Monitors

[adferrendelli]

i am in the process of building a fairly cheap recording studio, and i have realized that i am completley missing a very important part, the monitors. i will buy some lower end ones soon, but i am curious as to why headphones, and regular computer speakers wont work as well. is it the size, speaker charachteristics , or some other factor that sets them aside from other speakers.

and also, would it be a bad idea to use them for listening to professional music, like off of i tunes

[KLF]

Computer speakers are for convenience --- like TV speakers --- and if you try to mix on them you will find your mixes coming out very unbalanced. Studio monitors, unlike home stereo speakers, are supposed to let you hear your music in a 'warts and all' setting, so you can make the necessary corrections.

You CAN mix on headphones, but you have to have two things to do it --- good to very good headphones and studio monitors that you trust to check your mixes on.

You'd be better off investing in some speakers that sound good than you would splitting your cash between bad speakers and bad headphones.

My recommendation is to take a CD that you like and know well to a store where they have a good stock of monitors in your price range --- and monitors are important enough to stretch your budget as much as you can --- and plan to listen to every speaker in and slightly above your $$$ range.

[KLF]

Also ---

See 'headphones for mixing?' thread

in the Newbies forum too...