Recording in small room but mixing on headphones

There are pros and cos for each but rather than answer this myself, I did a quick search and I found this article: www.musicradar.com/news/tech/monitors-vs-headphones-which-is-best-for-mixing-574584

You have nothing to loose (except time) by mixing both ways and checking both mixes out on other know good sounding systems in know good sounding rooms...and in cars...and anywhere else you listen to music.

After you get your "hands dirty" come back and let's see if you have more specific questions and we'll go from there.

I don't own any monitors.

Re: headphones, just really basic inexpensive ones. Professionally recorded music sounds good on it so it seems that I should be able to use them to create a pleasing final product. 

The room won't matter if I'm using headphones to mix. And what I don't understand is why, if Pink Floyd sounds pleasing on $13 headphones, can't newly mixed music?

I'm not trying to be combative, I just want to understand the science of this (and steer clear of audiophile hype and myths, as debunked by Ethan himself). Thanks.

I don't disagree with Pasim but I will say that we are not all necessarily at "the same stage of the game" OR we may not even have the same level of "perfection" as a FINAL GOAL! Having said that, I would encourage chelonian (or anyone else getting started) to start mixing with what is available Right Now! ... with what ever you have. Just do it! You will make mistakes on much more than room acoustics or headphone quality. Let's face it, if we all had the money, most of us would just hire a world class studio, producer and engineer if getting the highest quality recording was the only object. But many top artists build their own "project studios" because they want to do it at home, when they want to etc. Most of us do it at home because we cant afford any thing more . (OK some of us are just "dyed in the wool" DIYers and we have to do it all ourselves!)

Side Bar: Back in the olden days (the early 80's) we built a home studio with a Tascam 8 track etc. The leader wrote, sang lead, played lead guitar, engineered, produced, booked the band... almost everything. A common friend of ours joined the band and after awhile realized the above and once, in a moment of candor, spouted off to the "leader": "So when we do finally cut our first album, you'll probably want to drive the truck to the record store!" 

Back to your mixes: If you are just getting started, use what you have and make it a point to take your mixes to other systems; your friend's homes, high end stereo stores, get dance clubs to spin your mixes (even if it's before or after hours) maybe even hire some time at a local studio to both listen to your mixes but also to audition the studio and listen to their best mixes. If your mixes are exactly what you want, keep it up...if not, what's the problem?

One tip that might help translation is using a reference track. A reference track is a professional mix in the same genre and has similar instrumentation as your mix that you would like to emulate it's sound, dynamics and feel. As you mix, check your reference mix (for ease of use, just record it on a stereo track in your DAW). Refer to it as you mix for relative levels of various instruments/voices, EQ, FX etc. Listen to hear how your mixes translate in different rooms and systems.   

You're in for a challenge, for sure. However, like rock said, use what you have. Even if your bass is skewed, you can still set up a reflection-free zone with 4-8" rigid panels and get a pair of mixcubes that roll off around 90Hz.  That won't fix your bass but at least you can focus on the frequencies that you can control.  I feel like you can get reasonable sub-bass levels for mixing with meters and the right headphones anyway.

Part of the reason you don't hear flutter echo could be due to masking. In other words, you have so much reflectiveness, it's covering up the discrete echoes. This is related to how Chris Lord-Alge sends delays into reverbs to make them less obvious.

I see your logic about headphones sounding good on the playback so why not the creation. Like pasim said, I find headphone mixing severely overrated. Yes, you have Slate and others promising you the moon but who stands to profit? Follow the money.

Most of us start with nothing. Start moving forward and build as you go. Maybe you can have x y and z tomorrow but use a b and c today.

Ya, apartment life sucks for audio. I have my sub disconnected, currently. Partially due to the limited I/O of Babyface but also because these 5" monitors are only down 3dB at 60Hz.

I dream of mastering the sub range and was hoping to add a tactile transducer at some point. Really, I'll probably end up in a house before then - hopefully!

In no way am I advocating using headphones as a serious decision-making tool for mixing. They are great for editing, though, and all the usual suspects like tracking and working when you want isolation in general.