Headphones for tracking and some mixing
Need some decent cans for recording acoustic guitar. I need some that have good isolation so that click tracks don't spill onto the acoustic mic. It would be nice if they were good for mixing on as well, just for late night sessions and as an alternative to my monitors, but the mixing is secondary.
Budget is around £100 or less if I can get away with it.
So looking at AKG, KRK Sennheiser etc
Any ideas? Could do with something comfy, I'm definitely not a fan of DT100's for that reason!
Sennheiser HD280 Pros for me. Good non-boxy sound for a closed back and very good isolation. Unfortunately just a bit more than your budget (£110-115 ) but worth trying. the HD280 (non "pro" version) is the same in silver, rather than black and can be slightly cheaper. I've got some DT100s as well and although I do find those comfy (must depend on your head!) the sound is nothing like as good as the HD280s whilst the isolation is about the same.
Unfortunately, open backed headphones are no good for tracking - especially vocals.
Yesw I think they need to be closed back, isolation is very important.
Seconded. Very comfortable and really good isolation.Originally Posted by Wonks
The K271s are the closed back versions of the K240 and are very good for mixing on.
Cool, I'll check them out.
If they were just for tracking, then as long as they had good isolation and an OK sound, then any closed back headphone should do. Unfortunately price isn't a great indicator of sound quality. When I bought my HD280s, I also bought two other sets around the same price (around £60-£70 when I bought them some years ago as I needed to record lots of people at once. The HD280s were by far the best sounding of the lot.
If you are going to mix on headphones, then you really need to get the best open backed ones you can afford. They'll certainly be far less expensive than any monitors of the equivalent sound quality. And unless you plan to mix in mono, or exclusively for people using headphones, you are best doing all your stereo panning and effecting on monitors. Headphones don't give the correct stereo image as you don't get the acoustic spill from left and right speakers to both ears that you do in a room.
Yeah, agreed. I have some M Audio BX5 monitors, they do the job for what I need for mixing so the hedphones will just be for quick checks when mixing. So just need a good quality headphone with good isolation.
You can easily create good mixes on a set of closed back headphones as long as you're used to them. Open backs will give you a better indication of what's really going on in the bottom end though.
I'd be surprised if your mixes weren't better on a decent set of headphones than on the BX5s, which aren't particularly good tbh.
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