Making listening to guitar through headphones a less soulless and joyless experience ?

[Telejester]

I would like to be able to home practice with backing tracks where its actually a decent sound through headphones. Haven't found it yet and have always found it joyless. What product(s) should I look into .

 

[Dan R.]

Biggest shift for me in enjoyment with headphone playing is having stereo effects (delay/reverb). The obvious choice in this realm is the HX stomp with it's stereo capabilities and aux in. I use the strymon iridium in stereo. Find it easier to setup and start playing and I have no need for the hx stomps effects. Good luck!

 

[SigXer]

The solution is reverb. A bit of reverb helps to restore the sense of playing in a room. I have also found that I prefer IEM’s because they provide good isolation from the acoustic sound of the guitar while not being super heavy and cumbersome feeling. Open back headphones would be my next choice but you have to turn up the volume a bit to drown out the sound of the strings. Perhaps I just haven’t tried the right pair, but traditional closed back headphones are my least favorite for this application.

 

[DieSchmalle]

+1 for reverb / delay

 

[LaXu]

The solution is reverb. A bit of reverb helps to restore the sense of playing in a room. I have also found that I prefer IEM’s because they provide good isolation from the acoustic sound of the guitar while not being super heavy and cumbersome feeling. Open back headphones would be my next choice but you have to turn up the volume a bit to drown out the sound of the strings. Perhaps I just haven’t tried the right pair, but traditional closed back headphones are my least favorite for this application.

I agree. A good room reverb makes all the difference and makes the sound feel far less like you have your ear right against a speaker.

 

[Rocco Crocco]

Boost bass and cut upper mids. Small amount of room reverb.

you may need a high cut filter if there’s fizziness.

 

[LolainNB]

For me, it was switching to open back headphones

 

[ljholland]

Boss Waza Headphones - you'll be lost for hours.....

 

[the swede]

For me, it was switching to open back headphones

This.

akg k702, k712 pro
beyerdynamic 880, 990 Pro
Sennheiser, hd,598 hd599, hd600, hd650... If you can find the ”drop” versions, get em... hd58x or hd6xx.

 

[theevilone]

For me it was blending a room IR with the close miced one, panning them a little and adding a stereo reverb.

 

[James Freeman]

Careful with volume in headphones.
You'll find that you turn the volume up as you wish the amp to be in the room,, might be 105db at your eardrum.

 

[John Mark Painter]

Semi open headphones
Subtle room reverb. On Helix, the “Tile” set to 27% last in the chain.

In the end, if you can enjoy listening to music in your headphones, you can adapt so your GTR sounds ‘normal’ too

 

[Jarick]

I use open back headphones, but I also moved into a place where my desk in a decent sized room with reflections, so I actually get a fair amount of "room reverb" on my strings feeding back into the headphones. Kind of whacky but it works.

But yes, reverb and delay helps. Look into short stereo delays with one slightly longer than the other (like 95% spread) which opens up the sound.

 

[Elric]

I usually use my Blue MixFis and two tabs of Ecstasy when I have to practice silently. I generally find it pretty amazing no matter what other gear I use.

 

[Brandon7s]

A short reverb. A lot of it. I've found that a plate reverb of short to medium length but very wet - between 80 and 100% wet - makes a massive difference. I'm still trying to find the reverb type and settings that I like the most but I do know that the Helix reverbs do this kind of thing very poorly. There's not enough clarity and a wide enough stereo image to be effective as Collider pedal, or literally any reverb plugins.

 

[frthib]

that. https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-room/

 

[zonular]

Semi open headphones and reverb. Really makes a difference, to be honest I love headphone setup as I'm not bothering anyone (small house/kids/neighbors)

 

[Guitarzan00]

What headphones do you currently use? When I didn't have the proper set of headphones, I felt the same. Don't even really need an expensive set, just something that is made for studio monitoring. I picked up AKG K240 because they were cheap and there was not much to loose if they didn't work. I really like them. There are better options for sure, but I can't justify the cost for my use case. For what it's worth, I use the Helix. I imagine they would sound good through any modern modeler though.

 

[Crash-VR]

Careful with volume in headphones.
You'll find that you turn the volume up as you wish the amp to be in the room,, might be 105db at your eardrum.

+1 to this. I practice too many hours to use headphones. I noticed the ear fatigue most after headphone practice.

 

[markmann]

OP, what are you using to generate your guitar sound?