Los Angeles–based producer/engineer Ted Perlman (pictured) recorded Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach for a release produced by Phil Ramone, New Music from an Old Friend: Singer-Songwriter Legends. Working at Buffalo Sound, Perlman used Ultrasone HFI-700 and PROline 750 headphones for monitoring.
Perlman places importance on providing an outstanding headphone mix during tracking. “I know how important it is to get the headphone mix right to the singer and other musicians,” he explains. “Once you give them a great sound, you’ll get performances that beat anything from anywhere, even if you’re working in a small studio.
“I have access to the most unbelievable singers of all time, and the first thing they say is that the headphone mix sounds better here there than anywhere else,” Perlman says. “With the range that the Ultrasones display, you’re hearing what you’re supposed to be hearing. The bass is amazing—almost like a mini-subwoofer—and with their vastly reduced sound pressure, you’re also saving your ears.”
Perlman’s Ultrasone headphones employ S-Logic technology, a patented system that reduces sound pressure to the eardrums by 40 percent. “I get a more natural sound from the Ultrasones, and they don’t do damage to your ears like a lot of other headphones do,” Perlman says. “Even after a long time under the Ultrasones, there’s no ear fatigue. I can take them off and head straight to the speakers without the need to rest my ears and readjust.”
The Grammy Award–winning producer also used the PROline 750s during mixing. “In headphones, stereo information is much more accurate than in near- or mid-field speakers,” Perlman says. “You can find your mistakes very quickly using headphones. You might realize you panned something to 2 o’clock when you only meant for it to be at 1 o’clock, for example. And since the 750s have zero leakage, you can instantly be enveloped totally in the mix.”
For more information, visit www.ultrasoneusa.com and www.tedperlman.com. To listen to Electronic Musician‘s December 2006 interview with Perlman, click here .
