In this article we share a simple headphone isolation trick to try as an alternative to using studio grade headphones if you struggle hearing your mix when tracking loud live drums.

Headphones capable of providing decent levels of isolation are essential in tracking sessions. Over-ear closed-back designs generally isolate quite well. Headphone isolation isn't all about reducing spill, in some cases a set of headphones need to also provide a good level of isolation for attenuating sound from within a room. But is this direction of isolation as necessary as isolating sound leakage from headphones? Yes, especially when recording loud acoustic instruments such as drums.

A full drum kit can get as loud 130dBSPL depending how close you are to a particular drum and how hard they are played. I tested this using my kit and dB meter averaging around 110dBSPL, which is a lot of level for studio headphones to compete with when being used for monitoring a session while tracking. Drummers can find it tough hearing the music they need to perform to in their headphones which often leads to extremely high levels of volume down their headphones. Not only can this type of exposure damage a drummer's hearing but leakage from the cans could also spill into the drum mics which could cause problems later in a mix.

I was recently in a drum production discussion in an online Studio One Users event. Ben Holmes, who hosted this event, suggested a cool technique he uses regularly in his professional drum recording career. It's a simple trick. I was sceptical at first, but after trying this alternative out for myself I can conclude it's worth giving a go if you find you struggle with headphone monitoring when recording drums.

Ben’s tip involves wearing a set of builder's ear defenders with a set of wired Apple ear buds inside the cups, though any make and model earbuds would suffice.

This setup worked incredibly well though getting the earbuds to stay in my ears while putting the ear defenders on proved to be a bit of a faff. The level sent to my earbuds didn't need to be that loud at all as the ear defenders did such a great job reducing the sound and energy of the drums in the room. I also found I didn’t need much in terms of drum mix coming down the earbuds. Most importantly, my ears didn’t feel abused like they normally do after half hour’s drum tracking with my usual studio headphones. All in all, this proved, for me at least a good tip and a fun little experiment.

Ear defenders are relativity inexpensive starting at around $15 for a decent set. Look for sets rated SNR 19. SNR values help us compare the level of noise attenuation offered by different ear defenders.

Thanks for tip Ben.