Getting Used to New Monitors

songsj

Member
Anyone else here have a heck of a time getting used to new monitors when changing brands, models, upgrades. etc. I bought a pair of Yamaha HS8's an upgrade from my Alesis Model 1 MKII active's and I am having a heck of a time getting a good mix with them. I understand neither of these are considered high end but are decent for home studio applications. Funny thing is I have done some great mixes on the Alesis monitors, My measure is that they sound good on all playback devices, but my ears are having a really hard time getting dialed into the Yamaha's. They are so much brighter that my first mixes were dark. as I've tried to compensate for that my latest mix was too bright, almost fatiguing on the ears after a couple of listens. I have many hours on this mix and am going to take another shot at it in a day or two but I'm just wondering if this is a common occurrence when changing. Should not be that tough, it is just a stereo music track with a lead vocal. I'm having the most trouble with the 1k to 5k range. The area where if you don't get it right it hurts to listen to.
 
Anyone else here have a heck of a time getting used to new monitors when changing brands, models, upgrades. etc. I bought a pair of Yamaha HS8's an upgrade from my Alesis Model 1 MKII active's and I am having a heck of a time getting a good mix with them. I understand neither of these are considered high end but are decent for home studio applications. Funny thing is I have done some great mixes on the Alesis monitors, My measure is that they sound good on all playback devices, but my ears are having a really hard time getting dialed into the Yamaha's. They are so much brighter that my first mixes were dark. as I've tried to compensate for that my latest mix was too bright, almost fatiguing on the ears after a couple of listens. I have many hours on this mix and am going to take another shot at it in a day or two but I'm just wondering if this is a common occurrence when changing. Should not be that tough, it is just a stereo music track with a lead vocal. I'm having the most trouble with the 1k to 5k range. The area where if you don't get it right it hurts to listen to.

Sorry but I don't remember if your room is acoustically treated well.

For me, a monitor upgrade was an amazing moment of clarity. Even though I was used to what I had and mixes translated well, it took a bit of time to adjust to the better monitors. Similar to what you stated, my new ones were much clearer in the mid range. That is telling us something...

So bottom line is that you just need time with the new monitors to get familiar with them. And yes, it does take a while to adjust. But keep in mind you may be just hearing things you did not before. That is a good thing!

I have no experience with the monitors you have, so my reply is just hypothetical based on my recent upgrade experience.
 
The room is not acoustically treated, drywall walls, acoustic ceiling tiles, laminate floor covered mostly with rugs. I try to keep the volume down for this reason. I have always found the whole reference monitor subject interesting and yet at the same time perplexing. The theory has always been that you need the most expensive monitors you can afford that deliver a flat frequency response so you know exactly what you are getting sound wise. If a person uses this audio reference point they should be able to mix music so it sounds as close to what they intend on what ever listening/playback device is used. Since there are thousands of monitors out there that all sound different and even the same monitor will sound different in different rooms and different again depending upon room placement, it has always seemed most important to me that the mixing engineer knows exactly how an audio project needs to sound on HIS/HER monitoring system in order to transfer well to other playback devices. How it sounds in the booth/room means nothing if the mix does not transfer well to other devices, To me what I call "The Transfer" is everything. Experienced engineers will swear the most expensive monitors money can buy will give you the best most reliable predicable transfers. They can't all be wrong but I have to add that this only seems to be true to me if their ears are trained to know exactly how some thing has to sound on those expensive monitors to transfer well. Just an old guy here struggling with his upgrade.
 
I bought a pair of Yamaha HS8's an upgrade from my Alesis Model 1 MKII active's and I am having a heck of a time getting a good mix with them.

Maybe they're not the right choice for you or your room.

Just because they come across as an "upgrade", it doesn't mean they will automatically be that.
You could line up a dozen equally priced, equal quality build monitors...and you will like some much more than others.

In my case, my recent monitor upgrade was great out of the box. I immediately heard an improvement, and it also translated into the mixes.
Now my old monitors sound murky.

If you really feel that your mixes always translated well to other playback systems with your old monitors...why then did you feel the need to upgrade them?
That said...you need to really make sure that was the case...and maybe the new monitors are just much more revealing...but mix translation is IMO the most important thing for a set of studio monitors. That's really what you want...not just great sounding monitors or what have you.

If you get the right ones for you and your room...they really should sound pretty darn good to you...and they should also translate well. That equals good monitors. You can learn to mix on shit sounding monitors...but why would anyone want to? ;)
 
'Most expensive you can afford' is not a starting point, nor and end point. You can mix with anything as long as you understand what you are hearing. Better/more expensive monitors may make that easier because they may make it more clear what you are listening to, but it still takes time to adjust to them.

I would suggest some acoustic treatment before any other purchase. It seems to me that your room may be what is confusing you.

It hard to make a solid statement about what you have going on without being there to hear it.

Cheers!
 
I'm hoping that it is just an adjustment phase, and that I will be happy with them after I get used to them. I mainly was wondering if others experienced this or if most people see their monitor upgrades as an "ah ha" moment right out of the box at first listen. I did not. I was not that impressed by how store bought professional cd's sounded through them and that is probably not a good sign. I guess time will tell, I hope they work out, I'm great at buying things and not so great at selling things I don't use. I have enough big expensive paper weights.
 
Treat them as your ONLY stereo speakers for a while. Listen to all your favorite commercial releases on them.

Whatever music you're familiar with.

Right now you are so used to the Alesis, it will take a bit to "learn" the new monitors.

Personal opinion:
The Yammies are better by far than the Alesis. Give em a chance.
 
Honestly, I prefer my more inexpensive speakers to some of the expensive ones I picked up and will sell soon. I get much more listener fatigue with the higher end ones I thought I'd be moving up with, while they are more detailed, they are too dry to listen to in the long run. Detailed but harshly so.

Different monitors may be the way to go. Even if I have to swallow a restocking fee, the next pair of speakers I buy, if the sound is off, I'm not going to wait around to return them and then go through the hassle of selling them. When I tried burning in a pair of Elacs once, they only softened a little, but my ears felt the pain of listening all that time.
 
Without acoustic treatment in a room, the most expensive monitors are a waste of money. The lows your original monitors did not even produce are now bouncing around like crazy. Rugs absorb some highs, but the low-highs and upper mids that can be fatiguing are still bouncing off the dry wall and lam floor.
I didn't believe the hype about bass traps for years - until I actually built some and put them in place.
 
Treat them as your ONLY stereo speakers for a while. Listen to all your favorite commercial releases on them.

Whatever music you're familiar with.

Right now you are so used to the Alesis, it will take a bit to "learn" the new monitors.

^^^^^^ Correct. Do this first and do it for a while. Your mind will begin to reboot and your new monitors will make more sense to you. And yes......do what you can to treat your room properly too.
 
Without acoustic treatment in a room, the most expensive monitors are a waste of money.
Word to the peeps in the house.

That said -- No doubt, getting used to (and breaking in - let's not forget that) a pair of new monitors takes time. I made an "exercise disc" the last time I needed to get through it -- Bass warbles, band-passed pink noise sweeps, 0-attack tone shots, tone sweeps - mixed in with freakishly dynamic, freakishly wide (spectrally speaking) range stuff -- And I'd pound the crap out of them with it whenever I wasn't here.

And when I *was* here -- I made the call of not taking delivery until the middle of "dance season" -- I do a lot of editing and compilation for a reasonably large bunch of dance companies / academies / etc. Hundreds and hundreds of tracks, for classical to bubble-gum to hip-hop to EDM/noise -- with the advantage of not particularly concentrating on sound quality (the point is to level, head & tail, edit, etc., although sure, some occasional adjustments or restorative processing might come up).

Long story short, I spent over two weeks (over 120 hours in-session, at least another 100 with the exercise disc) learning their personality as it was being revealed. NO DOUBT - they were very 'tight' on day one (even though the builder had pounded them with several days of pink noise for me). Lacking in the insanely smooth bottom end that developed over the next week or so, rather strident and forward sounding tweeters that just disappeared into the mid-section and a fairly obvious crossover in the mid-section that disappeared into the soundstage at the same time.

And most of that time, listening to things that already sounded good. Because I didn't know them well enough to make critical decisions on them -- and they weren't ready to let me.
 
I mainly was wondering if others experienced this or if most people see their monitor upgrades as an "ah ha" moment right out of the box at first listen. I did not. I was not that impressed by how store bought professional cd's sounded through them and that is probably not a good sign.

For me it was an "ah ha" moment with my new monitors...and I really expected it to be, based on my monitor research and what others were saying about them.

Commercial CDs should sound good on them...but if you are used to listening on typically hyped stereo systems, the classic "smile" EQ curve...and then you listen on super flat/clear studio monitors...the studio monitors may initially seem off to you, since good ones are not really meant to flatter a mix...just be brutally honest about it.

Like I said earlier...maybe those Yammies simply are not the right monitor for you and your room...and like others have said...as you up your monitor quality, the room needs to be equally good, otherwise your new monitors won't sound as best as they could.
Even though I have a bunch of treatment, and everything seems to be pretty well balanced with these new monitors...I'm probably going to add 4-6 mega bass traps...ones that mainly focus on the very low end, without affecting the mids/highs...so I can really tighten up the low end in the room.
 
Great and much appreciated replies. All valid. I will keep working with them and try to break them in and learn their personality. I smiled at the typical smile curve equalizing reference. I have been guilty of that setting myself and frankly many sound systems sound best with that curve. I think I mentioned in another post that to complicate things even more I am working with an entirely new system and room in the house. New computer, new sound card, new video and audio monitors, new DAW, all new Waves and Reaper,plugins. A lot to take in and make sense out of all at once. I think I shoot for pretty high standards for a home studio as well. I take my recordings and mix them in with all of my professional store bought music and play them on several different systems in the shuffle mode. When one of my songs pops up if it sticks out in a negative way I'm back to the mixing. I guess that is why I was so surprised as my alesis mixes have held up well. Thankfully the forum is helping me sort things out bit by bit. When I get the fidelity part of this worked out I will be hitting everyone up for tips on making the final product loud, open and airy without squashing all of the dynamics out of the piece. FYI most of my recordings are 80's and 90's and a few newer country songs along with some bigger ballads ala Sinatra, Billy Joel, Eagles etc. No Rap, Metal, or heavy beat stuff with the Boom Boom Subs. I'm 60 years old and trying to capture as many of my favorites over the course of my life as I can while I am still able. It is kind of like a 5 or ten year project depending on how well I hold up. I may re-record a few of my early day originals too. It all is kind of my last musical hurrah!!. So I hate to get too bogged down with the technical's as they burn so many hours that could be spent recording and mixing. But this is the only way I can do this, purchasing studio time would make me broke. I've made the initial investment now the studio time is free. If it takes 1 take or 100 takes it costs me the same.
 
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Hi, I dictated a long dictation and it got lost. I will summarize it again.

I use an ART EQ341 dual channel 15 band 2/3 active equalizer. I use a CD called Helicopter Girl, how to steal the world. This is an old 1990 CD. Song 9. Subliminal punk is the song you tune your speakers to. Then, when you listen to song 1. Escape cloud it sounds unbelievable.

By tuning your room and the speakers to make the song sound good, you'll find when you actively nicks anything, it will translate out to most of the systems. This is an old trick that eliminates do utilization of all kinds of electronic room tuning equipment. It is best to tune the room to your ears.

If you are not a spring chicken with great hearing, you're going to find that you will start to have a hearing loss at 1500 Hz. That is the fact of life with everyone in the industry.

If you have some type of sound dampening in your room, so it does not sound too bright, you should be able to easily tune your speakers.

I have a commercial recording studio and people always talk about tuning the room. However if you tune your control room to this particular song on the album, this is an award winning album and it has virtually all of the instrumentation you will need.

By the way, I am both analog and digital. I am running 2" inch and log tape for acquisition Otari MTR90 through a Soundtracs console, with Dolby SR 24 I reduction.

I am also digital with an Antelope Orion 32+
Mac Pro with a 12 TB raid. Also Raven MTI2. monitors.

The speakers are old Electro Voice patrician speakers placedinto infinity cabinets with woofers and sub woofers. They stand 7 feet high. I am running this with a Yamaha power amp. The subwoofers are also powered.

As with all older studios, I use Yamaha NS10m studio speakers powered by Crown amps and Tannoy 6D Active speakers with sub woofers.

I know that this system works because I've been using it this way for years. I have just completed Recording and editing a 40 piece wind ensemble and an 18 piece jazz group.

Yesterday I finished another album of rock.

Purchase one more piece of gear, an Active equalizer and buy the album off of eBay. You'll find this will be the easiest way to tune your studio without all of the fancy electronics that the stores want to sell you.

Tom
 
Hi, I dictated a long dictation and it got lost. I will summarize it again.

I use an ART EQ341 dual channel 15 band 2/3 active equalizer. I use a CD called Helicopter Girl, how to steal the world. This is an old 1990 CD. Song 9. Subliminal punk is the song you tune your speakers to. Then, when you listen to song 1. Escape cloud it sounds unbelievable.

By tuning your room and the speakers to make the song sound good, you'll find when you actively nicks anything, it will translate out to most of the systems. This is an old trick that eliminates do utilization of all kinds of electronic room tuning equipment. It is best to tune the room to your ears.

If you are not a spring chicken with great hearing, you're going to find that you will start to have a hearing loss at 1500 Hz. That is the fact of life with everyone in the industry.

If you have some type of sound dampening in your room, so it does not sound too bright, you should be able to easily tune your speakers.

I have a commercial recording studio and people always talk about tuning the room. However if you tune your control room to this particular song on the album, this is an award winning album and it has virtually all of the instrumentation you will need.

By the way, I am both analog and digital. I am running 2" inch and log tape for acquisition Otari MTR90 through a Soundtracs console, with Dolby SR 24 I reduction.

I am also digital with an Antelope Orion 32+
Mac Pro with a 12 TB raid. Also Raven MTI2. monitors.

The speakers are old Electro Voice patrician speakers placedinto infinity cabinets with woofers and sub woofers. They stand 7 feet high. I am running this with a Yamaha power amp. The subwoofers are also powered.

As with all older studios, I use Yamaha NS10m studio speakers powered by Crown amps and Tannoy 6D Active speakers with sub woofers.

I know that this system works because I've been using it this way for years. I have just completed Recording and editing a 40 piece wind ensemble and an 18 piece jazz group.

Yesterday I finished another album of rock.

Purchase one more piece of gear, an Active equalizer and buy the album off of eBay. You'll find this will be the easiest way to tune your studio without all of the fancy electronics that the stores want to sell you.

Tom

Ok. I understood some of that.

What did you mean to say that related to the topic of 'Getting used to new monitors'?
 
Purchase one more piece of gear, an Active equalizer and buy the album off of eBay. You'll find this will be the easiest way to tune your studio without all of the fancy electronics that the stores want to sell you.

Tom

What "fancy electronics" are you referring to?

Most recommendations about fixing your room deal with acoustic treatment.

How do active equalizers remove room nodes...???
If you have a null in the room...no matter what you do, you can't add that back to your monitors with equalization, because the room will just keep nulling it out.
 
Ok. I understood some of that.

What did you mean to say that related to the topic of 'Getting used to new monitors'?

It's about the same as MM's post. Having a reference that can be used for setup. I know I've spoke of it before and getting it on media that can run off anything. The "anything" is important because they all sound different
 
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