Mixing on Home stereo speakers?

[tommy mas]

i know you should use studio monitors to mix, but along with them, do you guys think it is a bad idea to mix on your regualr home stereo system???

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The short, canned response is "Yes, it's a fairly bad idea."

The longer, more accurate response is "It can very easily be a bad idea, and usually is, but there are "Ifs" involved that could mitigate it."

- IF all you have are consumer speakers and you can't afford to replace them with anything better,

- IF you are mixing for non-commercial purposes,

- IF your speakers have a fairly flat and extended response,

- IF you understand their sound well enough to know that if your music sounds like X on your speakers that it will sound like Y on many other systems so you can set your mix appropriately,

and

- IF it comes down between using them to make your mixes or making no mixes at all,

THEN

yes, it's OK to use them for mixing.

If any one of the above conditions rings false - and sometimes even if they're all true - you can expect to have trouble getting good response in your mixes in almost any part of the spectrum when you play them back elsewhere.

Can you take decent pictures with a $200 digital camera and ambient lighting? Sure, they'll be OK. But don't expect them to look like they were taken by a F-series Nikon with pro lighting. It's the same thing with sound. You can use some of the better-quality consumer speakers, but don't expect the results to sound like the professionally-made CDs in your CD changer.

G.

[Massive Master]

More "Ifs"

IF the speakers are truly good - "Home stereo" speakers covers an awfully wide range from garbage to gold.

IF the room is decently controlled -

IF you have enough room to sit back a little (these aren't near-fields) -

I would dare to say that you'll be much better off using them instead of near-field, short-throw, narrow dispersion monitors.

Big 'ol high quality loudspeakers is how it's done "downtown." The recent change to the lexicon - "Studio Monitors" - is normally meant for the previously stated short-throw, narrow-dispersion boxes that are made to sound relatively sterile in the near-field (to make a less than ideal room less of an issue).

Some of the best sounding albums I've ever done were mixed on essentially "home stereo" speakers. You DO have to be seriously familiar with them (which isn't any different from any speaker) and the room has to be in some sort of reasonable shape acoustically. I'd also recommend a quality amplifier with a lot of headroom (as opposed to a run-of-the-mill integrated stereo amplifier with hyped tone).

[Confusitron]

I have a statement/question relating to this subject...

I just recently made some recordings and mixed them on the typical stereo speakers that you see that everyone has (the ones I have are Aiwas from three or four years ago with the "fantastic" (I say "fantastic" because I don't know if it is truly fantastic now) enhancements like "T-BASS" and "BBE" (all though I cannot imagine the BBE is that bad of a thing, but I did not use these enhancements during mixing). I found the mixes that came from these were not as good as ones I had done with past songs on the current computer I'm on, which has a set of Altec Lansing ATP3 speakers (two speakers for highs/mids and a separate subwoofer on the floor).

Now, the obvious choice between these two speaker sets is the ones that sounded better. Would the reason the Aiwas sound worse is because they tend to "exaggerate" sounds? I, personally, am not satisfied with the mixes I made. Speaking of poor mixes, I might post up a link to those songs eventually...

[JazzMang]

All it basically comes down to is how well you know your speakers... their tendencies, weaknesses, and strengths.
If you know that those AIWAs are hyped and craptacular when you go into the mixing session, your mix *may* come out decent as long as you know how the mix will translate to other systems.

[tommy mas]

thanks for all the advice...

[utsman]

I also mix on home stereo speakers.

I think the key is comparison. Find a commercial cd that you are aiming to mix like - same style of music etc. Play it through your speakers and hear how it sounds. This gives you an idea of , for example if your system is weak on bass. Then you will know to mix your bass a little weak and not crank it so on other systems it is way too loud.
For those who can't afford moniters - these adaptations must be made.

That almost sounds like a quote from some old school music guru.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by utsman

I also mix on home stereo speakers.

I think the key is comparison. Find a commercial cd that you are aiming to mix like - same style of music etc. Play it through your speakers and hear how it sounds. This gives you an idea of , for example if your system is weak on bass. Then you will know to mix your bass a little weak and not crank it so on other systems it is way too loud.

This is all absolutely correct, and I have said it many times myself when referring to "pro monitors".

You'll still have a problem going the other way, though. If your monitors (no matter whether they're marketed for consumers, prosumers, pros or golden ears) have a weak or loose bass response, you may know not to turn boost the bass too much in them, but you won't know what to do in the other direction. If your response is too weak down there, you may know when you have too much bass, but you have no good way of knowing when you don't have enough bass. Same with the high end. If you got monitors that start fading quickly above 11k, you'll have no idea when the high freq content in your mix is actually missing.

G.

P.S. I was reading one of those "interviews with all the great engineers" books a couple of weeks ago. I forget exactly which book it was, I'll have to go back to the store and look it up again and get more details. But it had all the usual suspects in it like Chuck Ainley and Don Smith and the like. I forget which one of them actually said this (again I'll have to go back and get the exact reference info) but they said that 99% of their tracking and mixing work was done through their near fields and they preferred it that way. The main purpose of the big monitors in the walls these days was to impress the clients, but other than that were rarely actually used by the engineers.

I found this partially suprising. It's almost certainly not true for motion picture soundtrack work I'll bet, but I can see it as not being totally outside the realm of truth in audio-only apps. I'll have to go back and get the details on that.

[Fieva]

I've used both home speakers, headphones, and near field monitors. When I started out with each type, my mixes were horrible. That was until I took the time to compare and contrast with each set until I felt I understood the speaker sets that I was using. It took me quite a long time to learn how to mix with headphones (in addition to catching things that I probably wouldn't have caught earlier. The headphones help me separate sounds easier while the speakers give me the full on effect of a final mix.

Just my opinion on the subject.

[tommy mas]

you guys are very helpful, thanks

[mr.rich]

i oftern use a pair of home speakers my parents bought me when i was a kid as an a/b with my nearfields. ive heard so many records on them over the last 20 years or so that i know their nuances pretty well. no matter what speakers you use the most important thing is getting to know them .