Best Noise Canceling Headphones for Editing in FCP?

[Greg Ondera]

Why do you want noise canceling? Is it because you will be editing on a plane? Because I would want to hear everything without distortion so I wouldn’t even want EQ. But I can understand if you are trying to edit in a noisy area and don’t have a choice.

Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org

[Michael Gissing]

What is the nature of the noise? If it is a constant drone like a car or plane interior then it might help to use noise canceling headphones. If it is banging or people talking, then noise canceling may not be very useful.

Years ago I moded industrial earmuffs and put small headphone speakers inside the muffs. It worked extremely well to isolate me when location recording.Try ear muffs and small earbud type headphones first.

[Walter Soyka]

I remember a couple threads on this topic from the past few years:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/27/857189

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/27/858591

The short version — it can be done, for recommended only for non-critical listening over short periods of time. Be careful not to damage your hearing, and remember that your mixes will be off and you may miss things like background noise in your clips.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[William Carr]

FYI, you may get a real headache using such headphones for extended periods. I believe the way they work is to generate a “reversed” version of the ambient noise around them, so the total “amount” of vibrations going in your ears is actually increased.
Very unscientific, sorry! But spoken from experience.

[Walter Biscardi]

Headphones are not a good way to edit for sound mixing purposes. The only reason they should be used is if you’re in an environment with other editors around you or on location somewhere.

If you’re working in a stand alone edit suite, we love the KRK Rokit 5 audio monitors as they present very good, very flat sound and we can get excellent mixes off of them.

Noise Canceling headphones I avoid for editing as they give me a headache after a while.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Jason Porthouse]

Don’t use noise cancelling if it’s a random noise environment, you’ll go nuts.

Get yourself a pair of old-skool Beyer DT100s like most sound recordists use; they cover your ears completely and clap to your head pretty well, cutting out a lot of ambient noise. I use them in noisy environs if I’m editing on site and whilst not ideal they’re better than anything else.

Jason

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[Bobby Abate]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the information! I think the Beyer DT100 option sounds best at this point.

Basically I’m filmmaker and artist, and I got an amazing studio space in DUMBO/NYC near the Manhattan Bridge – but the subway train goes by quite often, making irritating, almost impossible for me to edit with regular headphones. I guess I didn’t realize how loud it was!

I almost always edit using headphones, then switch to another monitoring set-up for final mix. I have great pairs of headphones but the sound of the train seems to echo underneath the ear pads and make it even louder.

Of course, with the windows open it’s ridiculous.

If I want to stay in the space, I’ll need the best “noise insulating” headphones that don’t kill me – and do my sound mixes elsewhere. So maybe that’s the DT 100. I didn’t realize Noise Canceling headphones could cause you to get headaches. So I’ll kill that option right now.

In the future, I’ll probably have to invest in some sound proofing for the windows to kill as much of the noise as possible — but for now I need a bandaid. Either that, or it’s hit the road again and move somewhere else.

-Bobby