Overcoming monitor budget limitations

Get the sub. You really shouldn't be mixing much louder than you would watch tv, so it shouldn't bother neighbors much. It's nice to crank it up every once in a while, but you do that in the middle of the day when you know nobody's around.

You may not "need" all that sub bass information, but it's very important to know what you have got. There could be all kinds of nasty rumble eating all of your headroom, but if you don't know it's there... You might get in the habit of sticking an analyzer plug on your mix bus so that you can at least see what's going on in the range your speakers won't do. The nature of those plugs mean they're not very trustworthy at the bottom of the spectrum either, though.

Or, you know, highpass all your mixes so that they fit through your speakers and call it your sound. ;)

If you can afford the sub, you should get it.
 
I agree that you get the sub. At the very least you know what you are dealing with down there. I don't care if it is hip hop or pop, you need to have the full spectrum produced in order to make correct judgments. Even with larger speakers.

I actually use a subwoofer in combination with my $1800 ADAM's that works for me in my large control room that is way less $$ than the KRK ones. It does it's job just fine. It was recommended on another recording site years ago when I bought it. Now it available from places like Wallmart and Best Buy. Odd...

I have the 10" BIC Venturi V1020's ($169), but they do have an 8" which is less expensive. That might be your baby. Though can't say personally how the 8" performs.

Oh wait, looks like you are in Sweden? Not sure if that would be available there. :(
 
JeffF said:
Hello Keith,

In treating the room, any thoughts on surrounding my workstation with 5' fold out dampening panels (that I intend to use recording drummers on mobile sites)? With the monitors in the living room, too many spots to address, otherwise, before using fine idea of reference tracks.

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Genres: I intend to record local musicians inexperienced in recording who play Bluegrass, Folk, Blues, Pop--in catching some regional flavorings near the foothills of the W.V. Appalachians.

Since a lot of these electric musicians may have low-quality small amps and instruments, in addition to amp mic'ing, I may seek to use Bosses' GT-1 and GT-1B (for creative modeling options not affordable otherwise) as direct inputs, with musicians monitoring on phones. For drums, a 4 mic (Rode NT1) drum setup, doing double duty serving vocals and amp mic'ing where possible.

I'll be recording in acoustically cramped, unmanageable spaces, so I anticipate surrounding the drummer with 5' fold-outs. I might bring along 2 or 3 Pig Noses for small amps that I can better sound shield if there is simply too much sound reflection. I want signals with the lest amount of bleed over and recorded with the flattest mics I can afford; I presume to record flat gives something of advantage in mixing with signals heard flat to later manipulate though it is dawning on me how much reproduction and acoustics can alter those best laid tracks--I didn't expect that would be a whole separate challenge, but I enjoy the creativity in finding opportunity suggested needed in overcoming obstacles.

Your general thoughts, please, on approaches as I see them among possible selection thus far: dampening approach (both workstation and drummer), subwoofers and neighborliness, direct input options with Bosses' cabinet/instrument modeling in series, and other points of insight?

If not asking too much, could you clarify the meaning of "false bass sense IMO"; I am not familiar with the acronym. By the way, are we talking about the DT770 Pro close backs, if so which ohm model 250 and 80 as I believe both are now available. Beyerdynamics make an isolation model that my sales rep has steered me away from for mixing. However, if I did not recently purchase a pair of AKG K240's semi-open backs (bought for vocalists, whose inexperienced in recording with phones may lead to not finding their pitch in closed backs, which I strongly anticipate), I may have like to have heard whether the DT770's full open backs, with escaping sound pressure might produce something closer in low-end reproduction.
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In my opinion (IMO), there's a lot of questions here, and I can only answer the couple where I might have some relevant experience!

DT770s are closed back so they're likely to give you a sense of more bass in the mix, i.e., you'll hear the bass more, than might be heard with open backs, and certainly drivers that just can't deliver much bass to the listeners' ears, like ill-fitting earbuds, or computer speakers. In that way, they can be like a mixing room without proper bass treatment, or a subwoofer that is not properly balanced (or both!).

The difference between the 250 and 80 ohm model will be how far you need to turn the volume up. I have the 250s and my Focusrite Saffire drives them Ok, but I might have that knob dialed to 2 o'clock while the Senn 518's knob is at 10.

It's taken me a while, but I've realized a few laters later that the first couple chapters that I read in a book early on, about room treatment, monitor speakers, and reference tracks, were really something I should have paid more attention to.

If you have the tracks to spare, and the guitar amp sound is really not adequate, sure, double track with an emulator pedal dialed pretty wet and mix the two. Can't hurt to try.

A lot of good-great recordings have been done on less than perfect equipment. A couple good mics can go a long way, and "flat" is kind of meaningless, though mics with a really distinct character can be limiting and require more time to figure out where they work best. You want to make sure you get as much of the spectrum as possible, since you can't add via EQ what's not there later, and anything particularly quirky can make mixing more tedious, but there's a pretty quick hit on diminishing returns, especially when recording in spaces that aren't perfect. I'd just start recording. In the end, the quality of the performances are what have the biggest impact. Tell everyone to practice and play in tune :).
 
I would work on acoustics of the room that you are mixing in.
Having a room that the standing waves are dampened and a big bolt area (where the frequencies are equal acoustically) will give you better mixing. Monitors don't really need to go down to 20 hz and if they did in an untreated room, the tendency to over adjust for the acoustic anomalies in the room is greater.

The way I was taught to tune a room was to hook up a frequency generator to a speaker, and using a spl meter plot the spl response at different frequencies. I got turned on to a web app that plots the bass standing waves by a engineer named David Pensado Its pretty good. here is the link: amroc - the room mode calculator
 
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