Use of headphones

[JerryPH]

how to look really, really good wearing headphones while recording

She's excused because she was simply amazing... lol
Kidding aside the studio location is the one exception we discussed earlier.

My one time in a real pro studio was at a local radio station where I was making an audio commercial for my employer. Not only was I in a tight soundbooth with a mic in front of me, I had to wear headphones to hear directions from the sound engineer. It was the feeling of being in a mini Faraday cage, and yes I wore a headset... lol

 

[boxplayer4000]

iPhones AND androids using NFS, that same method can be used to not just transfer contacts but at the store to use like a tap credit card, it is also a way to exchange business cards or music files or photos… that’s been around a while, perhaps 6-7 years. This is also the way that a teen went through the New York subway system stealing the info from 25,000 credit cards by just walking past people with a computerized reader while riding the subway during rush hour and made over $5 million dollars in 6 months.

JerryPH: Quite alarming. Surely before the phones are 'clicked' together there is some sort of exchange of password/ID hand-shaking procedure.
Also the teenager who harvested all the security information on the sub-way, on a crowded train he would be close to the victims phone but this is still a bit away from 'clicking' the phones together. I admit to being totally not up to speed on matters smart phone and I would certainly be interested in being pointed in the direction of some information.
Back on subject: Personally I have no problems with headphones but then I use them only in a private place and would certainly not have liked them in a 'live' playing situation. We did use them in a studio recording situation where each of 5 members was in his/her own acoustic space and the whole band sound was folded back to us.
That said, thanks again for all your information on the fascinating subject of recording our favourite instrument.

 

[JerryPH]

JerryPH: Quite alarming. Surely before the phones are 'clicked' together there is some sort of exchange of password/ID hand-shaking procedure.

NFS - near field stream… do you enter a password when tapping? Not sure how he did it, but if you google it , it will show up.

 

[JKJ]

… I myself also think like Jerry that headphones look ridiculous. I can understand the need for them when playing in a group ( sometimes you see a keyboard player wearing them, presumably so that he can hear himself playing ) but in solo playing I still don't get it ). ..

I’ve needed to wear headphones when playing keyboard for a church men’s group, singing outdoors. There was no studio monitor at the keyboard and I couldn’t even hear myself play over the (loud!) singing. If I can’t hear, I can’t play.

One reason to wear headphones (earbuds seem ok) when recording a solo acoustical instrument with microphones is to monitor the mike(s) in case some problem develops during the recording, such as if one mike gets noisy or the sound is unbalanced - this gives time to cut, fix, and start over if needed. Or better, have an audio tech monitor the feed in real time. I always played the role of audio tech when recording live music to mix into videos. (mostly for no-budget videos, primarily voluntary work for church and a missionary friend)

I think someone mentioned using reverb for feedback during a recording - I’m certainly no audio pro but I’ve been told by others they often feed a bit of reverb to the singer’s headphones which can result in more confidence and a better performance, although the actual recording is dry with any reverb or effect added at mix time.

Another thing I think might matter - what is the purpose of the video? If it’s instructional, seeing headphones wouldn’t bother me a bit.

JKJ

 

[Rosie C]

I’ve needed to wear headphones when playing keyboard for a church men’s group, singing outdoors. There was no studio monitor at the keyboard and I couldn’t even hear myself play over the (loud!) singing. If I can’t hear, I can’t play.

For this sort of situation I have in-ear monitors - I can feed in my own signal, but they also cut the ambient sound by 21dB so it doesn't have to be too loud. Having longish curly hair they're pretty much invisible.

 

[JerryPH]

For this sort of situation I have in-ear monitors - I can feed in my own signal, but they also cut the ambient sound by 21dB so it doesn't have to be too loud. Having longish curly hair they're pretty much invisible.

I don’t have long hair, but I found that routing the wire over my ears and behind me is not only comfortable, but the little hair I have hides the sides and my body hides the wire going down my back to the floor. The wire on the floor, that gets handled by removing it in post process of the video since it doesn’t move.

The magic of hearing the backing track and zero intrusion in to the mics when recording acoustic accordion with floor standing microphones and NO headphones.

 

[wirralaccordion]

I don’t have long hair, but I found that routing the wire over my ears and behind me is not only comfortable, but the little hair I have hides the sides and my body hides the wire going down my back to the floor. The wire on the floor, that gets handled by removing it in post process of the video since it doesn’t move.

The magic of hearing the backing track and zero intrusion in to the mics when recording acoustic accordion with floor standing microphones and NO headphones.

I had assumed that wireless headphones were used these days as they're as cheap as chips!

 

[JerryPH]

I had assumed that wireless headphones were used these days as they're as cheap as chips!

Too much latency to be used for recordings.

 

[dak]

I had assumed that wireless headphones were used these days as they're as cheap as chips!

The cheap as chips ones are usually digital with considerable latency. Not a lot of fun for live recording when you are monitoring. The ancient FM ones are certainly sufficient for monitoring (analog technology does not have the storage capacity for latency) but are comparatively conspicuous. Digital with latency low enough for live monitoring is available but not cheap as chips.

 

[Pipemajor]

longish curly hair

Ahh, memories

 

[murathan]

Some headphones are 1000 dollars. A show of status

 

[JerryPH]

Some headphones are 1000 dollars. A show of status

I've worn $5000us headphones, I still looked ridiculous and was glad I didn't appear on a video somewhere... lol