Hello EDM Kissers !!!!
We are back with an answer to the much asked question “Should I mix in a headphone ??” or “Is it good or okay to mix in a headphone ??”
We know this question is very popular among beginner and intermediate music producers.So guys, the answer really depends upon the following questions:
- Do you have good room acoustics or have you treated your room acoustically for music production?
- Do you have a pair of good referencing monitors?
- Do you have good studio headphones?
Now, we will explain you this concept with different scenarios and you can see what works for you.
Just to give you a brief, mixing is getting the volume of the instruments in your song at right soothing level, adding effects to it and so on. If your mixing is not correct then your song will sound different in cars, earphones, mono speakers, home theatres, clubs, etc. different at every location like somewhere bass would be high, somewhere low, etc. This happens because whenever you are producing, you are not listening (referencing) in a suitable environment so whatever you hear is not what exactly you are producing. So if your room acoustics are bad then you might listen too much of high frequencies which may not be the case. Hope you understand what we are talking about. So let’s get back to the scenarios.
Scenario 1: Bad room acoustics and an average pair of referencing monitors (generally 5 inches dome ones)
In this case, you must have a good studio headphone to mix your tracks. You should not depend 100% on your headphone but you can use it like in 50:50 ratio or 60:40 ratio i.e. 60% of the time you are using headphone and 40% of time you are using monitors. This ratio entirely depends upon person to person but we would suggest 60:40 to everyone in this scenario.
Scenario 2: Good room acoustics and an average pair of referencing monitors
In this case, you can again use 60:40 ratio, where you can use your monitors at 60% of time and 40% of time you can use your good studio headphones
Scenario 3: Good room acoustics and a good pair of referencing monitors
In this case, you can do all your mixes with your monitors and just check with your headphones for some detailing. This scenario generally exists in Studios, which is a costly affair for beginners and intermediate producers
Scenario 4: Bad room acoustics, average pair of referencing monitors and an average studio headphone
Guys you need to collect / save money in this case. Sorry for being so harsh but we talk straight always and do not believe in giving false hopes. You can find articles and videos talking about awesome mixes under this scenario but sorry it’s not true. Atleast a good pair of headphones are required to get your mixes right if your room acoustics are bad and you have average referencing monitors.
Now everything comes down to “What is a good studio headphone ?” . Answer to this is any headphone which sounds flat. Flat means you should hear whatever you are producing and not the sound according the frequency spectrum which has been adjusted by the manufacturer. For ex: Beats Solo is a commercial headphone and you will hear bass in every track even if the song has very less bass. The reason here is that the company has adjusted the bass frequencies on a higher level. But here, we are looking at studio grade headphones which sound flat and have details in it.
We would suggest you to go for “Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 250 Ohms” headphone for mixing purpose. These are industry grade, very comfortable, having high build quality, great detailing and not super expensive. Please note that these are closed back headphones and some experts suggest open back headphones for mixing but don’t worry, there is very less difference which we think it doesn’t affect an intermediate producer. We have also seen some very PRO producers using closed back headphones for mixing so no worries.
Cheaper option can include Audio Technica’s M50X. This one is also good but not the best. Build quality is average and an average comfort level.
Please note that, we are not being paid by any company to promote or push their product into the market. We suggest based on our / friends / other producers experiences and that’s the simple motto and not to confuse you.
We hope all your queries got answered. You can share this post which motivates us to come up with more important topics and make it simple for you guys.