Whenever you mix with headphones you run the risk of pushing things too far back. Because all the tracks are right there around your ears, they automatically sound louder and more present.
Which in turn makes you add more reverb to push things back. Or you lower the volume of the vocal because it's too present in your mix.
But the thing is, when you play it back on speakers, you might end up with a wishy-washy
mix. Things that were present before might be drowned out by other instruments.
The vocal might sound super present on your headphones, but once you play your mix through the monitors it'll be crowded out by all the other instruments.
It's easier to start your mix on monitors and then tweak them with headphones.
But if headphones is all you got, then make sure you check out your mix
on as many speaker systems as possible. You don't want that vocal to be drowned out just because you were lazy.
Making your mixes translate to different systems is important, especially when you're translating from headphones to speakers.
Headphone mixing is quite common, and it does adhere to all the same guidelines as mixing on monitors. It's just a little more time consuming during the "perfection phase."
And
if you're looking for some good guidelines to get better translation in your mixes, EQ Strategies is guaranteed to help you out.
Check it out here:
www.EQStrategies.net