- Hello and welcome back. In this video, I'm going
to be taking a look at the best types of studio headphones for your home recording and mixing. As you gradually get together equipment for your home recording studio setup, a good set of studio headphones
will be almost certainly one of the first things you purchase, and here, I'm not going to run
through a series of products and make specific recommendations. What I am going to do
is look at why you need at least one good set of headphones, the different types available, the difference between
closed-back and open-back, things to look out for, some
of the benefits and pitfalls of using headphones in
your home recording studio. I'll post links below to some of the industry standard
headphones in each category at various price points, so you can go and check out the reviews and see which ones might suit you, depending on the type you're looking for, your recording needs and
your budget of course. If you're new here, then
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about studio headphones. There are two main kinds
of over-the-ear headphones, open-back and closed-back. Each has benefits and each has drawbacks. Most headphones are
closed-back or circumaural, which basically means the outer
part of the headphone cups have a hard enclosure. For example, these Sony MDR-7506's. Open back headphones leave the back of the headphone cup open. For example, these AKG K702's. So far, so simple, but what does it mean? The small speaker drives in headphones emit sound in both directions, towards your ears,
directly into your head, and away from your ears, out
towards the rest of the world. Closed-back headphones
largely aim to block the sound aimed towards the world. Open-back headphones let
this sound largely go free. Closed-back headphones are
designed to isolate you from the outside world, it's
just you and your music. The downside is the music is a lot more in your head sounding. It's less of a band in a concert hall, and more a band in your head. However, this makes closed-back headphones the best choice for
monitoring and tracking while you are recording. You will get a lot less bleed or leakage of your backing track being recorded on, say, your vocal track. The problem with open-back headphones is that everyone can hear
what you're listening to. If you try to use open-back headphones to monitor while recording, then you will get much more
bleed onto your recorded tracks. In other words, you'll be able to hear some of the backing
track on the vocal track. So I'm going to demonstrate that now. I am all set up to go. I've got my microphone ready to record me. I've got a backing track that I want to record myself along with. So what I'm going to do
is just create a track, arm it for recording,
it's picking up my voice. So I'll put my open-back headphones on, so I will be monitoring the backing track through these headphones
and then I'll record myself on top of it, and we'll see what I pick up on the vocal track along with my voice. Okay, so the backing track has started and if I wanted to sing along on top, which I'm not going to do here, then that is what I would do. So what I'm going to do is I'm
just gonna pause for a minute and you can see how much of
the backing track you can hear. (music playing faintly through headphones) And that's because I'm monitoring using open-back headphones. They are not isolating the backing track as much as they could. So what I'm gonna do is do a quick swap. So exactly the same scenario as before, only this time, I'm going
to be monitoring the track through my closed-back headphones, and I will pause for a
bit so that you can hear what the backing track
sounds like through these. Okay, so the backing track has started and I'm talking over the top of it. So the question is, how
much of the backing track can you hear on this vocal
track compared to the last one? Now I'm going to have a look at closed-back versus
open-back headphones, apart from that obvious
difference of the isolation. One thing you've got to be aware of with closed-back headphones
is that that isolation can have an unwanted side effect. While you are recording,
you are more cut off from unwanted sounds, such as foot tapping, shuffling, rustling, so it can take a bit of practice to get a good headphone
recording technique. The other problem is they can
make you feel very closed in and a bit nasal, and you'll
have heard in those examples that I just gave, that when
I got the headphones on, I was talking that bit louder. It might be a good idea
to pipe your backing track through one channel and just
have one cup over your ear. You'll have to just practice
and see what works for you. Open-back headphones
sound significantly larger and less closed in than
closed-back headphones. They're just more open sounding. They're less like music
beamed into your head and more like music in a room. In other words, they're more realistic. So for mixing, generally, open-back headphones are preferable, although this is a bit of a
matter of personal choice. The disadvantage of using
open-back headphones for mixing is that you have any ambient
sound going on around you in the room while you are mixing, you're less isolated from it, so it may end up
interfering with your mix, or it might sort of distract
you while you are mixing because you're not so
isolated from the things that are going on around you. Whichever headphones you're looking at, and when you are comparing, make sure you study
the frequency response. For mixing and editing, you want a good, even frequency response so you can hear the top end clearly, and though the bass is thick and full, you don't want sounds
to be tinny at one end or too muddy or boom-y at the other end. So do check the frequency response graph for any headphones you're
thinking of buying. Let's have a look at
recording in more detail. Generally, in a home studio setting, audio equipment is in one room. This means if you're going
to record using a microphone, you need a set of headphones. You can't monitor recordings
through your studio speakers. Firstly, you will probably
get into a feedback loop between the mic and the monitors, and secondly, even if that doesn't happen, your mic would be recording whatever sound was coming out of the
speakers, as well as you. So in this case, you need
to have a reasonable pair of closed-back headphones for monitoring. These will enable you to
hear the backing track and to monitor yourself, while
at the same time recording, without that bleed or
leakage we looked at. So some examples of industry standards of closed-back headphones,
at suitable prices for a home recording studio setup, you could have a look at
the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, the Sony MDR-7506, the
Audio-Technica ATH-M50x, or the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. All of these are hugely
popular headphones. If you're on a tight budget, then the Status Audio CB-1's
are an excellent choice too. I'll put links below so you
can check out the reviews of all of these and
compare and contrast them. If you're mixing and
monitoring, in an ideal world, you'll have a decent
pair of studio monitors and a great pair of headphones
for mixing and mastering. However, if you're just
starting to get together your first studio and
you have a tight budget, then you may only be able to
afford a set of headphones, you're not ready to buy the monitors yet. Now I prefer the wider
sound and listening comfort of open-back headphones, and
some of the great examples of top selling industry standards, again, priced for a home studio budget, are the Beyerdynamic DT
990 Pro studio headphones or these AKG K702's, which
are massively cheaper now than when they were first launched, or the Sennheiser HD 600. You could go and have a look at those, compare and contrast the reviews. Bear in mind, many of the
closed back headphones can also be used for mixing, as well as monitoring while recording, and so it's worth studying
the reviews and specs. Some are excellent. If you're only able to
buy one set of headphones that you have to use for
recording and mixing, then go for closed-back. If you're lucky enough
to be able to afford it, then having a set of
each is a good luxury. So let's have a look at
some of the advantages of using headphones in your home studio. The obvious one is they
don't annoy the neighbors or your housemates, so
obviously you can get on with all your music making and mixing and recording and editing
without disturbing anyone else, and they cost much less
than an equivalent set of studio monitors. They're essential if you want to monitor yourself while recording, and the good thing about
mixing with headphones is there's no coloration from
room acoustics while mixing, like there would be
with a set of monitors. The tone quality is exactly the same in different environments,
so they're very consistent. They're obviously very convenient for on-location monitoring and mixing, and it's easier to hear
small changes in the mix through headphones than through monitors. Transients are sharper due to the absence of room reflections, so even if you do most of your
mixing using studio monitors, you should also check out the
mix in your headphones too. However, there are some
disadvantages to using headphones that you should be aware of when you're running your home studio. One of the main ones is they
can become uncomfortable and tire you out after
long listening sessions, and cheap headphones have
inaccurate tone quality, so spend as much as you
can in the first instance. Headphones don't project
bass tones through your body like speakers do, so you don't
get the same kind of feel for the music as you do
when it's coming at you through studio monitors. The bass response varies due
to changing headphone pressure, so you have to watch out for that. The other thing is the sound
is very much in your head, rather than out front. You don't hear any room
reverb through headphones, so you may be adding too much or even too little reverb in the mix, so you must be aware of that, and so it's a good idea, if you can, to listen to your mix after
you've made it on headphones on some speaker system. And finally, it can be difficult to judge your stereo spread with headphones, because panned signals tend
not to sound as far off center as the same sounds heard over speakers. So if your budget allows,
it's really good to combine using headphones and studio monitors for mixing and mastering
in your home studio, but it is really likely that you will purchase headphones first, so hopefully this has given
you a few things to think about when you're making your decision. If you want to know more, then
I've written a complete guide to the best studio headphones. Do have a read, I'll link you below. As usual, comments and questions,
please post them below. I love hearing from you, it helps me know what I
should talk about next to help you out. Do give the video a thumbs up
and subscribe to the channel. Thank you for watching,
I will see you next time.
