near field monitor placement

[minusone]

Greetings everyone!

I am having the hardest time on my near field monitor placement. I've spent a rather significant amount of time in commercial studios and I understand the fundamentals of placing monitors in relation to the listener... but here in my house... i do not have that luxery... as my mixer is upgainst a wall. The room is part of a larger room, there are three walls (the one the mixer is up against and the opposite wall, and to the right a parallel wall).

I have event 20/20's and my current mix surface is very limited (basically a table - from Ikea - with a mock-wood surface and two metal legs).

Anyway... i don't have to many options as far as arranging things... I suppose some alterations could be made.

The sounds I am getting are just too overly "muddy" (in the mid frequencies) and the lower end is completely lost. There isn't a "sweet spot" per se and it just sounds so not accurate.

I have a pair of fostex t-20 headphones, which are very accurate... and sound really great... but when I monitor everything sounds simply dreadful.

I know how awsome the events are... but I just can't get them to shine in this space. I am NOT expecting miracles... as the room simply don't allow for them :-) but I would like to have some accuracy.

I use a mackie sr 24 mixer, and the EQ I keep completely flat. I use the alesis ra100 amp.

When I mix down... the result is often way bass-heavy and no detail (when listening, for example on my car stereo (which is a pretty decent system)).

I am recording drums, guitar, bass... using J-station and clavia ddrum4 system one.

Attached is a quick and dirty floor plan for my home studio.

Thanks!

[Wil Davis]

The whole idea of using near-field monitors is to minimise (or even eliminate entirely) artifacts of any room ambience.

The recommended placement of NF monitors is as follows:

They should be at head (ear) height.

Think of a triangle with sides of about 6 feet, with one speaker at each of two of the corners pointing to your head at the third corner. This is the recommended placement. Headphones are great for tracking, but are lousy for mixing (unless you're mixing for listening exclusively on head-phones...)

Hope this helps -

- Wil

[minusone]

Originally posted by Wil Davis
The whole idea of using near-field monitors is to minimise (or even eliminate entirely) artifacts of any room ambience.

The recommended placement of NF monitors is as follows:

They should be at head (ear) height.

Think of a triangle with sides of about 6 feet, with one speaker at each of two of the corners pointing to your head at the third corner. This is the recommended placement. Headphones are great for tracking, but are lousy for mixing (unless you're mixing for listening exclusively on head-phones...)

Hope this helps -

- Wil

Wil,
Thanks for the reply

I suppose I'll have to get some speaker stands, because the table just isn't high enough... but I was under the impression that placement, in proximity to the a wall was important?

[gezzegas]

If you are located near a Ikea shop, go there.


I bought speaker stands that you can alter between 1 to 3 feet above the floor. Really good and the price is below 20 US dollars.

Lars.