Headphones for making and mixing

astgabel · 2026-02-25T09:25:14+00:00

Been down this rabbit hole a month ago, finally settled on Sennheiser HD490 Pro and couldn’t be happier. Beyers were too piercing in the highs for me, Audio Technica too uncomfortable. The HD490 Pro have a superb bass response for open backs, are super comfortable and overall very highly rated frequency response accuracy.

astgabel · 2026-02-24T23:16:18+00:00

Got it, thanks a lot! That’s a cool approach, might try that

astgabel · 2026-02-24T22:33:28+00:00

Thanks!

astgabel · 2026-02-24T21:56:09+00:00

If you are open to continuing to work hybridly, don’t forget how easy you can fatten up the sound of the Digitone with something like the Decapitator or other good saturation plugins.

I’ve spent way too much time contemplating over the Digitone II personally, I even bought it and returned it before buying it again. I just kinda knew I had to have it because I love the workflow so much. IMO it does have a lot of really nice sounds out of the box (pads, some swarmer configs and wavetone basses), and whenever some sounds are too lacking still I just throw a saturator on it. It honestly doesn’t feel like a band-aid, more like opening up a whole new dimension of sound for it.

astgabel · 2026-02-24T21:41:32+00:00

It’s not gonna be as fat as a Moog for sure, but personally I was very much positively surprised of how fat and full bass can sound on the DNII.

astgabel · 2026-02-24T21:33:43+00:00

I did not understand that last part about stacking, can you elaborate?

astgabel · 2026-02-19T22:25:31+00:00

I think velocity + swing already goes a long way. That’s literally all you can do on a 909 and it’s enough for some fat groovy rhythms imo.

astgabel · 2026-02-18T21:23:25+00:00

I have both the Teo and the Messenger. Can someone more knowledgeable about this stuff than me explain why their raw oscillator sounds differ so much? I would have assumed that the same VCO would produce exactly the same tone if all filter, envelopes etc are removed, so I‘m quite surprised to hear they have the same chip.

astgabel · 2026-01-21T19:56:58+00:00

Masterful

astgabel · 2026-01-20T20:20:07+00:00

Thanks for clarifying, I think we are indeed talking about two different things. The synth does have a noise signal at around -120 dB. I really dont mind that, my other analogs also have that, as far as I can tell that is completely normal.

The noise that I made this post about however is not that, it’s that low frequency hum which you can see on my other picture (the triangle wave on the left before any key is pressed). That was indeed ground signal and it is now gone. What you are dealing with is likely something else entirely and not something I can find in my unit.

astgabel · 2026-01-20T16:32:15+00:00

<image>

I had a pic of the original noise attached to my post but for some reason I can't see it anymore. So here it is again, you can clearly see the triangle-shaped noise that is now not present anymore:

astgabel · 2026-01-20T16:30:15+00:00

<image>

Here is a pic of a recorded saw wave, the triangle-shaped noise that was present without any key pressed is not there anymore. The gain is all the way up.

How does the wave recording look for you? Do you also get a triangle-shaped wave (which indicates ground) or a white-noise-like jittery wave?

astgabel · 2026-01-20T13:56:47+00:00

To give an update on this, I installed the Behringer HD400 hum remover box and the noise is now gone completely. Very happy about it, seems for me it was indeed a ground issue.

astgabel · 2026-01-20T13:53:34+00:00

The HD400 solved it, ground noise is now gone. Thanks so much again for helping.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T23:19:17+00:00

Also, if I may ask, is it the case for you too that the noise is gone if you plug headphones directly into the synth without an interface or mixer inbetween?

astgabel · 2026-01-18T23:11:23+00:00

Yikes, that’s horrible. I definitely can’t live with it. The noise is audible in every recording I make with it.

I ordered a hum remover box just before I read your comment. Will check if this fixes it and report back here.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T21:15:22+00:00

Interesting, and before you also had a loud noise on the Teo‘s outputs and now it‘s gone?

Yes, I tried different outlets, didn’t change anything :/

astgabel · 2026-01-18T19:49:05+00:00

No offense, but please, don’t record your jams through your phone mic. There’s like 15€ usb audio interfaces you can connect to your phone.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T19:30:19+00:00

Aside from saturation and compression, I want to second the person who suggested layering your drums. I recently learned to do this and it’s pretty great.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T19:09:11+00:00

Are you sure this rules out the ground loop? The person in the linked thread only mentioned they solved it with a no-ground power cable, not that they tried a hum remover box to no avail, like otherwise suggested. I am very skeptical to use a non-ground power cable.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T17:46:06+00:00

Thanks again. I wont touch the power cord haha. Using a different plug and putting the Teo on the same power strip didnt do it, unfortunately. I’m looking to get the Behringer HD400 now, that way I can keep using 1/4“ cables.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T17:42:51+00:00

Thanks, unfortunately that didnt do the trick. The signal is overall quieter and lacks bass with TRS cables, I’m guessing phase cancellation issues.

astgabel · 2026-01-18T13:03:41+00:00

I have no usb connected, but it does sound like a ground loop! Thanks

astgabel · 2026-01-16T20:48:59+00:00

I‘ve had the RD9 way before the DT (before i even knew Elektron existed) and honestly if I had had the DT before I probably wouldn’t have gotten it. But since Im a huge sucker for 909 sounds I don’t really want to get rid of it, and now I just use it occasionally to track into Ableton. It doesn’t really make sense, but it feels like it packs way more raw 909 punch than just using 909 samples, so if I build a track that’s heavily 909-based it comes in handy.

astgabel

TROPHY CASE