Why you should not mix using headphones?

Audio mixing is sometimes misleading newbies into using headphones to mix their projects. It is because they always see pictures of studio personnel using headphones as they might think these engineers are actually using headphones in audio mixing the tracks.

The truth is: engineers does not use headphones when doing a mix, instead they use some monitoring system called as nearfield studio monitors. They only use headphones to do some little checking which would be covered in this tutorial.

Disadvantages of using Headphones in Audio Mixing

Below are the main disadvantages when using headphones and it is why engineers are avoiding it:

1. Headphones cannot faithfully reproduce very low/sub frequencies. This means that if you are mixing using headphones, it may sound with less bass which in fact is very muddy in most monitors/speakers.
What will happen is that you will be tempted further to put more bass on your track by boosting EQ, etc. Thus the resulting mix contains too much bass! It is because you perceived the bass to be low by using headphones when it fact the bass levels might be normal. The correct method would be mixing with a subwoofer.

2. The frequency response of headphones is not the same as those using studio monitors. This means that there are times when you are working on a specific frequency and you may end up overestimating it because of inaccurate frequency response.

Even a flat frequency response headphone is not an enough. It is because our ears would perceive it VERY differently. See analogy below:

A.) Using headphones

Headphones flat frequency response — > Interaction with your head— > Result to changes in frequency response when it reaches your ears –> If you are mixing, this will lead you to make wrong decisions on EQ and loudness.

Notes: There is no known acoustic treatments to minimize interaction of sound waves in your head. Instead; headphone manufacturers are applying EQ (built-in with headphone design) treatments to the headphone so that it will arrive at a flat response to the ear. This is a sample EQ treatments of diffused headphone:

Now the above would look like:

EQ treatments on Headphone — > Interaction on your Head — > Results to a flat frequency response to your ear

Any of the above headphone treatments (whether flat or with EQ treatments to sound flat) would not provide accurate audio mixing environment.

Let’s have an example. Supposing you are using a headphone treated to sound flat in your ear (so it’s the one with pre-EQ adjustments). And supposing the fact that the source audio (guitars for example) has very low mid-range frequencies that needs up some boost.

Since the headphone is already treated with high mid-frequency boost by design (see frequency response chart of the headphone above); it would appear that there are no mid-frequency issues because of the boost. You will not be able to detect this problem and as a result, your mix won’t sound great.

Let’s illustrate another method. Supposing you are using a flat frequency response headphone. But this headphone would sound awful to your ears because of the sound waves interaction with your head. Again, what you are monitoring is still not actually the truth.

B.) Nearfield studio monitors

Below is a schematic explaining why a nearfield monitors would be appropriate for any accurate audio mixing activity.

True nearfield monitors flat Frequency response — > Properly treated room acoustic response — > What you hear is actually the true frequency response of the audio being monitored. — > You can make accurate audio mixing decisions.

If the room is property treated (to minimize standing waves, etc.); you are actually monitoring the true frequency response of the audio. This can be easily implemented with proper room acoustic treatment.

Therefore; headphones cannot substitute real studio monitors even it’s designed to provide a “flat frequency response” such as shown below:

3. Also mixing using headphones increases the risk of hearing loss due to the closeness of audio source to your auditory system. Learn some tips here on how to take care of your ear during audio mixing/mastering.

Recommendations and when to use headphones

-If audio mixing is your hobby which might become your future career, I suggest buying near field monitors.(photo below)

It’s a bit expensive (though some are affordable) but it’s worth the price. You can read my recommendations in this post. It will help you to mix like a pro. Headphones are only used after thorough mixing or mastering; to confirm the results of the mix down and mastering process. Issues with panning, ambiance, reverb and stereo width are more transparent with headphones. It is also used to check for small noise within your recording as they can be very sensitive.

Content last updated on October 22, 2012