Does anyone have the Nov. Sound-on-Sound review of the Marshall v67?

Matt what really shocked my socks of was having a meeting with someone who really put me straight on how to and how not to go about all this.

He showed me what he could achieve with a computers monitor inbuilt mic YEP your hearing that right too.

He played me some stuff and i thought about it and he said hey what mic pre did i use and what mics were used i said gee i dont know suddenly his finger raised and he was pointing at his pc at this stage im thinking "WHAT" and he says the the pc monitor mic

then he showed me other examples where he used what others would consider average gear to achieve award winning albums and i thought how the hell does he do it the simple message is its what you know not what you own

How many times do you see people saying ohhh my daw will do this many tracks etc how many tracks does one really need do you see my point after a while it all becomes irevelant and you end up with all this gear and no recording to show for all your efforts.

give a bad engineer the best of all he/she will create mud
give a good engineer average stuff and he/she will create consistent work that you or mecan say gee thats sounds nice

and in the end if it sounds good it must be good i remember Harvey gerst saying something along these lines.


Too many people reach for big guns when they still have not mastered the pop gun i wont preach here but that includes me too so i guess you could say i feel i finally saw the light and thak goodness i did.

The gear is just a tool if i master my tools i master my sound
 
I completely agree. Put a newbie in Abbey Road studios, and he'd still produce newbie sounding stuff. I know that's it's the guy siiting beheind the mixing board, not what mixing board he's using that's the key....

However, although I'm learning about home recording, and I'm really enjoying doing it, I'm doing it to create music, and record what I've done. I want to be able to produce a track that I'm really proud of. The thing is that my GAS is due to this fact. I feel I'm a few bits short in my set-up, and that's stunting my creativity. I want a decent mic, a decent MIDI controller keyboard (the one I currently have is a mini-key one that isn't touch sensitive), a soundcard that's got un-noticeable latency and better quality (currently using an SB Live with experimental ASIO drivers, and I get annoyed with it) and finally an acoustic guitar. Yeah, that's a lot of money there to be spent, but at the moment I'm putting a track together and I'm either wanting to put in a keyboard track and getting frustrated cause I don't really have the kit to do it, or I want to have an acoustic guitar track, but I've only got an electric.

Yeah, I could get round some of this stuff - I could edit in the keyboard tracks using a matrix edit, but it kinda loses the spontaniety (sp?).

So, that's my current situation. Once I've got the items listed I really feel as though I'll be able to truly express myself. I'm not wanting to buy new gear just cause I think that by getting more and more expensive kit, I'll have proffesional recordings. And yes, I could just make music with what I've got, as I've got guitar, POD, bass etc.. but I'm just not getting fulfilled by it at the moment, and I know that's because I lack a few extras.

I feel that once I've got all the stuff together I'll be able to finally make the music that's in my head. On the way though, I still experiment with the kit that I've got, and I'm forever learning what I can do. But my need for new stuff is a creative and musical one. Sure, people can make great recordings using SM57's, but to me that's the technical side. Even if I had great mic experience and had SM57's, if I didn't have the instruments and facilities to actually compose the music in my head, than that mic and mixing experience would mean nothing.

Yes home recording and mixing is an art, but for me it's just a way of getting down my music out of my head! Although I aspire to proffesional recordings, I'll be happy with just basic recordings to be proud of at first, if i've got the right kit.


Well, that's my rant over with :)

Laters!
 
Here you go my friend....

Nearfield Monitors

M Audio's first foray into active nearfield monitors is certainly extremely affordable, but could it be a false economy for the home recordist?




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hugh Robjohns

The SP5B is an active nearfield monitor, measuring 350 x 166 x 200mm (hwd) and weighing 5kg. The front panel of the vinyl-covered MDF cabinet carries a 5.25-inch polypropylene bass/mid-range driver, and a one-inch silk-dome tweeter. Both drivers are magnetically shielded.

The tweeter's mounting stands proud of the baffle such that the axis of the voice coil is some 30mm in front of that of the woofer. This also makes it very vulnerable to damage as the silk dome rises slightly proud. There is an unusual wave guide which can be angled to alter dispersion and directivity as required.

The metal rear panel supports the internal electronics and is fitted with an IEC mains inlet, complete with integral fuse holder and a rocker switch. Both XLR and TRS quarter-inch jack sockets provide balanced line-level audio input, and the two inputs are mixed internally with a single level control.

A large 1.5-inch flared port is positioned at the top of the rear panel and extends about four inches into the cabinet. Data provided with each loudspeaker showed a fairly flat frequency response, although closer inspection of the graph axes revealed that the plot only covered the range from 200Hz to 20kHz, and a dynamic range from 20 to 120dBSPL. In fact, the speaker's on-axis response fills a ±5dB window between 220Hz and 20kHz, with broad dips centred around 4kHz and 12kHz. The response peaked at 1kHz and seemed to tail off gently from there down, falling 8dB by 200Hz and looking like the trend would continue.

Listening Test

The SP5B sounded pretty much as you'd expect, given its frequency response. In a free-field situation the initial impression was of a small boxy-sounding speaker with a very forward mid-range and a generally weak bass response — the handbook insanely suggests a frequency range of 33Hz to 22kHz, but doesn't specify the measurement limits! You get more bottom end if you place the speakers close to rear or side walls, although not too close, as most of the LF comes from the rear port, which needs room to breathe.

The treble is clean and well extended, and the stereo imaging is precise and stable — an advantage of the small cabinet size. The speaker also sounds very fast, but is quite two-dimensional — there is no real depth and it fails to convey any impression of room size.

The amplifiers generate more than enough output level for nearfield use. An input of 200mV (-12dBu) is enough to produce full output with the gain controls fully up — a normal +4dBu monitor signal required the speaker's gain controls to be turned over half way down, which made balancing the stereo image a fiddly procedure.

Like many companies before them, M Audio claim that 'after long research and development' the SP5B changes 'the concept of nearfield reference monitoring', and is 'designed to overcome all the limitations of conventional nearfield reference monitors'. I think not! With the lack of any real bass energy, the SP5B does create an impression of 'transparency', but I really don't think it justifies the 'reference monitor' tag. I found mixes performed on this speaker didn't travel very well to other systems, and it was poor at revealing the details in complex mixes. Even choosing reverbs was difficult, as the speaker didn't seem to reveal any differences between my Lexicon's programs!

The SP5B has no real UK competition at the price. Most two-way active systems cost at least a hundred pounds more — the Genelec 1029, Yamaha MSP5, Tannoy Reveal Active, or HHB Circle 3A, for example. But a comparison with any of these would quickly reveal the weaknesses of the SP5B. I find it hard to recommend the SP5B, and would suggest you saved up a few hundred pounds more to buy a more dependable monitoring system.

M Audio SP5B £329

pros

Compact.
Self-powered.
Loud.

cons

Poor bass response.
Two-dimensional sound stage.
Boxy sound quality.

summary

A two-way active loudspeaker which sounds rather small and boxy.

-------------

Not the best of reviews!!
 
Thanks again!

Boxy, 2-dimensional, poor response, mixes that don't translate well...I think I can cross that model off my list! ;)

I'm actually glad to see them say something bad about a product from a big advertiser like M-Audio/Midiman. It restores a bit of faith in magazine reviews.
 
As for a mic. An SM57 is a good suggestion, but I'm gonna splash out on a AT4033. I know it goes against what you say, but I really want a proffessional mic as part of my set-up.
Click to expand...


Look at the best in the business i gurantee you they will own sm 57,s without a doubt they will have this very mic its the industry standard and even better then a sm58 for studio application
this mic is a big step up from karaoke mic you stepped on.

If you were using a mic like this then a sm 57 will be like nothing you have ever owned before robust as hell and will serve you from now till when you no longer record.

By the time you sell it you would even just about get back what you paid for it as well.

if you cannot record well using a sm57 you will never record anything better on a at 4033 and i am sure anyone in bbs will back up this statement its better for me to tell it to you as it is then pretend and say cool man your getting a great mic you will be a star forget it that aint gonna happen over night

If you want to invest anything invest in time and learning the art you want to learn

another thing the guy i was telling you about he used a sondblaster live soundcard to create those recordings he played back to me so geez it dont make your set up look to bad now does it.

anyway i said all im going to say im not going to try and convince you its you who has to do this if you want a good challenge go get the stuff i told you about save yourself some cash and invest that cash back into some good reading material or here is a link for you the sae college link there is a wonderfull manual in there with free info for you to learn from i use this very manual myself and iam learning heaps from it take a look.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
 
engrish!

heh, nah I agree. I mean, it depends on the person and what he/she is going to be doing to a certain extent. Like, if you are going to be recording a live drumset...it doesn't make any sense to go out and buy 4 sm57s (though that would certainly work), but in that case i would reccomend like, 1sm57, an AT Pro 25 kick, and maybe 2 Rode NT3's or Nt5's. That'd put you a tad over the cost of 4 57s, but...still in a comperable range for a much better result.

But, for someone doing 1 mic source stuff....57 is a great way to start (and end). It's all in developing your sound, and learning how to use what you have to get it across.
 
Thanks for the link. Looks like a great resource. It's now been bookmarked.

As for the mic....I'll have a think. It's gonna be a 21st b'day present, so that's why I was gonna splash out on the 4033. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to afford one! I'll wanna get a SM57 one day too, but I just feel that I wanna something cool for my 21st. I'll bear what you have said in mind though when it comes to a decision.

As for reading material. I just ordered the Art of Mixing: A visual guide. Plus your link, and about 60 links I've bookmarked from the Sound on Sound techniques section. I gotta a lot to read there!!!
 
I only wish i knew what i knew now about gear back then when i started making lists and racking up all these wants.

Sure i still have a list but its nothig like it use to be and anything that makes that list better be one real needed piece of gear.

You see i can just not bother to post here and say ahhhh heck who cares let him blow his money but i care enough to see a person get something i know they will use just the same as they would if they spent more on the other mic.

I wont say the other mics bad it isnt its just you need to learn purchase priority an sm 57 is about the best mic you could buy as your first mic it does so many things and can be used so many ways that you may just get one and think what the hell did i want another mic for.

Ive seen these mics online for as little as 50usd and thats new as well.

The trick is to know how to buy smart remember this a mic is nothing more then a tool use the tool the right way and you will achieve great results.

There are so many mics out there to choose from hey i know its not easy but you learn to say to yourself why do i really need it ask yourself that question do you even know why you need this particular mic or what application it will serve?

In the end what you do is your decision just weigh up what ive said and remember its always better to know why you need something then to just have to have it for the sake of having it.
 
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