Mixing Engineers

We should make that a category.

Today, I asked myself: "What headphones are most popular with Mix Engineers?". **

Finding: There no way to answer that question via Equipboard.

1. I can go to Musical Instruments / Headphones and sort by "Most Used by Artists"... but that's it. I can't sort by "Most used by Bassists", "Producers", "Engineers", etc.

2. As pointed out by the OP, and this is still true 2 years on: a lot of the top Mix Engineers working today don't even have profiles on Equipboard in the first place. I just added Manny Marroquin a few minutes ago.

Currently, the #1 headphone "Most used by Artists" is a pair of DJ headphones. If I could filter by "Most used by Engineers", I suspect the top model wouldn't be a pair of DJ headphones.

Is anyone else curious about this stuff?

** I don't mix on headphones, nor am I an aspiring Mix Engineer. Mixing on headphones for brave people who have no reasonable alternative and/or only care what their stuff sound like on headphones.

...and no, I'm not sorry for necro-ing this thread at all. I'm proud and happy to do it.

Doesn't this fall under "Audio Engineers" now (innocent question)?

Doesn't this fall under "Audio Engineers" now (innocent question)?

We have the category of "Audio Engineers", and I'm fine to heap Recording, Mixing, Live Sound etc Engineers into one category, as it's no more reductive than any of the other categories.

My point was that "What headphones are popular with Engineers?" seems like a EB kind of question, but there is no way to answer that question on EB.

... and, secondarily, I was surprised that nobody visiting the site seems to care about Engineers who are in their prime, still alive, and younger than 60 years old. I necro'd the thread because I was shocked to find (as the OP did) that a lot of the current "top" Mix Engineers didn't even have profiles on the site.

Doesn't this fall under "Audio Engineers" now (innocent question)?

We have the category of "Audio Engineers", and I'm fine to heap Recording, Mixing, Live Sound etc Engineers into one category, as it's no more reductive than any of the other categories.

My point was that "What headphones are popular with Engineers?" seems like a EB kind of question, but there is no way to answer that question on EB.

I can tell you revived this one to see if I would rant and you will not be let down. I would say that a studio mixer's job has more in common with a front if house engineer. When I occassionally work as a tracking engineer my focus is a lot different than when I'm mixing a record or at a performance at a venue. My methods vary depending on whether it's a record or FOH, but I might rack up some of the same tools I use in my home studio for a sound reinforcement gig. That said, sound reinforcement is very different as it's entirely environmental.

You mentioned Manny Maroquin, there are a slew more guys out there deserving of a separate category. Bob Clearmountain (the OG), Alan Moulder, Andy Wallace (king of the 90s), the Lord-Alge bros and especially Michael Brauer (wanna here a perfect mix, put on The New Radicals) come to mind immediately. They all like really specific stuff and use it in specific ways. The Brauerize method of mixing is particularly deserving of a separate category.

If we did this category I would immediately start populating it with engineers and their gear and plugins. I would also include detailed explanations of how they use this stuff. In many instances I have it straight from their mouths.

For example my 2 favorite reverbs were recommended by Albini and Roger Nicols respectively. My late friend Mike Tarsia told me that before sampling they used to tighten the snares on a drum at mix and blast a tuned oscillator into it from a speaker laying on the top with a pencil mic underneath and then return that to an aux through a kepex gate keyed to open by the live snare track to add snap and pitch... I still do that sometimes. I actually have ungated recordings of that I can use when mixing.

Steve had a trick with valley dynamites to tame snare in the overheads on punk drummers. I think it's in a YouTube video because I didn't get it from him directly, but that could be taken down at any time.

As a recording engineer Roger got his classic funk kick sound by sticking one of those ray gun looking EV stage mics with the integral stand mount right in the drum so that the sheer SPL would snack the cartridge right against the back of its travel and an artificial low thump lol. I guess that's not for this category but whatever.

I bring those 3 guys up because they're all dead now. A separate category would make it easy to search gear and someone like me would preserve their methods in the entry for that gear providing an easy reference for people trying to figure out ways to use this stuff... mix engineers are pretty sophisticated, out of the box (even when In The Box) thinkers. It would be great to document tools and methods before some of this stuff is lost to time.

EDIT: And it's not just for specific gear. That snare buzz trick works great with plugins, the kepex has a real sound to it, but anything with a sidechain input will do. Theres even a free vst called snare buzz that sort of simulates this trick although it's all strainers with no tone resonating the body of the snare (when I like the body of the recorded snare it okan to layer a sample Andy Wallace style I just use the plugin if I want more sizzle, not the 70s trick.But we should be able to see what mix engineers are using certain things from monitors to specific compressors. It's easier. With Brauer he's even made his bus compressor calibration method public and I think everyone could learn a lot from that. It's real engineering that's going to enlighten beginners and veterans alike.

... and, secondarily, I was surprised that nobody visiting the site seems to care about Engineers who are in their prime, still alive, and younger than 60 years old. I necro'd the thread because I was shocked to find (as the OP did) that a lot of the current "top" Mix Engineers didn't even have profiles on the site.

Sorry to make it about dead guys but as I said, I went there for a reason! I too am surprised how little respect the current top mixers get here. On other forums some of these folks have whole cults formed around them.

I don't mix on headphones, nor am I an aspiring Mix Engineer. Mixing on headphones for brave people who have no reasonable alternative and/or only care what their stuff sound like on headphones.

Good. Thanks for staying off my lawn. I might mix 3 songs without doing a headphone check if everything sounds cool on different speakers. Every once in awhile I'll do a check on some AKGs. Everything always sounds better on cans to me which makes me lazy if I do a headphone check. If I mistly check on my crumbly 90s tannoys or ns10s they really prevent early onset "close enough syndrome" (my term)

I can tell you revived this one to see if I would rant and you will not be let down. I would say that a studio mixer's job has more in common with a front if house engineer. When I occassionally work as a tracking engineer my focus is a lot different than when I'm mixing a record or at a performance at a venue. My methods vary depending on whether it's a record or FOH, but I might rack up some of the same tools I use in my home studio for a sound reinforcement gig. That said, sound reinforcement is very different as it's entirely environmental.

When I say I am "fine" to lump all Engineers together, that does not mean I think it's a great situation... it's just that teasing out all the very different Engineering roles feels too granular for where EB is at right now.

You mentioned Manny Maroquin, there are a slew more guys out there deserving of a separate category. Bob Clearmountain (the OG), Alan Moulder, Andy Wallace (king of the 90s), the Lord-Alge bros and especially Michael Brauer (wanna here a perfect mix, put on The New Radicals) come to mind immediately. They all like really specific stuff and use it in specific ways. The Brauerize method of mixing is particularly deserving of a separate category.

At least the Engineers you mentioned have profiles here. It's a start.

If we did this category I would immediately start populating it with engineers and their gear and plugins. I would also include detailed explanations of how they use this stuff. In many instances I have it straight from their mouths.

There is nothing stopping us from beefing up the profiles of these folks right now, and if you were into a specific Engineer, you could look them up and see what gear they used via Equipboard without any changes to the site... but there would still be no way to see, for example, what monitors are most popular with Engineers as a category.

I bring those 3 guys up because they're all dead now. A separate category would make it easy to search gear and someone like me would preserve their methods in the entry for that gear providing an easy reference for people trying to figure out ways to use this stuff... mix engineers are pretty sophisticated, out of the box (even when In The Box) thinkers. It would be great to document tools and methods before some of this stuff is lost to time.

Agreed. But, again, there is nothing stopping us from logging all this stuff right now, it's just that we end users can't look at Engineers, Mix Engineers, FoH Engineers, etc as a group to see what tools are popular for that slice of the Artist pool. We can only look at each Engineer's choices individually, or look at all Artists in one huge lump.

Sorry to make it about dead guys but as I said, I went there for a reason! I too am surprised how little respect the current top mixers get here. On other forums some of these folks have whole cults formed around them.

What got me wondering was seeing that Audeze has a line of headphones co-developed with Many M., and the dude didn't even have a profile here.... surprising.

I don't mix on headphones, nor am I an aspiring Mix Engineer. Mixing on headphones for brave people who have no reasonable alternative and/or only care what their stuff sound like on headphones.

Good. Thanks for staying off my lawn. I might mix 3 songs without doing a headphone check if everything sounds cool on different speakers. Every once in awhile I'll do a check on some AKGs. Everything always sounds better on cans to me which makes me lazy if I do a headphone check. If I mistly check on my crumbly 90s tannoys or ns10s they really prevent early onset "close enough syndrome" (my term)

I can understand folks that are way early in their journey, who have roommates, or otherwise don't have access to their own sound-insulated space, needing to make do with headphones as their primary listening device for a rough mix... 100% sympathetic to that situation, that was me in college, and me whenever my housemates were home at the same time I was during my early 20s... but it's the folks who can spend $500+ on headphones, who have the means to mix on speakers, but stubbornly insist that headphones are still the way to go for mixing, just because they want that the be the reality, because they have a headphone fetish... IDK, I hope that I'm just imagining those folks exist, and all the folks arguing for hours about which expensive headphones to mix on are just stuck in situations where speakers aren't an option... because I agree that it's too easy to make things sound great on headphones, and making everything work out in the wilds of the open air is still priority #1.

When I see a YouTube video urge me to put on headphones so that things "sound their best", I judge... I judge hard when I see that. To me, this is someone saying "I couldn't be bothered to make this audible on a smartphone speaker, HiFi speakers, etc. and/or I don't trust that you already know how much better things sound on headphones."

When I say I am "fine" to lump all Engineers together, that does not mean I think it's a great situation... it's just that teasing out all the very different Engineering roles feels too granular for where EB is at right now.

I was trying to do a bit of bothsidesism, that certain tasks like mixing have a lot of overlap regardless of the particular type of mixing, but I would like to get granular here because all honor is due to the engineers, we put up with so much BS and still accomplish things that the artist can't do as well themselves and we're being shoehorned out of the process. Each step requires a different focus and a different set of people skills.

You mentioned Manny Maroquin, there are a slew more guys out there deserving of a separate category. Bob Clearmountain (the OG), Alan Moulder, Andy Wallace (king of the 90s), the Lord-Alge bros and especially Michael Brauer (wanna here a perfect mix, put on The New Radicals) come to mind immediately. They all like really specific stuff and use it in specific ways. The Brauerize method of mixing is particularly deserving of a separate category.

At least the Engineers you mentioned have profiles here. It's a start.

fo rizzle, but giving them separate credits for their various specialties would be great! obviously you don't always use a stereo compressor in tracking, maybe on an xy pair to peak limit something like an acoustic guitar, but someone listed as a mix engineer? this guy's using specific stereo units for specific tasks in specific ways, I wanna know what's popular with who. A lot of guys will just be an SSL G type thing on the 2bus, but there are some pretty wild choices from some pretty heavy dudes I'd love to have documented and easily searchable so you could get rankings of the most popular stereo units just with studio mix engineers. Or if I had a page you would find I use a pretty diverse variety of stuff for different jobs and it kinda evolves, like I fooled around with using the warm bus comp, which is a Gbus clone, strapped across a bass amp track that I'd slapped stereo chorus on, I went compression after chorus, cause why not? then the DI got a pro vla2 or something similar, 1 channel, mono, no chorus, totally different time constants. you might wanna see that I use that stereo compressor and then know how I've used it apart from strapped across the 2bus like sane people do. Okay, no one cares what I do, but it was a for instance.

If we did this category I would immediately start populating it with engineers and their gear and plugins. I would also include detailed explanations of how they use this stuff. In many instances I have it straight from their mouths.

There is nothing stopping us from beefing up the profiles of these folks right now, and if you were into a specific Engineer, you could look them up and see what gear they used via Equipboard without any changes to the site... but there would still be no way to see, for example, what monitors are most popular with Engineers as a category.

I should get to that, adding gear I know and improving notes to explain the uses if I'm privy to what was done.

We can only look at each Engineer's choices individually, or look at all Artists in one huge lump.

we should remedy this and ultra-granularity be damned...

What got me wondering was seeing that Audeze has a line of headphones co-developed with Many M., and the dude didn't even have a profile here.... surprising.

did you make him one? sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself, I can't remember what you said last night because that was last night... I've been curious about those Slate cans

I can understand folks that are way early in their journey, who have roommates, or otherwise don't have access to their own sound-insulated space, needing to make do with headphones as their primary listening device for a rough mix... 100% sympathetic to that situation, that was me in college, and me whenever my housemates were home at the same time I was during my early 20s...

I get that but I encourage everyone to get some direct field type monitors right away, if you wanna do this from conception to finished product you better have speakers.

but it's the folks who can spend $500+ on headphones, who have the means to mix on speakers, but stubbornly insist that headphones are still the way to go for mixing, just because they want that the be the reality, because they have a headphone fetish... IDK, I hope that I'm just imagining those folks exist, and all the folks arguing for hours about which expensive headphones to mix on are just stuck in situations where speakers aren't an option... because I agree that it's too easy to make things sound great on headphones, and making everything work out in the wilds of the open air is still priority #1.

I personally know that guy, he runs a basement project studio and he's a dope, literally too stoned to be useful. 500 bucks on AKGs that sound basically the same as my 50 dollar AKGs.... bad microphone selection, junk speakers and no monitor control, just a mess. The drums room does sound really good, although no one knew it until I did drums there one weekend. I honestly don't think things sound truly better on headphones. Itys right in your ear so even at reasonable monitoring levels it always sounds louder and fuller. You're also shut off from anything but the music, so much of what you're getting is resonating through your head and then back into your ears via weird bone conduction and stuff, don't ask me for good science, but you know what I'm saying. I think that closed environment is way worse than a room full of standing waves.

When I see a YouTube video urge me to put on headphones so that things "sound their best", I judge... I judge hard when I see that. To me, this is someone saying "I couldn't be bothered to make this audible on a smartphone speaker, HiFi speakers, etc. and/or I don't trust that you already know how much better things sound on headphones."

I scoff at a lot of people because their thoughts are scoff worthy.... think what you want but don't disseminate misinformation (not you, the stupid kid on youtube who thinks he's god's gift and has nothing to learn), if you were right about headphones, no commercial studio would invest in speakers. Commercial studios have always sought to make money, first and foremost. It's a lot of overhead and the clientele aren't people known for timely payment . Smart studio managers (not the manager of Smart Studios, there wasn't one LOL) don't buy anything they don't really need. If headphones were all you need speaker would've become an oddity long ago, an optional item like a large format console. Studios that lose money lose their lease or mortgage, full stop.

EDIT: my #1 rule of mixing is to "get it to sound as good as it can however I can." If I just mix in the headphone bubble I don't have that 1st part down, all the obvious stuff seems to work fine, fader rides? don't need many, meh. There isn't 'by any means necessary' if I don't feel necessity. Everything communicates well right in your earholes. Its why we don't often make big changes to a track when its soloed. If you zoom the microscope in you lose perspective on the song.