catching alot of headphone bleed

[KeMiKaL]

when my artist records.. he likes his headphones to b awfully loud.... its bleeds into the mic when he record... then I go to apply some nice EQing thatll touch up his voice, the bleed becomes more audible... its drivin me nuts..

ive tried a gate but it only messes up the vocals rather than fix my problem...

[Musiclab]

get closed headphones

[matthew.sawicki]

Tell your artist to save his ears and turn down the cans. The best way to get bleed out of your mic is not to let it happen in the first place.

[poncival]

Yeah, sometimes in this situation you can sneak the send to the headphones down a little bit at a time WHILE HE IS SINGING and he might not notice- every dB counts! If that doesn't work (or if he says "why is it quieter now?") you have to confront the issue and see what is more important to him- having all that "inspiration" blasted into his ears til they bleed, or getting a decent "useable" vocal sound?

[s.d.finley]

Closed back headphones + Expander = minimal bleed...

[poncival]

I mean until his EARS bleed, not the headphones...

[ninjaneer]

+1 for closed headphones..

or a towel over the ones you have..
looks crazy but works.

[deuc647]

use a gate

[thefunkhunter]

get some senheisser hd headphones good quality one of the best in the biz.

[matthew.sawicki]

Originally Posted by KeMiKaL

ive tried a gate but it only messes up the vocals rather than fix my problem...

Originally Posted by deuc647

use a gate

I think he already tried that.

Plus, gating a main vocal is never a very natural sounding thing, IMO.

[swisha31]

just tell him the truth.....................tell him he is messing up the mix and needs to turn it down. as long as he can hear himself, through the track and at a pretty good level then that's all that matters anyway.

I woulda told him a while ago not to do thattutt

[deuc647]

Damn, i didnt even catch that

[PettyCash]

Simply just get headphones that fit more snug around the ears, and tell them to make sure that they wear the headphones properly over their head.

You cant tell the artist anything about having the volume lower, because you want to make sure that their mood for putting out a great performance is not comprimised.
So what ever they want, they get, as long as it contributes to a great performance on their end.

Put on your mix engineering cap afterwards and do what you got to do to drown out the bleed from the vocal take.
The bleed shouldnt be as bad now if you are using better fitted headphones, which will also allow you to not have the volume up as high, because the closed ear design will trap in more of the sound.

[matthew.sawicki]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

You cant tell the artist anything about having the volume lower, because you want to make sure that their mood for putting out a great performance is not comprimised.
So what ever they want, they get, as long as it contributes to a great performance on their end.

I strongly disagree that any artist will ever need to have their headphones so loud that you can distinctly hear them in the mic. There's absolutely no reason to listen to music that loud.

If your artist can't deal, your artist is lame.

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by matthew.sawicki

I strongly disagree that any artist will ever need to have their headphones so loud that you can distinctly hear them in the mic. There's absolutely no reason to listen to music that loud.

If your artist can't deal, your artist is lame.

I think you completely missed the point I was trying to make somewhere along the way of reading my post and scratching your ignorant head.

The point I was trying to make was that while trying to address an issue occuring during a studio session, you want to try and disturb the artist as little as possible.

Taking care of headphone bleed is not as simple as turning down the volume on that artist. As an engineer its your job to make sure you have all YOUR ends covered FIRST. If you have to buy closed ear headphones to lessen the effects of headphone bleed, then its your job to try and do so first before asking the artist to deal with hearing back less volume than what he or she desires.

Of course if they want to hear it so loud that closed ear headphones dont help, then its obviously way too loud and they must be near hearing loss. Cheap headphones or open ear headphone designs can leak an audiable amount of sound into your recording even at typical monitoring levels, which is why you have the alternative of using a fully closed ear design.

Matthew here is a good thought...... maybe you will learn the benefit of thinking about and handling all artists in a better matter when you finally have enough experience and gain the opportunity to work with some real good artists. Think about that....

[t.dizzle]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

Matthew here is a good thought...... maybe you will learn the benefit of thinking about and handling all artists in a better matter when you finally have enough experience and gain the opportunity to work with some real good artists. Think about that....

thumbsup

[matthew.sawicki]

Originally Posted by PettyCash

I think you completely missed the point I was trying to make somewhere along the way of reading my post and scratching your ignorant head.

The point I was trying to make was that while trying to address an issue occuring during a studio session, you want to try and disturb the artist as little as possible.

Taking care of headphone bleed is not as simple as turning down the volume on that artist. As an engineer its your job to make sure you have all YOUR ends covered FIRST. If you have to buy closed ear headphones to lessen the effects of headphone bleed, then its your job to try and do so first before asking the artist to deal with hearing back less volume than what he or she desires.

Of course if they want to hear it so loud that closed ear headphones dont help, then its obviously way too loud and they must be near hearing loss. Cheap headphones or open ear headphone designs can leak an audiable amount of sound into your recording even at typical monitoring levels, which is why you have the alternative of using a fully closed ear design.

Matthew here is a good thought...... maybe you will learn the benefit of thinking about and handling all artists in a better matter when you finally have enough experience and gain the opportunity to work with some real good artists. Think about that....

I'm not having a headphones problem, nor do my artists ever say anything about needing more volume that would ever bleed into my mic. I work with artists that are just swell btw...

[yaboicheeze]

yeah you definatly need better headphones go spend $200 on a nice pair that fits properly ....... dont gate your vocals ............bad idea........thats good for silence spaces in beats and sh!t like that but not when it comes to dry rap vocals...... if you get a n decent pair of headphones just make sure your artist is wearing them properly........ not only on one ear and sh!t like that ya feel me...... im the same way i turn my headphones up as loud as possible and i never have this problem because i have decent headphones.......also ..........if you already have closed headphones and you are having this problem still you might have your mic way to loud

[Stitch333]

Originally Posted by matthew.sawicki

I strongly disagree that any artist will ever need to have their headphones so loud that you can distinctly hear them in the mic.

as an engineer, or even producer, that is not your call to make how loud an artist wants to have their cans. And if you are making choices like that for an artist in your booth, you are not a good engineer at all. If you actually work with more than a couple of artists (who wont be told what to do by you) you will run into this situation.
Go listen to some accapellas of 'big artists'...very often you will hear that same bleed.

FWIW
Closed cans do it every time in my sessions for monitor mix isolation.
But even a little monitor bleed is really unnoticable in the mix.

[BunDLeZ]

Originally Posted by thefunkhunter

get some senheisser hd headphones good quality one of the best in the biz.

I got tha HD 580...Very little bleed!!!

[bitman]

Pfft!

Extreme Isolation Headphones. $89.00 new.
Done.

[matthew.sawicki]

Originally Posted by Stitch333

as an engineer, or even producer, that is not your call to make how loud an artist wants to have their cans. And if you are making choices like that for an artist in your booth, you are not a good engineer at all. If you actually work with more than a couple of artists (who wont be told what to do by you) you will run into this situation.
Go listen to some accapellas of 'big artists'...very often you will hear that same bleed.

FWIW
Closed cans do it every time in my sessions for monitor mix isolation.
But even a little monitor bleed is really unnoticable in the mix.

I hear ya completely, I guess I just haven't run into that situation. My headphones have never really presented a problem though.

[MERC476]

Originally Posted by BunDLeZ

I got tha HD 580...Very little bleed!!!

I went from the Sony MDR 7506 to the Sennheiser HD 280's totally killed all the bleeding for me.

[DAH]

Originally Posted by BunDLeZ

I got tha HD 580...Very little bleed!!!

+1 thumbsup

[Mod Masochist]

Seinheisers are great,

ultrasones are better,

if he wont let you turn the headphones down then throw him a pair of studio cans. After a few takes he will want the comfort back. your phones are easy to blow with these guys that are half deaf.

Find out why he wants the headphones up, maybe he just needs to hear his voice more and doesnt really want to ask. Ive always found comunication is hard to get from those who don't understand much of the studio side of things.

my two $0.01


DP

[stevep]

if he wants it loud , why not just track the vocals in the control room ?

Sen 280 are some good closed cans and are around 99$

i always start with the open cans and if there is to much bleed (mostly click track) i give them the closed ones

[Fretbored]

Originally Posted by KeMiKaL

when my artist records.. he likes his headphones to b awfully loud.... its bleeds into the mic when he record... then I go to apply some nice EQing thatll touch up his voice, the bleed becomes more audible... its drivin me nuts..

ive tried a gate but it only messes up the vocals rather than fix my problem...

This sort of mistake should never make it past tracking. Solo the vocal before you print. If the bleed is that out of hand and you're out of headphones, cram some ipod earbuds in his ears.

[PettyCash]

Audio Technica ATHM40fs. Very tight fitting over the head and ears with out feeling annoying and uncomfortable, which is great to have for long ass hours of monitoring/playback.

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by KeMiKaL
when my artist records.. he likes his headphones to b awfully loud.... its bleeds into the mic when he record... then I go to apply some nice EQing thatll touch up his voice, the bleed becomes more audible... its drivin me nuts..

ive tried a gate but it only messes up the vocals rather than fix my problem...

Originally Posted by Fretbored

This sort of mistake should never make it past tracking. Solo the vocal before you print. If the bleed is that out of hand and you're out of headphones, cram some ipod earbuds in his ears.

With the way Kemikal is describing it, he should be able to look at the waveform of the vocal track while its recording and tell that the bleed is going to be bad when he sees a big, thick ass line being recorded during all the silent parts throughout the take.

For the most part, if the bleed is only subtle, the empty spaces in the vocal track should appear fairly clean if not totally clean.

I was actually experiencing this issue in a session this evening at my suburban studio. The headphones that were being used by the artist was leaking out sound like no tomorrow, even after I lowered the monitor playback quite a bit. I guess it was just the design of those headphones, and the fact that the singer just couldn't seem to fit them on snug enough to trap in any sound.

I substituted in a set of ATHM40fs I had brought with me to the session, and finally the problem was solved, very minimal bleed at the volume I was trying to work with originally.

That shizzle does get annoying quick though, when you have to break the momentum of the session to play around with monitor levels, when the real problem was the headphones in use to begin with.

[Fretbored]

Maybe he would agree to wear ear muffs next vocal session.