monitors or headphones?

[shawn gibson]

OK I'm at a bar, and I have 600 bucks Canadian to get my sound up to par for my new little home recording thingie. And I've been sweating over getting something like Proto-J's and a used amp or M-Audio BX-8,s and now my buddy who is also a musician is saying I should get good headphones for that money, for recording?

So...do you spend 600 bucks on good headphones and an amp when you're starting out, or do you get ref. monitors and an amp/active monitors??? My recording is currently all direct.

I think he's nuts, but his points are very convincing: get rid of the acoustics of the room, listen directly to what you're recording. But I'm saying: how the hell am I gonna get a good reference out of a 1 inch speaker???

Thoughts...

Shawn

ps anything beats the 15 year old stupid bustaboy SHARPE thing I'm using, so please help.

 

[Doug H]

All the people who should know will swear up and down that mixing on hadphones is inferior to monitors and will never get you all the way there. There's a bunch of posts around complete with links to articles on the topic.

For tracking I would argue you need a decent set of phones, if for no other reason than to setup mic placement. I wouldn't think you need to spend $600 on them tho.

 

[ambi]

What doug said. You cannot mix properly on headphones trust me. They're great for double checking a mix or tracking, but not for mixing.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Whad'ya Mean I Can't Mix With Headphones???? (article)

 

[GT]

Phones are good for tracking down noise problems, and signals that are too hot.

Phones are great for finding the most optimum direction to face, to get the best signal to noise out of your electric guitar.

Kind of like using a stethascope.

But for mixing, gots to be speakers.

I would like to add, not just monitors, but any stereo you can listen to your mix on, should help.

I just recently found, thanks to a newly aquired cd burner, how invaluable listening in your car can be, I highly recomend it.

GT

 

[shawn gibson]

Whad'ya Mean I Can't Mix With Headphones???? (article)

Great article, thanks very much

I get to tell my buddy he was wrong for once LOL!

...Getting monitors.

Thanks everyone.

Shawn