The HEDD Team's Go-To Reference Tracks

Reference tracks are a common tool in modern audio work, available to all regardless of budget or skill and applicable to all setups. Simply put, a reference track is an existing song representative of how you may want your own music to sound, if you're making music, or of how hardware should behave in terms of audio reproduction, if you're working with or creating audio products like monitors and headphones. Reference tracks are favorites that you can rely on to help you see (or in this case hear) the forest for the trees.

Whether you’re checking out a new studio space, auditioning new monitors or headphones, or simply trying to put the finishing touches to a mix or master, being able to draw upon music you know well can save you time, money, and a world of frustration from second-guessing yourself.

Sometimes reference tracks are the ones you’ve listened to the most, perhaps in your formative years or in the early stages of your audio career. Some people like to use tracks that they’ve worked on while others will pick from songs they’ve heard in multiple locations - from bedrooms to studios to nightclubs.

At HEDD we use reference tracks primarily to test our products, whether that be Quality Control (QC) on the HEDDphone or MK2 monitor series or to showcase the accuracy of our Air Motion Transformer drivers at trade shows or demos. 

We listen to a lot of speakers and headphones, and work with amazing studios around the world, so with this in mind we wanted to share some of our go-to reference tracks with you, the ones that give us a solid foundation to work from when we’re exploring new ideas, quality-checking new builds, or listening in new locations.

We hope they also spark something new in your own listening adventures. You can hear all the reference tracks we've chosen on our TIDAL playlist here.

Beck - Paper Tiger

With a super raw approach, closed mic’ed kick drum and voice, this track unveils imbalances in the lower mid range while the high saturation of instruments in the chorus really help to show the dynamic capabilities and separation of HEDD monitors. We also use it in HEDDphone QC for evaluating tuning, neutrality, and separation.

Grace Jones - Slave to the Rhythm

Lots of high end which makes this a great reference track to hear tonal imbalances, as well as spot harshness and peaks.

The Acid - Animal

This track is another favorite as it has a lot of image and spatial information, depth and impulse response which is ideal for testing.

Gregory Porter - Hey Laura

Great to test the balance between left and right channels.

Fink - Perfect Darkness

This one is perfect for evaluating tonal balance, transients, high mid range, and high end.

Tord Gustavson Trio - Karmosin

We use this track to evaluate the HEDDphone's resolution and distortion responses.

Moderat - Running

This is the perfect track to test the Air Motion Transformer in the HEDDphone with its combination of bass, sub, and transients!

Lorde - Royals

A great pop song to evaluate depth and stereo image.

The Bad Plus - 1983 Regional All Stars

A lot of product tuning revolves around acoustically recorded music. This raw jazz recording is very intimate and effect-free, it offers a view on the actual live sound of every instrument, combined with great separation and fine dynamics on the drum track. You can use it to hear how the frequency range unfolds from dark to bright.

Kendrick Lamar - DNA

A rap classic that lets you test the boundaries of distortion and sub responses.

Bad Bad Not Good - In your eyes

With its female vocal and separation of instruments, including strings, alongside analog saturation this is one of the go-to tracks for evaluating how a modern approach to vintage recording aesthetics translates into our products.

Bartók - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado)

Bartók’s second piano concerto, especially the first movement, is incredibly fast on the piano part, with lots of additional (mostly brass and woodwind) instruments sharing large parts of the frequency range at the same time, all recorded in the same room. Only an excellent loudspeaker or headphone is able to reproduce this music and capture the instrumental separation, small dynamic changes, and overall sonic complexity.

At the same time, this recording is very bright and clean compared to many classical orchestra recordings, which creates a shine on the high-frequency range of the piano, high strings, and brass. A great reference track for hearing very fine details and enjoy the openness and resolution of the HEDD AMT driver.

Erik Satie - Mort de Socrate (Barbara Hannigan, Reinbert de Leeuw)

A very intimate sounding recording of piano and voice, with beautiful natural reverb, it feels like you are sitting right next to the musicians. This makes it a great reference track to identify harshness and tonality issues. It's also great to really focus on sonic details, as this mesmerising movement is very repetitive, made of just a few short segments that are constantly shuffled and put together in new combinations.

D’Angelo - Send It On

The punch, layering, and separation of bass and sub in this soul classic makes it our go-to for cutting through all the noise at trade shows! It's also a widely loved classic that always starts conversations.