When you’re recording new tracks, a good pair of headphones is almost as essential as using a good mic. From avoiding the sound bleed of a metronome to simply being able to clearly hear the track’s full depth during playback, good headphones are a necessity in the recording process.
Different headphones are often used for recording and mixing, but no matter what you need them for, they undoubtedly work best at both if they’re high quality.
Benefits of Good Headphones for Recording
- Clearly hearing a background track or click track. Headphones help you stay on time.
- Hearing the live track as it’s being recorded. This helps you keep on top of volume and modulation.
- Sound isolation. Here’s where headphone quality really counts. Isolation is needed for you to hear how a track actually sounds, not just how it sounds in your home studio. Isolation also keeps any room reflections out of your ears so that it doesn’t mess up your timing.
Benefits of Good Headphones for Mixing
- Good headphones can compensate for a bad studio. The “proper” way to mix is to play it on studio monitors in an acoustically neutral room, giving you the best idea of how it will play at a party or club. But if your studio is subpar, or if you simply don’t have one, this obviously isn’t going to be an option.With bad acoustics, your playback will likely have room reflections, and it will be hard to really match up the mix. A good pair of headphones can eliminate this issue, though you will have a difficult time getting the best mix possible since studio monitors in a sound treated studio are the better way to go.
- Saving your relationship. Home recordings can be pretty rough on partners and neighbours, especially if you’re doing it in the evenings. You can give nearby people a break from the sound by using headphones when mixing.
Best Headphones for Home Recording
For best results, you should buy two pairs of headphones because isolation and sound quality kind of work against each other. A good closed-back pair gives you isolation for tracking, while an open-backed pair gives you killer quality for mixing.
We know this can get expensive, but some people try to get around the high costs by buying one low-quality closed-back pair, and one low-quality open-back one. Unfortunately all this does is leave you with two bad pairs of headphones. It will still cost you a ton and won’t work for tracking or mixing.
If you need to save money, go for high quality semi-open or fitted in-ear headphones. These will work well enough for both tracking and mixing until you can afford more professional options.