When do phones become more viable than the room for mixing?

[rgouette]

I have a 10x11 basement office/studio space.
It sortof has become a catch-all of sorts tbh
carpeted floor
ceiling is open painted joists
My audio desk is in a corner of the room, which places the right monitor mere inches from the wall(thin wallboard on studs)
I have zero acoustic treatment.
It's extremely NOT ideal for good recording..
I am wondering: since I don't have many options for moving things around, is there a point where, because of the
room limitations, mixing with good headphones is actually going to give me a better end product?
I have Rockit 5" active monitors, each sitting on top of a rectangle of thick foam, on the "mixing desk"
DAW is Studio one, with Firepod interfaces

Appreciate anything you care to toss out...even if it's just humour...
~Rich

 

[bouldersoundguy]

If a room is bad enough, headphones might be better.

 

[Eric V]

There is an audio engineer who is quite successful named Andrew Scheps who always mixes with headphones. He said he does check with monitors at times , but usually he uses headphones. He use to use Sony MDR 7506 phones and now uses Odysseys made by Audeze.

 

[rgouette]

There is an audio engineer who is quite successful named Andrew Scheps who always mixes with headphones. He said he does check with monitors at times , but usually he uses headphones. He use to use Sony MDR 76506 phones and now uses Odysseys made by Audeze.

ok that's encouraging.. thanks for tht
~R

 

[Eric V]

ok that's encouraging.. thanks for tht
~R

I typoed, those phones were Sony MDR 7506's

 

[rgouette]

I typoed, those phones were Sony MDR 7506's

yeah, I figured that out!

 

[ecc83]

I guess it depends upon who or what you are doing your recordings for? If just for your own interest, to improve your playing chops perhaps, then so long as you can hear what you are doing that is really all you need. If on the other hand to want to post the compositions here or other places and aspire to a "professional" standard you have a mountain to climb.
But why do "we" monitor on a pair (must BE a pair) of speakers? Well the first fact is...that is how we experience sound in the real world. The original purpose of headphones was to EXCLUDE the world and allow the listener to concentrate on the task in hand, usually a radio operator.
But speakers, properly setup, give us stereo sound. They allow us to hear where instruments or voices are in a good stereo recording and, in production allow you to pan your instruments where you want them. This is much more difficult on headphones I understand? At least a "cans panned" piece does not translate well to speaker auditioning?

But the monitors need to be setup properly because the room will degrade the stereo image. The concept of "near field monitoring" helps here but you still need some absorbent material on the "mirror points" to sharpen things up.

You are never going to make that room much good at bass frequencies so it is best not to reproduce too much of them but bass is where the headphones can be of help. I have in fact just got some new monitors and the bass is wonderfully powerful and extended but not I am sure particularly 'flat' but I don't make recordings. I bought the monitors just for my own pleasure in my living room and I am not going to fill that up with bass traps!

I am sure someone here can suggest some books. I shall just suggest to go to www.soundonsound.com and look up "studio sos".

Dave.

 

[Track Rat]

In my experience, monitors when mixing instruments relative to each other, ESPECIALLY bass. I like headphones for editing only