great albums to listen to for learning monitors?

SouthSIDE Glen said:
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that it's from Antares, the same folks that brought us the microphone modeler. Yes you too can have a U47, a C414 *and* an RCA77 all for the cost of a few lines of software. :rolleyes:

G.
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this way you can get pro mixes off a soundblaster mixing on iPod ear buds :eek:
 
I'm an odd ball I actully do take mixes and play them on everthing to see what it sounds like my stock car stereo is set to flat I do hae crappy cd plyers with built in speakers small desktop speakers I have worked on cheaper monitors etc.

And I can tell you the speaker emulation on this mixer is spot on for giving you a general idea of these listener enviorments, but back to your post of how insane this is.

if you have taken acurate measurments of famous speakers and have taken acurate measurments of your speakers to me it's not crazy to make them flat your talking about surgical eq of + -2 db on decent monitors to make them truely flat how is this so crazy? that plus and minus 2 db is going to mean squat in a room with 30 db nulls and peaks I don't belive in eq room treatment, but a set of monitors that have eq curves built in from the factory or a plug in that emulates speaker types that can be fully bypssed whats so wrong with that?
 
glen have you ever used the mic modeler the hardwear unit? I own it and I like it alot, but the thing is you have to know how to use it. You have to know what refrence your going for you have to have a decent track to begin with and you have to understand it's limitations. If we get down to it it's all eq everything in audio the raw sound comes down to eq. The mic choice is eq, The room is eq the mic position is eq, it's all eq. Give a newb a vocal track and a pultec and it will proably still sound like crap. Give him a 747 and he might swear the eq isnt even on, but someone who knows the tools and the sounds can make a digidesign eq plug in give him the sound hes after :p
 
I think you should hear the speaker modler before you pass such harsh judgment on it ,so I"m going to give you a sample of refrence of why Ii like this thing
 
doulos24 said:
I'm an odd ball I actully do take mixes and play them on everthing to see what it sounds like my stock car stereo is set to flat I do hae crappy cd plyers with built in speakers small desktop speakers I have worked on cheaper monitors etc.
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There's nothing oddball or wrong about checking your mixes on other systems.

As far as the emulators go, they may superficially sound similar to such environments, but a "car stereo" plug - just for one example - can never emulate your 4 (or more) speaker car stereo mounted in various horizontal and vertical planes around the edges of inside an irregular cockpit space about the size of your average closet. The closeness of actual "emulation" would be akin to my sticking a couple of balloons in a bra, putting that under my sweater, throwing on a wig and calling myself Angelina Jolie.

Look as an example at all the guitar cabinet emulators like the Pod and others out there. Sure one can get great usable sounds out of them if the take the time and dial them in right, but I don't think anybody with an ear would say that your average Marshall JCM emulation actually sounds like a clone of the physical reality.

Frank Caliendo does a hilarious George W. Bush "emulation", and we all know it's Bush he's emulating when he does it. But nobody would mistake him for the real Dubya.

Perhaps your speaker emulators can and do help you get a better mix. If so, more power to you, and I won't begrudge you your tools. But the idea that it is actually providing an actual realistic emulation of it's title is somewhat fanciful. It's that part we - or at least I - have problems with.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
There's nothing oddball or wrong about checking your mixes on other systems.
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Yeah, I think that is way smarter than having a second set of monitors in the CR. Even crappy monitors will be way flatter than the room. I like to reference my mixes in as many different acoustic spaces as possible, as well as on a variety of different systems. From my Ipod, to the car, the home stereo, computer, boombox, etc.....
 
This is just one person and one example (YMMV), but when I first built my current modest home project studio some ten years ago or so, I started right out of the gate with two pairs of monitors., My 824s, which I have set up in a typical nearfield configuration, and a pair of Klipsch Kg0.5 consumer bookshelf speakers which I have mounted on projecting wall brackets up on the wall behind my desk, that I have hooked up to my Denon stereo receiver. The idea was I could compare my mixes on the 824s to a "typical"-sounding consumer setup.

The reality turned out to be that it only took a couple of months before I stopped referencing my mixes on the Klipschs for the simple reason that it only took that long for me to "learn" the translation between the two, and learn that even though the Klipschs sound quite different from the Mackies, that the translation was really not all that large of a leap; I knew that if they sounded such and such a way on the Mackies that they sounded "right" on the Klipschs. So I just started mixing that way and it all seems to come out OK now (and on earbuds too, FTM).

Translation to car stereo remains a bit of a problem, largely because there is a huge translation difference there, and largely because, when in analytical/critical listening mode, car stereos generally suck no matter what one pumps through them.

G.
 
I find it tough to mix for too many references. For example if I do a mix on my monitors, in a nice quiet room, with rich dynamics and loads of headroom, it sounds acceptable. I stick it on my ipod and it is far too quiet.

I compress the crap out of it so its at least a little bit like the same volume as a professionally mastered record, and ramp up the treble so I can actually hear it over the muddy mid-range garbage of the stock ipod phones. This then makes it terrible on the monitors.

I understand there must be a halfway stage, but I hate knowing that its not as good as it can be. Its one big compromise.
 
Waffleness said:
I understand there must be a halfway stage, but I hate knowing that its not as good as it can be. Its one big compromise.
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Finding this "halfway" point is a big part of the mastering process. Most recording engineers who try to master their own stuff will get stuck trying to figure it out. Leave all the dynamics in your mix and save the mastering for someone with fresh ears.
 
As far as the emulators go, they may superficially sound similar to such environments, but a "car stereo" plug - just for one example - can never emulate your 4 (or more) speaker car stereo mounted in various horizontal and vertical planes around the edges of inside an irregular cockpit space about the size of your average closet. The closeness of actual "emulation" would be akin to my sticking a couple of balloons in a bra, putting that under my sweater, throwing on a wig and calling myself Angelina Jolie.
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thats kind of funny :D but i have a hunch thats its closer then that im going to test it and will see should be fun
 
doulos24 said:
thats kind of funny :D but i have a hunch thats its closer then that im going to test it and will see should be fun
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Let's just put it this way; no two car stereos sound the same. How can a single emulation sound like all of them at the same time?

G.
 
I'm not arguing that at all im just saying the emulation is pretty close to a standard stock car stereo enviorment here have a listen emulation 2 is the file

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=919665

it's very obvious to tell which is emulated and which is miced, but you can still draw the same basic mix decsions from both at least I can. This took me 4hrs to set up an edit and no I didn't try to match them at all I just put a rode nt5 in front of the speakers. In the sedan I set it ear level on the console divider dead center of the front speakers and recorded it. it's not perfect but it does come pretty close. If I wanted to I could match them even more with some of the settings on the emulator I just didn't bother doing that :)
 
doulos24 said:
it's very obvious to tell which is emulated and which is miced, but you can still draw the same basic mix decsions from both at least I can.
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Like I say, if it works for you, I have no qualms with that. I guess I just don't understand why you need the emulator to start with, especially after hearing your test. Even accounting for the difference the miked recording vs. the direct source makes, those samples sound incredibly different. Yet you can make the translation just fine. What is it that's keeping you from taking that one extra step of translating from your unadulterated 624s?

G.
 
doulos24 said:
to have a quick turn of a knob to refrence what your mix would sound like on oh dunno in a car in a suv a small home stereo a larger home stereo on a tv set etc.
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I understand the concept. I also understand that it's flawed from the start (as SSG mentioned, just like the "Mic Modeler").
 
doulos24 said:
I didn't make myself clear I apologise. I have a tascam dm24 and it has some cool speaker emulators from antares I've been using
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What next, the shit room with no acoustic treatment emulator? :eek:

One eared software pirate on ludes emulator?....and here's how it COULD have sounded! :D
 
There´s something wrong with this thread.
He started asking about great albuns to listen to for learning monitors ...some good replies (respectable guys here - and no "thanks", he´s not the "nice guy"), and ended talking about the advantages of a speaker "emulator" (and he has a Mackie 624)...

For sure , he needs (a lot of) room treatment (at least).
 
CIRO said:
(and he has a Mackie 624)...
he needs (a lot of) room treatment (at least).
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What I'm wondering - just a thought - is maybe the 624s are the wrong match for him; i.e. that maybe he really does need something with more of a midrange focus like the Yamahas. It certainly would be a much shorter translation path to his car stereo without requiring throwing an EQ or filter in the monitoring path.

G.
 
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