Crossfeed the what?

So for some time now I have been toying with the seemingly simple concept of being able to do accurate audio mixing with headphones as opposed to standard monitors, the usual term is called "Crossfeeding" and over time I have become a huge fan of it.  It started out as just a kind of frivolity - I just thought it might be fun to see what was possible.

But in more recent times it started to become a more significant and legitimate goal.  The driving force was really the birth of my first son Gray.  My wife Michele has always been pretty tolerant of the studio work I do at home - in fact, she is pretty accomplished on ProTools herself - but when Gray was born a bit over two years ago, it became obvious that a change was needed if I was ever going to be able to get any work done consistently.  To be fair, "Dude, "as we sometimes call him, has a pretty good sense of what works in a mix himself; but let's face it, he's still just a two year old, and daddy's work only keeps him interested for so long.  Plus, I'm used to working late at night, and that train pretty much left the station once Gray was in the picture, just from a purely practical standpoint.

My other motivation was to create a viable tool for my students to do their work. (I created a Contemporary Music program a few years ago for a public high school that has proven incredibly successful - I got very lucky; more on that in another post very soon)  Anyway, there is a practical matter for them both in the recording labs at the school, and also, like me, if they choose to do work at home. So between my own curiosity and needs, and those of my students, it - accurate headphone mixing - became a more pressing priority recently.

Fortunately, the concept has been around for quite some time, originally gaining some prominence, at least in theory, in the early 1970s, so there was a lot of data to cull and develop the methodology I am currently employing.   I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge a very serious piece of work from John Conover dealing with the spacial distortion research of Siegfried Linkwitz.  This pretty much is what allowed me to create the final, successful utility for ProTools.

There are a lot of products these days, particularly higher end headphone amps, and even headphones themselves, making use of various algorithms to create the same effect I have generated, but I find myself now somewhat addicted to the tweaking process and it has been fun to work to fully refine my own method.

So as my new Crossfeeding obsession grows - not insignificant towards my motivation is the success I am having at accurately being able to to mix with a good set f headphones - I began to formulate a way to perhaps rethink my entire creative process as well, not just the way I mix.  And thus I came upon "Crossfeed the Mix."  A kind of band mentality, even though it's pretty much just me for now.  I have no idea where it will take me, but it has been very freeing already not to think of my creative output as me, but as "Crossfeed..." Perhaps it is just my imagination, but as I tell my students, the ability to be able to push your creative process is a powerful and wonderful thing if you handle it the right way.

As I begin work on a new CD, I plan to document my progress in these posts as well as the progress of my other creative ventures, including the music education program I mentioned above and my production company too.  Certainly, some family items will make appearances as well, and to that end I figure if nothing else, years from now, should I proved disciplined to keep this up, these posts will help serve as a way for my kids (and grand kids someday) to learn more about me.  Not a bad motivator that one either.