Airpods made a huge impact ever since they got introduced on the market and have become the go to headphones for most people.
As a music producer you may wonder whether using Airpods for music production is the way to go. Worry not! This post has you covered.
so, Can you use Airpods for Music Production?
Ofcourse you can use Airpods or any other headphones to produce music, but As far as professional music production goes, you need headphones that are well optimised to give an accurate output with a flat frequency response that is unaccompanied by any alteration. Airpods are meant for easy consumer listening and not music production. You can use them to check on your masters, in terms of how good your material sounds on them but they are a definite no-no for the production of music.
Why airpods are not ideal for music production
They are wireless
The price you usually have to pay when you’re using wireless headphones is dealing with the latency. This is the reason why I cannot prescribe these for somebody that is serious about music production.
Granted, cabled in headphones may sort of limit you in your work due to the fact that you need to be closer to your interface or computer, but they do a great job of making sure that you don’t run into any latency.
Latency can really throw you off when mixing because it will negatively affect your experience which will in turn make your job that much harder because now you have to deal with latency whilst trying to get a good flow of your production process.
This is why I recommend going for a good pair of music production headphones, because they can help you work better and have a good properly timed signal rather than running into latency issues.
They are pricey
The price, i know has very little to do with music production as a process, but I certainly have to address it because I know it will be and is an issue for most beginner music producers.
Let’s, face it Airpods are not your general run-of-the-mill headphones that you can easily pick up at your favourite gizmo shop for a couple of bucks.
Airpods are quite pricey, especially the Airpods max. This can be a challenge for somebody that doesn’t have a huge budget at the ready.
Furthermore, most beginners that are looking to get started in music production, will definitely not pay a lot of money for gear.
Other than that, you’re better off spending your cash in the right place which is basically a place that can offer you good headphones that you can use for music production.
There are a variety of options that you could choose from so don’t be in a rush to jump at airpods because everyone is using them or talking about them.
Music production is process oriented, you need good gear that can help you achieve what needs to be achieved. You don’t need an over hyped product that will be more than likely be detrimental to your mixing.
They are meant for easy listening
We definitely have to address this when it comes to airpods.
Reason number 3 why I don’t recommend using airpods for music production is that they are not meant for music production.
Airpods are meant for the listener that gets to enjoy the end product which is the finished song.
To give them the best experience, apple hasn’t focused on creating headphones that will give off a flat frequency response that is suitable for an audio production scenario, instead they are focused on the consumers who are listener of music.
The goal is to provide the best listening experience and not the best audio production experience.
As a music producer, it’s always good to be skeptical when you run into gear that is not meant for audio production but meant for casual use outside of the audio production scenario.
Therefore get a good pair of headphones meant for music production to avoid running into any bumps along your production process.
This point leads me to my next point.
They are not great for mixing decisions
Music production is a decision based job that calls on the producer to make an assessment of audio and provide the right tools and techniques to go about processing that audio to make it sound better and ready for distribution.
In short, as a music producer, you’ll deal with a lot of decision making especially when it comes to your mixing and mastering.
These two processes require a delicate approach to ensure that music is properly processed as well as it can be.
Airpods being consumer headphones will not help you in making the right decisions for your mixing because they won’t give you a flat frequency response but will instead give you a consumer grade frequency response which will be of no use to you because you need to get a good sense of what is truly and accurately going on in your mix NOT an exaggeration.
Final Thoughts
Even though my various points have been only reasons why I don’t recommend going for airpods, you should know that they are good still headphones.
They can be great for listening to your final master sessions because they can help you get a better sense of how airpods users will perceive your final mastered track.
Furthermore, Airpods are better than most consumer-driven headphones which makes them a good pick for somebody that wants to have an idea of how their music sounds on various systems.
However, music production is a delicate job that requires good ears and good equipment. Which is is why I recommend that you go for professional music production headphones rather than listener-grade headphones like airpods.
