Quality without monitors?
- Thread starter BTMM
- Start date
The purpose of having monitors is to have a full 360 degree multi dimensional experience of your music by being able to hear it being played through multiple playback systems all at once. Every single move you make under that configuration, has a cumulatively positive impact on the result of anything having to do with the music creation process (directly or indirectly since it spans across the whole music creation process), provided that it's a great monitoring environment. In essence what it gives you is a greater audio harmonization spectrum and a faster time to balance.
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Adrian-MarQ
New member
You can get a great mix with headphones, but you need to be aware of the downfalls of headphones that will likely cause issues. Some issues are that you cannot easily set a consistent playback level (can't measure it), you cannot measure the frequency response of the specific pair of headphones, ear fatigue and general discomfort can occur quickly, and it can be difficult to get a mix that will translate well to devices that aren't headphones or earbuds. Monitors have the advantage in these areas.
Headphones do however have advantages over monitors. For one, it usually costs less to get a good pair. Secondly, you don't have to deal with setting them up in an appropriate location in whatever room you work in (issue for bedroom producers and engineers). You also don't have to worry about the affect that your room acoustics have on what you hear.
I personally use headphones for the majority of my work since they fit my current lifestyle (poor student working on a degree). I get around most of the issues by using at least one reference track in my projects. That allows me to hear how professionally mixed tracks sound on my headphones and at the level of output from my headphones. When I am able to purchase and use monitors, I'll still be using reference tracks to combat the negatives of monitors that I don't have complete control over fixing.
Headphones do however have advantages over monitors. For one, it usually costs less to get a good pair. Secondly, you don't have to deal with setting them up in an appropriate location in whatever room you work in (issue for bedroom producers and engineers). You also don't have to worry about the affect that your room acoustics have on what you hear.
I personally use headphones for the majority of my work since they fit my current lifestyle (poor student working on a degree). I get around most of the issues by using at least one reference track in my projects. That allows me to hear how professionally mixed tracks sound on my headphones and at the level of output from my headphones. When I am able to purchase and use monitors, I'll still be using reference tracks to combat the negatives of monitors that I don't have complete control over fixing.
C
Cerberux
Guest
There are advantages to both devices and I would highly recommend using BOTH. I personally use monitors for the initial mix and all low frequencies (it is INCREDIBLY hard to find a pair of headphones that reproduce lows as good as a decent set of monitors) and headphones for the little intricate things that I need to be closer to the sound to hear (personal preference only).
While you CAN mix with just headphones and it can sound great, I would strongly suggest investing in some decent monitors and the proper acoustic treatment to your room. (you can get easily removable acoustic treatment for your apartment or you can buy plywood to hang the treatment like paintings, I rent and I treated my studio room with easily removable panels).
You will find mixing with monitors is actually A LOT easier than with headphones as the spectrum is much larger as DarkRed mentioned, but it is entirely doable with headphones, if you're situation doesn't allow for monitors.
Just make sure you do your research and you invest what is feasible to you and what you want to accomplish.
While you CAN mix with just headphones and it can sound great, I would strongly suggest investing in some decent monitors and the proper acoustic treatment to your room. (you can get easily removable acoustic treatment for your apartment or you can buy plywood to hang the treatment like paintings, I rent and I treated my studio room with easily removable panels).
You will find mixing with monitors is actually A LOT easier than with headphones as the spectrum is much larger as DarkRed mentioned, but it is entirely doable with headphones, if you're situation doesn't allow for monitors.
Just make sure you do your research and you invest what is feasible to you and what you want to accomplish.
Vincent-G
New member
I won't answer about monitors as some good comments above but! Although your question might sound stupid to some it's actually not! I've often made parts of my track with rubbish headphones or monitors because i believe if you get it sounding good in crap it will sound very good with decent monitors. Lot of producers use the car test so yes it is possible but it's not possible to get a good mix-down just some elements of the track.
Maciek1982
Member
If you know what you are doing, if you know your monitoring system very well, if you have got lot of experience - it should work without monitors... They are only showing you how your mix respond