“I am a self-taught podcast producer and audio mastering engineer from the Philippines, working fully remote and mixing and mastering with my humble headphones AKG K240 Studio since this is the only one I could afford on my personal untreated bedroom apartment, and I thought I'm already doing a great job on my client work since I already have clients on a global scale. But as an aspiring engineer who dreams to run my own audio post-production house for music and podcasts, I know I still lack something: the proper translation of my podcast and music mixes to all listening mediums. For some reason, I'm not quite there yet.
I've always been on the fence of still grabbing the Sonarworks SoundID for Headphones, but I am always thinking, "maybe if I have more disposable money or more success." Because currently all my client work income goes to paying just my rent and bills.
Then, the Summer Spring Sale 2024 happened, and I still don't have money set aside. So, just for the sake of trying, I finally tried the free 21-day trial, thinking that if this will have a positive impact to my work, then by the last day of the Summer Spring Sale, I will maybe purchase this software for my headphones.
I tried it to one of our episodes in one of the major podcasts I'm working with (a famous finance podcast in the US with 600,000 weekly subscribers) just like normal. But it definitely changed a lot of my EQ and Compression presets based on what I hear.
Then, just 2 days before the spring sale ends, the host of that podcast gave a huge kudos to that certain episode I mixed with SoundID with headphones, saying that people are praising the sound quality of that episode. One of the commenters in YouTube writes,
"To the angel, absolute angel, sound engineer. The voices in this are crystal clear, soft, & pleasant. Please never stop engineering sound."
and a reply in that comment goes,
"Yes, it sounds good on spotify, tv, in your headphones, whatever.
Clap it up for the sound engineer lol."
That evening, it's a no-brainer. My life has changed.
The host gave me a compensation for a job well done on that episode. And with that compensation,
I purchased the SoundID Reference for Headphones and the Virtual Monitoring Add-On and made it a mainstay of my audio production arsenal. The buying process is so easy to upgrade to from the trial version, and I love the ebooks and all the guides that comes with the purchase!!
I am now more confident in my mastering work, and I have a huge validation with that video on YouTube. And since then, my clients always comment that the audio has improved dramatically even when listening to their cars and phones.
I finally found what I've been missing. Thank you Sonarworks for this amazing product that enables me to do what I love but currently don't have access to sound-proofing facilities or high-end headphones. All my money paid to this software is worth it, and I appreciate the sale to make it more reachable for me.
Rest assured that SoundID will always be my main go-to in mixing and mastering plugin when I start my own production house. Thank you Sonarworks! May you help more aspiring mastering engineers like me through this amazing plugin.”
“I took a long time before writing this review, and so I have previously mixed and mastered 12 projects with the Virtual Monitoring Add-on and the Sennheiser HD650. I have to admit, however, that I was already a convinced Sonarworks user and used it to polish my monitoring situation.
With the Virtual Monitoring add-on, mixing with headphones really makes sense. The mids become clearer and more defined, the spatiality becomes definable and the stereo image and depth suddenly make sense.
I worked on the projects exclusively on the headphones and finally checked them on my Neumann KH310A and there was nothing wrong with it, worse still I don't think I would have done it so well on the monitoring - I'm practically completely thrilled - I think my headphones have become the perfect monitoring room.
The only weakness I see is that I always keep an eye on the monitoring level in the studio room with a level meter (I listen at max 75 dBA) and I don't yet know how I can solve this with headphones, but maybe Sonarworks will come up with something :) .”
