Hey, thank you for your comment.
Yes the low end is always a tricky part of mixing and in headphones or smaller speakers you do lose it. (I am actually a Bass player and a night sometimes I don’t even played them with headphones, I just put a hoddie and play it acoustic, the vibration does the rest)
Panning is for sure better served on speakers, as everything else. The idea of mixing with headphones is that you do not have to worry about the sweet spot or bass traps or different room acoustics, that for beginner can be quite tricky.
Actually I have told beginners that I have had as students , to mix 70% of the song hard left and hard right. One of the reasons being most people do not listen to music dead centre of the speakers And that allows them to progress much faster and they end up being pretty good at panning once they gradually explore it more.
(Allow me the suggestion, but there is an amazing book about panning and mixing in general “Zen and the art of mixing”)
What I am trying to say with this article is that, if you are starting out you can get some headphones and go for it. There are many issues such as ear fatigue and you will need to use your laptop speakers for reference. Again not saying it is the best or only way.
I do have a pair of speakers and 98% of my mixes are done there, using headphones and laptop speakers as reference.
But I have mixed tons of songs with my headphones without turning on the monitors. Even “Andrew Scheps“ (one of the best mixers of all time) mixed an entire album with some headphones. The album was mastered at Abbey Road and they did a “Flat Transfer,” meaning they did not change it at all.
Thanks for your comment and reading the article. I do know a lot of people who would not mix with headphones ever.
As the saying goes: It's not the gear, it's the ear.
Exactly!!