Another Dumb Monitor Q...

[studiogenocide]

I love my monitors, I really do. I have the Event TR8's. But the one thing I don't like about them is their mid range harshness. When I sweeten my mixes in the mid range area, waaaaaayy to much is cut from a translating source whether it be car speakers, home stereo, computer. etc. To remedy this problem, I was considering using a simple EQ to sweeten it, that way I would know right where I'm at at all times. Is this recommended? Do people do this, or do I just need to know my monitors are harsh and deal with it? I'm just so tired of fooling with it, I mean I get great highs and lows, but right around that 500 Hz- 2kHz range, things get a little squirly. I'm just wondering if this is a technique used by others. Thanks!

 

[studiogenocide]

No one? Really?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

No one? Really?

Patience, young Grasshopper. This is a BBS filled mostly with young musicians, and is therefore usually pretty quiet on Saturday nights.

My advice would be just learn the translation; know that if the mids sound harsh like X on your desk, that they'll sound OK out in the real world.

The only time I might disagree with that would be if they sounded so harsh to you that it make you rush through your mixes so that you didn't have to listen to them that long. In that case I'd sell them on eBay and get something else.

But EQing the playback, while it may sometimes work OK for some people, is usually not recommended.

G.

 

[studiogenocide]

But EQing the playback, while it may sometimes work OK for some people, is usually not recommended.

G.

Even if I leave it all flat with the exception of that midrange- just dropping it enough so it is more realistic to a translation? I mean I understand the whole flat response thing, I really do. But I really am like you said, finding that I am rushing through the mix about 20% of the time, and I know thats not good practice.... Come one, tell me what I want to hear man!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Come one, tell me what I want to hear man!

Tell that to your monitors!

Seriously, you can always give it a try. If it works for you, it works for you. It's that simple.

But one of the main reasons it's not typically recommended by rote is that it can potentially introduce as many problems as it solves.

First, the chances that your monitors are providing a nice smooth bump in the mids that you can simply iron out mostly flat with a simple EQ curve are not large; it's response curve probably looks more like a roller coaster track than a simple hill. You may be able to get rid of some of the bumps or valleys with blanket EQ, but in doing so, you can potentially make some of the others worse. It's like trying to get rid of a bubble under a piece of plastic; you push it down and it doesn't go away, it just moves to another spot.

Second, it's entirely possible that much of your problem is not in the monitors themselves, but rather in your desk and room setup and acoustics. If that's the case, EQ is not going to necessarily help that much, because the room is going to remain the room no matter what you do with the EQ. Get your desk out of the corner if that's where it's at, keep your speakers a good foot or more off the wall, use some quality speaker pads under the speakers to de-couple them from your desk, and use thinks like bookshelves, drapes, or whatever you got to diffuse first reflections off of the walls in the spots where if there were a mirror there, you could see your monitors in the mirror from where you sit. You'd be amazed at how much these kinds of "treatments" can change the sound of your monitors and flatten them out far more effectively than EQ can.

There are other more esoteric reasons why many dislike using EQ for monitoring correction, but these are probably the main ones that relate to your situation.

Try it. If you don't already have a decent EQ, borrow one or buy one from a place where you have a week to try it out before you can return it for a refund if you wish. Maybe it will work OK for you - for a short while until your ears get better. But it's a gamble that's not guaranteed to work, and is usually not recommended is all I'm saying.

G.

 

[studiogenocide]

Well that certainly makes sense- so my next Q is this, My monitors stand on my desk (takes up a lot of room, + they are quite close), but I am seriously considering moving them to stands behind my desk. Can I implement the mopads with the speaker stands and would you recommend that?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Well that certainly makes sense- so my next Q is this, My monitors stand on my desk (takes up a lot of room, + they are quite close), but I am seriously considering moving them to stands behind my desk. Can I implement the mopads with the speaker stands and would you recommend that?

I think of it this way; monitor pads may not always help with the sound, but they practically never hurt the sound. As long as the stands have some mass and are stable enough - those TR8s are probably pretty heavy, you don't want to have them make the stack too top-heavy - there should not be a problem other than making sure you have good positioning relative to the room and to your ears.

G.

 

[philbagg]

In regards to the monitor EQ, why not try it out for 2 or 3 mixes, and if you find that you can mix comfortably, and your mixes translate better as a result, then go for it. Just make sure not to take out too much harshness.

If you're trying to EQ out a bad frequency in anything, some of us tend to overdo it a bit because you're really focusing on it. Like, if I'm EQ'ing something like overheads, and they're too harsh, I'll cut the highs a little too much because I'm not listening to anything else. Then later on, I'll end up putting some of the highs back in because they sound too dull. Same goes for level settings. I'll normally make my guitars too quiet because I'm focusing on them, and later end up pushing them back up when I'm listening to everything.

So, if you take out too much harshness, then your monitors will sound really smooth, and you could end up adding a little too much harshness into your mix, or not taking out enough because it still sounds good on your monitors. Then, when you bring them somewhere else they'll be cutting the ear off you.

Edit:
Yamaha NS-10's have always been known as very harsh speakers. Yet, they're in nearly every professional studio, and countless hits were mixed on them. And one theory is: if you can make it sound good on NS-10's, it'll sound good anywhere.

Now, that's a little general, but you get what I mean.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

I've spent some time with the TR8's, and the last descriptor I'd use for them is harsh. You've either got some bad room juju working against you or you've got a driver/crossover going wonky. These monitors, at least to me, tend to be, if nothing else, a little too smooth in that 500 - 2k range. I'd experiment with placement first...make sure you are solidly in the sweet spot, which on these, was fairly generous in the small control room I used them in.

As for the subtractive EQ idea, I'm just not a fan of that at all. You can't mix what you can't hear. If you have to throw an EQ at your monitors to make them behave, you've got bigger issues.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

Yamaha NS-10's have always been known as very harsh speakers. Yet, they're in nearly every professional studio, and countless hits were mixed on them. And one theory is: if you can make it sound good on NS-10's, it'll sound good anywhere.

Now, that's a little general, but you get what I mean.

Troof!

Track on the good monitors, mix on the NS10's.

 

[mcmetal]

What i'm not understanding is you just got done posting a few days ago about your score on the krk 5 monitors.Some of us had suggested using them to A/B your mixes so you can listen to your mixes on another set of monitors.

Have you tried this? Have you taken the time to mix down the same song on both sets of monitors and listened to each version on your home stereo to see which monitors translated the best.I see you posted that you're selling the krk's on e-bay already.

 

[studiogenocide]

What i'm not understanding is you just got done posting a few days ago about your score on the krk 5 monitors.Some of us had suggested using them to A/B your mixes so you can listen to your mixes on another set of monitors.

Have you tried this? Have you taken the time to mix down the same song on both sets of monitors and listened to each version on your home stereo to see which monitors translated the best.I see you posted that you're selling the krk's on e-bay already.

I actually sold them on eBay. You think that was a dumb move? Another thing I want to add is I really (I mean really) turned up the mix in the room and it just rings throughout something fierce. So... I am pretty sure that my room is not optimal, or even close- I am getting a quote tomorrow from Auralex where they do a "free" analasys of the room and tell me what they recommend. I have known for some time that the room needs more treatment, but I guess when I added those absorbers and it really knocked down those little rogues, I just settled. So it looks like the money I got from the monitors and a silly game I sold will be put to good use with the Auralex stuff. Tell me what you think.

 

[mcmetal]

I wouldn't say it was a dumb move. As long as you're taking the time to listen to your mix on other speakers like a home stereo,& car stereo you're still learning how your monitors will translate.If selling the KRK's gets you a better room then that's gonna help you out more in the long run.

I only have one set of monitors myself.I know my room is probably bad considering i live in a mobile home but i just try and do the best i can.I've only mixed one song so far since stepping into the DAW world and that one song was mixed 67 times til i felt i could at least live with it.

That was my main inspiration for doing that song so i could see how well my computer handled everything,plug-ins etc.My cpu is going crazy and the dang fan is nonstop adding so much noise that it's hard for me to hear clearly what i need to hear.I plan on maxing out my ram so hopefully that will help some.

I'm still learning my room and my monitors.Time for me to get some rewritable discs to burn to.I wasted a good bit of blank discs running back and forth listening on my home stereo.It'll sound like a good mix in my bedroom but what i'm hearing isn't translating the best.

I'm in the process of finishing up the drums for my last song and then i'll be recording guitars and bass,maybe some vocals,for 11 tunes.Then i get to mix and try this all over again.I'm basically in the same boat as you are.