[00:00:00] Steve: Well, Chris. Oh well, I usually do it the other way around. I thought I would take charge of this today. Okay, I feel I feel the power and I as you wish. It's going to my head and I don't know what to do with it.
[00:00:08] Chris: You go. Boy, I you're not supposed to say that, you bearded weirdo.
[00:00:12] Steve: Well, today's headphone day.
[00:00:14] Chris: It is, as you know. Which is why we're wearing headphones.
[00:00:16] Steve: And we are. I know we're supposed to introduce Rok officially, but I'm going to introduce Rok right now. Hi, Rok.
[00:00:20] Chris: Hey, Rok.
[00:00:21] Rok: Hey, guys. Rok is coming to us live. Live from Slovenia.
[00:00:25] Steve: Oh that's awesome. And my question that popped into my head as we were starting this. I'll ask Rok as well. When you think headphones like in your life on Earth, what comes to mind when I say first headphones like, which pair is the one that comes to your mind first?
[00:00:36] Chris: Oh, the little foamy Walkman ones. The little. Do you know what I mean?
[00:00:41] Steve: Yeah, the Walkman type of headphones with the little foam.
[00:00:44] Chris: Yeah. The little I grew up on that thin band and the foam.
[00:00:47] Steve: Yeah. How about you, Rok? Where did you start headphone life?
[00:00:50] Rok: It was probably the same with the Walkman thing. You know, kind of like in the early nineties, I would say. Yes. And then the little Sony's, you remember like the yellow Sony.
[00:00:58] Chris: That's what I was picturing with the little earbuds that go in sideways.
[00:01:02] Steve: Those were great.
[00:01:03] Rok: Those were amazing. And you could take them in the rain.
[00:01:06] Steve: Yeah, exactly. It's like the greatest. And then we all went to the kind of small version of these.
[00:01:12] Chris: Yeah. For a season.
[00:01:14] Steve: And they'd all fall apart, like, all the foam would fall off and all the, all the pieces would come apart after, like a day because you get sweaty.
[00:01:22] Rok: Yeah. So that was, that was for me.
[00:01:24] Steve: Yeah. I think those, those little foam head. And have you been back to those ever?
[00:01:29] Rok: No. Like later in life. No. I found some while I was cleaning. No, some of those old ones. And the foam had disintegrated. Of course I put them on. And I cannot believe we endured that sound.
[00:01:42] Chris: Oh, man. Ever for a minute of our life. And now that we're, you know, we're into this, these beautiful, handmade thingamajigs I'm wearing now, like I cannot imagine listening to actually falling in love with music. They sounded bad.
[00:01:58] Steve: Okay, what about your first studio headphones?
[00:02:00] Chris: My first, uh, it was whatever Sony was selling that day.
[00:02:04] Steve: Same here. They were like, yeah, whatever. Like ninety dollars. Sony's all the cool people had that they were selling at whatever was before mine was like. I remember at production school, the first set of headphones I bought was the seventy five. Oh six?
[00:02:17] Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:18] Steve: You know, and at the time I was like, oh, they sound great.
[00:02:21] Chris: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Steve: You know, and Rok, what was your first studio?
[00:02:25] Rok: My first truly studio headphones, I would say my own. Like for real. Really? Yeah. But you know, as how did how did that start? Uh, it was just a side project in my dad's garage. Really? Um, just exploring things, you know, on on Saturday. Stuff like that. But eventually, you know, friends came up and said, like, dude, I want I want to have one, you know, can I get one? Can you make me one? Can I buy one? And eventually it was like another friend and another friend and a colleague of a friend. A friend of a friend. And, you know, now you're in business. Yeah. It's been a decade.
[00:02:55] Steve: Yeah. Are you at the end of the day when you're alone in your head, are you, uh, more of an electrical engineer type mind, or are you more of an audiophile listener type mind?
[00:03:05] Rok: That's a very cool question. Um, so I'd say I'm just in love in creating things out of nothing. I believe that would be a part of my motto. Just, you know, make something. And that is then applied either to headphones, to research, to marketing, to internal processes, to how you treat your life, your colleagues, your your family. Eventually, how I treat you guys. Let's make something out of this. So it's like that approach, that drive of just creating things, um, even relationships or whatever.
[00:03:20] Chris: And did you start with headphones or did you start building other things first.
[00:03:24] Rok: Well, think starts with Lego over here in Europe. They're super popular and that started a young age. And then eventually those Legos, uh, will meet, uh, drills and hammers and clippers and electricity and batteries and stuff. And later on, you're capable of making stuff like, you know, headphones. Uh, in my case.
[00:03:42] Steve: Were you a Lego kid?
[00:03:44] Chris: I was, yeah.
[00:03:45] Steve: Me too. Like big time. Like big bucket, like.
[00:03:48] Rok: Yeah. Yeah, I remember they had all the instructions and everything. You just had to.
[00:03:52] Chris: Yeah, the big bucket. And you had to make it up.
[00:03:54] Steve: Yeah. And then I went to the instruction packages like the police station, the fire station and all that stuff.
[00:03:59] Rok: It was the best.
[00:04:00] Steve: Sorry. You were saying.
[00:04:01] Rok: I was saying I actually thought of maybe buying, like, a huge kit of Lego at some point. I have lots even now. Just like to build something I don't know. Lord of the rings, Castle.
[00:04:13] Chris: Lego kid I went to the Lego store in Orlando alone.
[00:04:16] Steve: No, okay, not by myself. It was—
[00:04:18] Chris: Pull up in a van. I need a lot of Legos. Quick!
[00:04:21] Steve: Look, sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the Lego store.
[00:04:23] Chris: Why are you. Why? You have no shirt on?
[00:04:25] Steve: No. Get out!
[00:04:26] Chris: So. No. Okay. That was good. I had a whole image going. That's good. I just want to make it clear, you know.
[00:04:32] Steve: Go on.
[00:04:33] Chris: So Downtown Disney with my family. Went to the Lego store, you know.
[00:04:37] Steve: Uh, so just to put everyone in context, people watching us. First let's pivot.
[00:04:42] Chris: You do love a good pivot.
[00:04:43] Steve: I love a good pivot. And now you don't even pivot. You just announce that you're going to pivot.
[00:04:47] Chris: Yeah.
[00:04:48] Steve: Which doesn't really make it a pivot.
[00:04:49] Chris: Yeah, but at least it's not going to look weird or other context. I'm now going to do something really tricky.
[00:04:55] Steve: So share like subscribe to this YouTube channel. And if you're listening to the podcast on Apple Music or Spotify, leave a very nice review, like a five star review or something, you know, so that that is totally my recommendation.
[00:05:07] Chris: That's a good recommendation.
[00:05:08] Steve: I think it is.
[00:05:09] Chris: Thanks for recommending that. Okay, so let's get back to Rok. So where do you think, Rok, the industry or like the need for a home studio will go in regard of headphone for mixing in the future?
[00:05:22] Rok: Where do you think this is going? Because right now I find like, more and more people are mixing on headphones. Your guess is as good as mine. Um, but I will say this, um, I do have a lot of feedback from our clients. Um, of course, loving them and some not so much. But, you know, in general, they love them. Um, because of the, the, the freedom that this tool actually gives you in this day and age.
[00:05:43] Rok: So, you know, it's really difficult to make a living, um, in this industry, uh, with expenses of, you know, just setting the tools, right, are extreme. And it does create this kind of push, you know, of engineers and artists trying to do what they love, trying to make a life doing what they love. Yeah, but they really can't have two pairs of jeans and a proper preamp and nice treated room. They don't own a room. They can't really treat it. It's a rented apartment somewhere and without a doubt, nine out of ten, if not more. The headphones are, you know, a safe boat.
[00:06:15] Rok: Where it will go, I don't know, but I'm quite sure that headphones will stick around for quite a while.
[00:06:20] Chris: Yeah, they've been used like more than ever right now. I remember like even like five, six years ago watching YouTube videos about, you know, you can't mix on headphones. You need a pair of studio monitors. That was a fact. You know, it was a fact. It was just have a pair of headphones to check your mix on. But that's it, you know? So I'm just wondering, was that because back then headphone technology for mixing wasn't at the state they are right now. Or it's just like a mindset thing.
[00:06:44] Rok: Uh, it's both, without a doubt. Um, so it is a technical advance that we've collectively achieved in the headphone space. Um, for sure. That's one part, um, but it is about the mindset as well. And again, I'm going to illustrate, uh, you know, how we know how any individual will know if something sounds good or not. It's mainly based on their experience.
[00:07:06] Rok: So saying that if you've been mixing for thirty years using speakers, whatever headphones you're going to buy are always going to trick you because you've learned to listen through speakers and to make decisions through speakers. So a trumpet sounds like a trumpet through speakers, not for headphones for you.
[00:07:22] Rok: Well, on the other side, if you have people coming, you know, in the teenage years already and then starting producing mainly on headphones for them, a trumpet will sound right in the headphones and not on the speakers.
[00:07:35] Steve: It's interesting, like the first time we — and you probably had that moment — where you went from monitor wedges to in-ears.
[00:07:42] Chris: Oh yeah.
[00:07:43] Steve: And it was like, who turned off the lights? Like, there was this, this horrible time of acclimation. Right.
[00:07:49] Chris: So that's a big one that we've talked about a couple times on here.
[00:07:52] Steve: Yes. Is people going from speakers to headphones and just not liking it.
[00:07:57] Chris: And and so we've used the phrase learning time. Right.
[00:08:01] Steve: There is a period of learning where you just have to just commit, commit, commit to this new thing. And eventually when you take them off now it sounds weird.
[00:08:11] Chris: There's — it reverses after a while, even if you go.
[00:08:15] Steve: Lots of referencing, a lot of referencing, all referencing. It's all about that.
[00:08:20] Rok: Yeah, it's all about knowing what good music sounds like to you.
[00:08:24] Chris: To me?
[00:08:25] Rok: Exactly.
[00:08:26] Steve: Okay. So just semi quasi technical as we talk about advances in headphone technology and stuff like what — obviously anything is a sum of its parts. Sure. But when when you really get into this thing, like what is it? Like where's the big quantum leap between a ten dollars pair of headphones and a nicer.
[00:08:44] Rok: The thing with with headphones is kind of similar to a room. We could do an analogy over there. So you can imagine it in a way as a, as a room, like a really imagine that to be like a super huge headphone that you could walk in, there would be a speaker. It's only one speaker, usually mounted directly somewhere in the room at maybe at an angle, stuff like that. And you would explore how it sounds and it will sound different.
[00:09:07] Rok: Of course, if you would move a little bit up or down or around, which illustrates, you know, how we hear. We have different shapes and sizes of our ears that also influences the full experience. But what I'm getting to is you guys know this. If you have a big room and you have a big window, the moment you open that window, the sound in the room will completely change. And it's the same with a headphone.
[00:09:29] Rok: So the speakers do produce a lot and are important, but the room is just as important to work with the speakers, and the same principles apply to the headphones.
[00:09:39] Chris: So if we take something like an AirPod, which is this tiny little nugget of space in a weird little vacuum sized room, and it's it's creating a bit of the sound people are becoming accustomed to, I think, in their listening curve from a certain age. And then and then we as audiophiles and true listeners on a different level, are — I just revel in the open back beauty of that.
[00:09:59] Steve: It's like, what are those two cross, right?
[00:10:01] Rok: It's about serving the needs of audio engineers or artists, whatever the headphone is. So for example, the X1, these are the mixing headphone so they need to be flat for obvious reasons. So if you hear everything and you've learned how to mix and you have the proper tools and techniques and knowledge, um, eventually you don't really need to check anything anywhere while working.
[00:10:22] Rok: In reverse, if you were, you know, trying to mix with AirPods, uh, of course you're going to place instruments, uh, you know, in a very different soundscape because the illustration of that is very, very, uh, very different. So we need to have a reference point, same as visual artists do. They have calibrated monitors and they have these, uh, I don't know how you call these guys, uh, in the, in the US, but have, like, a real numbering system over here in Europe. So real number nine thousand is great, you know, and that is exactly that shade of gray.
[00:10:54] Rok: So referencing is always important.
[00:11:00] Chris: Now there's a lot of tools when it comes to headphones especially for mixing like Crossfeed plugins and, um, stuff like that in like room emulation plugins, you know? Um, so I tried all of them. Um, some I love mixing with crossfeed on room stuff. I used to like it. I don't that much anymore. So, um, how important do you think these tools are for someone who wants to use headphones for mixing? Are they that important? Or you can go around them, like, flip it around.
[00:11:28] Rok: I'll flip it around really quickly. How important is the Phantom Center with speakers and the ideal listening position in the room? Um, so the the reality is, when you're mixing in a room, you are never one hundred percent still, that's just not the reality. So you're moving in and out of the perfect position.
[00:11:46] Rok: So when you're in, you know, you're in kind of you kind of got like a little bit move forward. Ah, that's a sweet spot. You're listening. You make a decision, and then you go out to basically check how things will change. And that's how you got your way through the mix.
[00:12:01] Rok: So how left should the guitars be in comparison to the vocals is not done in a static situation. It's not like you're sitting perfectly still and moving the fader and, you know, making the panning to a perfect position. You do that and then you move forward and backward, and you move a little bit around to get the idea of kind of like a, like a range of where it sits. And that is the important thing.
[00:12:21] Rok: So all the tools and all the headphones, whatever, um, they don't have this factor of you moving around. That's why we use room emulations and you use crossfeed and other things to check when in reality you're not really checking how this will sound in this virtual environment.
[00:12:37] Rok: What you're doing is creating yourself a range of acceptable sonics for you, for your mix, for your song, for your panning. By moving around in a room which is basically a virtual room. But because headphones don't do that, don't reproduce that you would just switch from one room to another room to a third room, to a car emulation, to a hi fi speaker emulation, to whatever emulation.
[00:12:58] Rok: But you're essentially doing the same thing. You're moving yourself out of the sweet spot to really go and check the ranges and if they are acceptable in all the situations. So it's the same thing. It's just kind of flipped.
[00:13:13] Steve: Is it a good idea? Should I commit to this room emulation stuff if you have to or, or crossfeed, you know, without being in a room?
[00:13:22] Chris: Yeah. Like I've just never committed to it because I always go, ah. Or I get distracted by how cool it is or whatever. Like and like the heads, like the head tracker stuff. I just go back to what I was doing, but I don't know, maybe I should commit for a while.
[00:13:37] Steve: When like when you when you do, you know, you talk about headphones. You know, these being flat. What does that mean.
[00:13:45] Chris: Mhm. So yeah. Flat. Yeah. Relative to what. What does that phrase mean.
[00:13:51] Steve: Yeah. Because I always had a hard time with the with the word flat.
[00:13:54] Chris: Yeah. According to what?
[00:13:56] Steve: Yeah. According. Exactly.
[00:13:58] Rok: That's the point right there. According to. According to what? It's the same as what is white. You know, white color. It's going to be different in different situations for different people.
[00:14:11] Rok: So some will say flat, some will say balanced, some will say neutral, whatever different words are going to be, you know, thrown around. Um, and in, in a scientific approach, uh, we don't have a consensus on what is flat.
[00:14:25] Rok: This is going to be interesting for you guys. We don't have an agreement on what is the zero decibels kind of value. We only have a range. So we can take all the research from the sixties till today. Uh, from Sennheiser, from from us, from Sonarworks, from Harman, from Sony and so on. Put all of those together and the range, the frequency response of all these different ideas of flat will be roughly in about five DB range.
[00:14:53] Rok: So that means that scientifically, collectively we can agree up to about five decibels tolerances. So there's quite a lot of products in this range and can be considered flat and neutral. And I think you can learn to mix and do whatever you have to do using those.
[00:15:00] Chris: So the follow up on that is then how do you measure the other end. So like how do you measure then what the headphone is doing. You can't just shove a microphone on a head like how do you in principle, you cannot use a measurement mic that you guys know from measuring rooms.
[00:15:16] Steve: Yeah. Yes.
[00:15:17] Rok: Because the principle of creating the frequency response with headphones is heavily reliant on the acoustical coupling between the headphone itself and a human head. It's an artificial head with microphones in there. So when you put headphones on that the the surrounding of the microphone, the microphone itself is designed to kind of mimic the average human head. All right. Let's just leave it at that.
[00:15:43] Chris: And is that how the. Is that how the individual unit calibration is done between different pairs of these?
[00:15:51] Rok: Yes. So we are using a slightly modified version of the 7-Eleven coupler. We are pushing in, uh, the uh, pink noise. And we are comparing that pink noise with the ideal calibrated unit. And then we can see the deviations in pink noise from that unit within 10s. And that can then be applied as a corrective EQ for that specific unit. And that's what you basically get because that was the whole thing when I got these like there was a per serial number.
[00:16:18] Chris: Yeah.
[00:16:19] Rok: Log in unit calibration file that then came and then applies. And it's a whole thing.
[00:16:25] Steve: You work with dynamic drivers. If you compare it to a planar magnetic drivers for example it's just a different technology.
[00:16:33] Rok: So in reality the dynamic driver drivers, they have the capacity to move quite a lot, uh, which is a good thing. But, you know, it does have its downsides as well. Um, in comparison to the, um. To the planar magnetics, uh, or even electrostatics, where the membrane is like very, very large, but it moves really, really little, uh, really small, small movements. And it's very delicate. Um, and it can create, of course, a lot of bases. It's not really an issue, um, because it's really, really large. So it moves a lot more air than a dynamic speaker, which is usually, you know, four or five, seven times smaller in the area that it covers in comparison to whatever planar magnetic.
[00:17:14] Rok: So you know, the there are benefits when you are moving the membrane, you know, very little. Um, so little movements usually mean, uh, less harmonic distortion. I'll illustrate that because there's a really cool illustration.
[00:17:28] Rok: Um, you know, for anyone watching this, um, it's going to be pretty cool. So if you have a piece of a piece of paper and imagine that to be a membrane, um, if you try to move it, um, you know, back and forth with ten hertz, um, it creates a little bit of noise. And that is actually the harmonics, because right now what I'm creating as the driver is, I don't know how capable I am, but let's say it's ten hertz, right? But you still hear something and you're not capable of hearing ten hertz.
[00:17:56] Rok: So what you are picking up are harmonics from the membrane. But that's not my hand moving. That's not the ten hertz that I'm actually putting into the membrane.
[00:18:08] Chris: Yeah, yeah, I see, you see.
[00:18:11] Rok: So when it comes to moving a membrane like that, uh, with, uh, electrostatics or with planar magnetics, of course, they move very little. They can move really fast, but because they move very little, they create very little harmonics.
[00:18:27] Rok: When you have a driver that's — it's a nice illustration. So when you have a if you would imagine that to be a dynamic driver, then the dynamic driver to produce the same volume, especially in the low end, it needs to move quite a lot. Yeah. And the more you move it. Of course you're going to get more audible harmonics from the materials. Chaos distorted. So, uh, that kind of explains it and illustrates it.
[00:18:55] Chris: Actually it does. And what's the like one of the one of the big conversations is the low end.
[00:19:01] Steve: Yes. Especially open back headphones.
[00:19:04] Chris: Yes. And I don't have a sub and I don't know what's going on. And I play it in my car and I about blew me out of my chair. You know, you hear that stuff, right? Like, so what in your mind if you're, if you're doing a record on headphones, what's the what's the advice work around response.
[00:19:22] Rok: And so whenever we talk about bass um, it is a movement of air air molecule molecules. Um, and that is, you know, just being produced in the headphone. But yeah, if we go back to the earlier debate when we explained the historical influence of your experience to how you perceive, we call this psychoacoustic scientifically. Right.
[00:19:43] Rok: So how you perceive, um, bass is directly correlated, uh, with your body experience when you're in a club, when you're in a studio, you know, blasting your speakers out, stuff like that. So unless that is not — I mean, if it's missing, um, then you will tend to psycho acoustically think that it's missing, uh, in the headphones mix, which is far from the truth.
[00:20:00] Rok: Yeah, it is a learning thing for me. It is. And the first time I really noticed, even before the headphone conversation was going to my first time as a young lad, going to a real mastering studio.
[00:20:14] Chris: Mhm.
[00:20:15] Rok: And I just remember thinking, there's no low end in here. And he's sitting there working the low end EQ, and I can't hear what he's changing. And he's he's like, is that better? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I've been I've been on these tannoys that are the size of a house at the other studio. Right. So there's — he just spends all day in this room and he can hear that stuff like it's there.
[00:20:39] Rok: So it does. I think you're right. It does appear over time and learning and and just referencing, you start referencing a lot of referencing with the tools. That helps a lot.
[00:20:51] Steve: You want to know how?
[00:20:52] Rok: Yeah.
[00:20:53] Steve: You need to reference a lot. I think that's my number one advice to anyone. Time.
[00:21:00] Chris: But talking about the future of mixing — Atmos on headphones. Will that be possible or is it possible now?
[00:21:08] Rok: It is possible the same way as it is possible to, you know, make a mix on headphones or stereo mix. And, you know, without having speakers, you can push the Atmos thing to headphones, um, as well. Yeah, there are limitations, of course. Um, but if you can learn, um, and reference, um, enough on that system, then I think there's absolutely no limits, uh, to that.
[00:21:30] Steve: Hey, I'll tell you this. It's a good time to make music.
[00:21:33] Chris: It is a good time. That's all I have to say. And to mix music.
[00:21:38] Steve: So. Hey, thanks a lot, Rok.
[00:21:41] Rok: Thank you.
[00:21:42] Chris: You're welcome. And good luck for the future with, uh, with Arlo and, uh, we, you know, look forward to what is coming next.
[00:21:50] Rok: Thank you Chris. Thank you. Steve, have a nice evening.
[00:21:54] Steve: Thanks.
[00:21:55] Chris: Thanks.
[00:21:56] Steve: Bye.
[00:21:57] Rok: Cheers.
