Want to supliment my monitors with some "low end" speakers, any advice?

T

talontsiawd

New member
To start out, i have a typical unused bedroom studio with just a small amout of accustic treatment. I used to have krk rp5's and i was getting ok translation. Now i have some tannoy reveals (older models) and it's much better. However, i still don't trust one set of speakers enough. I'm not the most talented person at mixing, and i do the mix as i work thing as well usually, instead of a proper mixdown at the end. I'm happy enough with most of what i do, even without a proper mixdown, but again, i'm not totally confident in my monitors (well, them, my room, and my ears).

So...I'm thinking some sort of secondary monitoring system would help me out. Something just to reference. I'm thinking cheap is not only good for my wallet but good for the purpose as i figure, the better i can get it sounding on poor speakers, without comprimising the sound on good speakers, the better the finished product. Am i on the right track?

I'm just wondering where i should go. Aurotones, boom box, hi fi speakers? I even have some good car speakers that i could throw into some 6x9 boxes (but they arn't made for something the size of my room obviously). Am i even on the right track?
 
Audition your mixes on your main stereo, in the car, on a boom box etc BUT mix in as neutral an environment as you can manage.
Why is it that you don't prepare a final mix?
You obviously want to as you're worried about mix results & if you use another set of speakers to make comparisons you'll want to adjust the mix depending on the results.
SO, mini mix as you go BUT do a final mix, take into account all the usual stuff like panning, EQ carving, relative levels, final bus levels etc. Burn the resulting stereo CD audio file to disc & play it on all the things you mentioned.
 
talontsiawd said:
To start out, i have a typical unused bedroom studio with just a small amout of accustic treatment. I used to have krk rp5's and i was getting ok translation. Now i have some tannoy reveals (older models) and it's much better. However, i still don't trust one set of speakers enough. I'm not the most talented person at mixing, and i do the mix as i work thing as well usually, instead of a proper mixdown at the end. I'm happy enough with most of what i do, even without a proper mixdown, but again, i'm not totally confident in my monitors (well, them, my room, and my ears).

So...I'm thinking some sort of secondary monitoring system would help me out. Something just to reference. I'm thinking cheap is not only good for my wallet but good for the purpose as i figure, the better i can get it sounding on poor speakers, without comprimising the sound on good speakers, the better the finished product. Am i on the right track?

I'm just wondering where i should go. Aurotones, boom box, hi fi speakers? I even have some good car speakers that i could throw into some 6x9 boxes (but they arn't made for something the size of my room obviously). Am i even on the right track?
Click to expand...

I'd say the easiest and cheapest low-end would be some typical pc speakers. They're very low-end and would offer a very common-home end user setup for the pc listening crowd.
 
After that, I'd worry about the room more than secondary "mini monitoring."

But Avantone (the "new" Auratone boxes) are quite decent for what they are. But they're "the small speakers" -- You're already using nearfields.

Maybe it's just me -- But I've always found two sets of nearfields more confusing than either alone. But I just don't like nearfields in the first place, so I might be a little biased on that...

In any case, you can't learn your monitoring in a bad room -- Most people I know using multiple monitors (especially multiples in the same family) are trying to (and failing at) make up for a bad room.
 
When I first set up my current little project studio I set it up with a pair of HR824 nearfields for main mixing, augmented by a pair of wall-bracket-mounted Klipsch Kg 0.5 bookshelves powered through a Denon integrated amp for general playback and mix checking.

I had the similar intention of being able to check my mixes against a fairly typical-sounding home-stereo setup that was not exactly audiophile quality but not bad sounding and pretty typical in consumer-level response. I met my goal, in that the Denon/Klipsch home playback situation met my goals quite well.

I still have my alternate Denon/Klipsch monitoring chain, but that monitoring chain has pretty much done nothing but collect dust for the past 7 years or so. Why? Because once I actually learned how to translate the 824s so that I knew what sound to get from them in order to expect good translation elsewhere, checking against the Klipschs became a pretty much unnecessary step.

Therefore, the way I see it (FWTW), if your main monitors and your room let your current monitors actually be translatable, then I personally don't see the investment in a second set of monitor. OTOH, if your room won't let your monitors translate well, then it won't let the second pair translate well either, and it's still kind of a waste of an investment, better spent in fixing the room.

YMMV.

G.
 
Ok, thanks for the info. I actually have material (703 fiberglass) right now to do more treatment, i just don't have any more room really to put it anywhere without some major rearrangement. So, the reason for this is not to avoid treatment, alothough i'm still trying to figure out that side of the equation. That makes sence though.


As for the question of why i'm not always doing a proper mix down. That's because i make instrumentals so it's only half the song. The only reason to do a full mix on just an instrumental is when i'm sending things out to an artist so it sounds better (more appealing, more chance they will pay me to use it), if i know an artist is going to record and mix to the two track, etc. Taking the time to mix before i work with a vocalist doesn't make sence. As 80% of my beats don't get a vocalist on them right now (i'm not actively working with artists), it doesn't make sence. Just to explain that side.
 
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