So lets say you used your monitors of your home studio to set the volume of each instrument

then you check on headphones and you notice some levels are not like you want them to be

my question is: in this case you would trust the headphones more as the final choice? regarding levels

thanks

 

Trust the ones with the better (flatter) freq response. So it depends on the quality of your HP and your monitors.

 

i thought freq response does not matter but it seems it does in volume setting......as certain frequencies are boosted or lowered i guess

 

Smaller monitors won't produce the full spectrum, they leave out lows, where headphones don't. This could be part of your issue.
But headphones don't translate what air and a room do to sound.
So here you see the problem of working with two references. You should have one.

 

in your case, not knowing how well treated your room, your monitor speaker calibration and placement.. i wud judge the balancing, level and pan via headphone.. and try to cross check or A/B it with your reference material.

 

I think the best answer for you is to use your headphones at this time. Use your monitors for some last checking. Get some sort of correction software like Can Opener, or the others. There are many less variables introduced into your setup that way.

This is not blanket advice. I am commenting only on the OP so please save us the exception report

Watch, next we will be getting questions about the human ear. Brush up on your Cochleas.