs
- Tight/full low end
- Accurate enough to trust mixes
- Comfortable for long sessions
- Don’t get too hot
- Translate well
- Bedroom producer setup (room isn’t perfectly treated)
- Under $400
- Something durable that will last

A big thing: I think I’m sensitive to treble/brightness. I want clarity, but not headphones that become fatiguing after an hour. I still want music to feel full and immersive, not thin, distant, or sterile.

For context, I used Beyerdynamic Custom One Pros for years and honestly never liked them much. They always felt simultaneously too bright/sharp AND too thin/weak sounding. Listening became tiring fast, and I constantly felt like I wanted more body/fullness from the music but never got it.

Because of that, I eventually started mixing more on my consumer headphones (Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless), mainly because they felt fuller and easier on my ears. Plus I knew them better.

Now I’m trying to find something smoother, fuller, clearer, and accurate enough to trust without harsh highs on proper studio headphones. I’m looking for something that I will listen ALL music to.

My biggest confusion is open-back vs closed-back.
People say…

“You NEED open backs for mixing.”
But then others say open backs can feel weak/light on bass and less immersive. Basically what you need for mixing, but I wanna enjoy the process of making as well.

Closed backs seem more practical for vocal recording because of less bleed, and I do like the more “inside the music” feeling they tend to have.
At the same time, I’m worried about buying something too colored or misleading for mixing/mastering.

Right now I’m considering:
Sennheiser HD600
Sennheiser HD650 / 6XX
Sennheiser HD490 Pro
HIFIMAN Sundara Closed Back
Slate VSX / VSX One
(Though I really have no idea)

Attracted to Sennheiser cause I’m pretty happy with my consumer ones from them. Though, they are open back and I’m sort of leaning closed-back because I also need to track vocals, and want sort of isolation from the outside world. but I genuinely don’t know at this point what the smarter choice is if I can only buy ONE pair right now.

Would really appreciate advice from people who mix/record professionally or who’ve owned multiple of these.

If you could only choose ONE pair for both mixing and vocal recording in a bedroom studio, what would you buy?

As the post says, should we jump ship? I feel like I see less and less work on the horizon and a lot of friends are out of work at the moment and I honestly just don't know how longer I can keep going? Is it the industry because of AI or is it the industry is just in the shitter because the economy is in the shitter and will hopefully see an upturn eventually? Maybe its time to learn some new things and move on before its to late and im scrambling. How are you homies out there holding up ?

Since I was 19, I’ve been honing my craft as a rock songwriter/guitarist/singer and I’m pretty proud of how much I’ve improved by 25. However, my mixing skills feel like they hit a brick wall somewhere in the past few years.

No matter how many notes I take, how many times I re-record, how many iterations I export, they all sound like crap once I try my earbuds or my car speakers.

I honestly don’t know what the hell I’m missing. I’ve tried EQ, compression, balancing levels, and in the end the only way I can describe the mix is cheap (which is infuriating considering the amount of money I’ve put into this hobby).

Every instrument feels like it’s stuck in the centre (despite the overheads and most of the guitars being panned hard to the sides), the vocals get buried by the guitars but stick out like a sore thumb the moment I turn them up, the drums have no power whatsoever and (again) either get buried by the guitars or drown out the guitars with no in-between.

I won’t say my mixes are as bad as they were 3 years ago, but after every tangible improvement I’ve made, these issues haven’t budged and just seem simply intangible by now. I have no clue where the problem lies.

I’ll include my latest mix here for reference and any tips would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to be as blunt as humanly possible.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10jWpnf33v5tQNfOpCL2x3MmlqG891X9\_/view?usp=drive\_web

I've been trying to figure out a way to make it sound decent but every time i mix it it's either too much distortion and gain on the lower strings so the higher strings sound bad, or too little gain so the lower strings sound weak but the higher strings sound normal. I'm also struggling to get a good amount of low end on it so the low strings don't have so much rumble but the high strings still have some low end.

Been mixing an album for about a year. I have most songs where they sound great in car, Bluetooth, earbuds, speakers etc. Every time I listen to it through phone speakers it sounds weirdly harsh and washy - especially in hi hats and vocals. The only solution I’ve found is to dull those upper mids/highs - but then it sounds lifeless on any other speakers.

Not sure how professional records were able to achieve brightness that doesn’t sound harsh on phone speakers, but many have.

Note: My mixes sum to mono with little phase issue - at least according to meters.

Note2: this is not mastered, just mixed

Appreciate any thoughts or tips appreciated - as this has been relatively frustrating.

Hi all. First of all I don’t even know if this is a good place to ask this question but I’ll try.

I am a bedroom musician with a very minimalistic studio (a laptop and a DAW, pair of monitors, a midi controller and a bass and a electric guitar). Learning about music production and sound design all by myself, developing some ideas very slowly over time.

My monitors are yamaha HS5. A lot of times I don’t hear changes that I do inside a daw, I only hear if I do some aggressive tweaking. I have this setup for 3 years now.

Do I need better monitors (not bigger, but better, I’m open for suggestions) or this problem is something else? I don’t have much information since I’m learning all by myself and doing everything by ear.

Thanks in advance.

It is my first time with mixing my own vocals

Been writing music for a few years, just started mixing my own vocals.

Went from cheap KZ earphones (\~$6) to Samson SR850 + Maono condenser mic + budget Riworal interface. Using FL Studio and trying to keep things simple.

Main issue: my mix sounds good inside FL, but after export it sounds very different—usually muddy.

Any idea what could be causing this or what I should check and what is the right order of the plugins should i use? I have antares, waves, valhalla, plugins as of now.

Hey all, I'd love some feedback on my 2nd hip hop mix about our survival needs.

Survival

Is there anything sticking out that could be fixed?

Anything I could improve?

Anything that sticks out in a good way?

This is my 1st time building a drum kit & beat from scratch, I usually use AD2 for acoustic drum kit.

This was also my first time with my new mic (AKG c214) after testing a handful with my voice. I'm actually pretty jazzed about how it softens my voice a bit, and the more Lofi quality of it. It felt much easier to mix than my sm7b.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Not entirely sure if this is the right subreddit because tbh I know nothing about this. But I've seen recently a lot of people combining songs kind of DJ style (I told you I really know nothing) on tiktok using a new Spotify feature. I was super excited to try it bc I listen to a lot of music but then I saw it uses AI, which I'm staunchly against. Are there any programs for complete beginners that work similarly but without the artificial lack of intelligence?