Mixing on Headphones: How to Get Professional Results Without Studio Monitors
Studio monitors aren't the only path to a good mix. With the right headphones, the right reference tracks, and an understanding of what headphones distort, you can produce mixes that translate. Here's the workflow that actually works.
Half the world's bedroom-produced records are mixed on headphones. Here's how to do it without making the rookie mistakes.
The first three EPs I released were mixed entirely on a pair of Sennheiser HD600s in a Brooklyn closet. I sent them to mastering engineers who'd worked on major-label records, and not one of them came back asking what kind of room I'd mixed in. Headphone mixing isn't a workaround — it's a craft with its own rules. The rules are different from monitor-mixing, and they're learnable.
The reality of headphone mixing
Headphones and speakers present sound to your ears in fundamentally different ways. Speakers fill a room; both ears hear both channels at slightly different times and frequencies depending on where you sit. Headphones isolate each ear to its own channel, with no acoustic interaction between them. This is why a mix that sounds great on headphones can sound narrow and dry on speakers, and a mix that sounds great on speakers can sound exaggeratedly stereo on headphones.
The good news: this is a known problem with known solutions. If you understand what's distorted and compensate, headphones can produce mixes that translate.
Which headphones to use
You need open-back headphones for mixing, not closed-back. Closed-back headphones (the kind you track vocals with) have a hyped, slightly unnatural low end because the seal against your ear pressurizes the air. Open-back headphones let air through and present a more natural frequency balance.
The classics, in order of price:
- Sennheiser HD600 ($400): Industry standard for thirty years. Slightly bright but consistent and predictable.
- Beyerdynamic DT 880 600-ohm ($200): Slightly more present in the upper-mids. Needs a headphone amp.
- Audeze LCD-1 ($400): Planar magnetic, gives a more "speaker-like" presentation. Newer favorite.
- Sennheiser HD560s ($200): The budget choice. 80% of the HD600 for half the money.
Do not mix on consumer headphones — anything Beats, anything wireless, AirPods. They're fine for listening but their EQ is sculpted to flatter content, not reveal it.
The method
Three rules that, applied together, fix most translation problems:
Rule 1: Keep your panning conservative. Hard-pan only one or two elements per mix, and only ones that don't carry primary information. Backing vocals, percussion, doubled guitars — pan those. Lead vocals, kick, snare, bass — center. A safe upper limit for most elements is around 60% pan.
Rule 2: Use less reverb than feels right. Headphones present reverb at exaggerated intimacy because each ear hears its respective channel cleanly. A mix that feels appropriately wet on headphones will sound drenched on speakers. Reduce reverb sends to 60–70% of what feels right.
Rule 3: Check the low end on something else. Headphones, especially open-back, do not accurately reproduce low frequencies the way speakers do. A subwoofer plays bass with physical pressure that headphones can't simulate. Check your low end on car speakers, phone speakers, and a Bluetooth speaker before signing off.
Reference tracks are non-negotiable
If you mix on headphones, you must mix with reference tracks. Always. Load a commercial reference of music in a similar genre into your DAW, level-match it to your mix using a loudness meter, and A/B between them every five minutes. This is the single most valuable habit in headphone mixing because it forces your ears to recalibrate constantly against a known-good target.
Tools like Reference 2 (Mastering The Mix) make this easier, but a free plugin like Youlean Loudness Meter and the level-match capability of any DAW will work fine.
The translation pass
Before declaring a mix done, listen to it on at least three other systems:
- Phone speakers. If the vocals and kick disappear, your low-mids are off.
- Car stereo. Reveals problems with stereo width and low-end balance.
- A friend's earbuds. AirPods are the listening environment of half your audience. If it sounds wrong there, fix it.
You will almost certainly make small adjustments after these passes. That's normal. Speaker-based mixes go through the same process — they just don't need the translation step to be as ritualized, because the speakers already do some of that work.
Don't let monitor evangelists tell you headphone mixing is amateur. It's a different toolset for the same job, and many of the best engineers working today use it daily. More on what to actually buy first here.
Frequently asked
Can professional engineers really mix on headphones?
Yes, and many do — especially for parts of a mix, even when monitors are available. Andrew Scheps famously mixes entirely on headphones. Headphone-only mixing is professional practice, not a workaround.
What are the best headphones for mixing?
Open-back models like the Sennheiser HD600 ($400), HD650, Beyerdynamic DT 880, or Audeze LCD-1 are the standards. Open-back headphones have a more natural, less hyped sound than closed-back.
Should I use software like Sonarworks for headphone mixing?
Yes, if you can afford it. Sonarworks SoundID Reference applies a correction curve to your specific headphone model, flattening their frequency response and dramatically improving translation.
What's the biggest mistake when mixing on headphones?
Too much stereo panning. Headphones produce extreme separation between left and right (each ear hears only one channel), which makes wide panning feel correct in headphones and ridiculous on speakers. Keep most elements narrower than you instinctively want.