Is it me or my monitors ??

J

jpb123

New member
Hi,

Don't know if I'm in the right place as I normally only ask questions about technique etc but,

I have these monitors Citronic UK Dealers CITRONIC ST5 MKII ACTIVE STUDIO MONITORS - PAIR

And although my room is treated (slightly) I'm not getting very good translation of my mixes at all , I get the mix and vocal levels sounding great and then.........I'm sure you've heard this one before , at home in the car etc etc my cd's just sound flat , no highs over boomy bass and mids way way down !!

Has anyone got these monitors they can offer and suggestions? In you expert opinions does my room need more treatment ?

I have the speakers 3 feet from any wall with foam on the walls behind and in front of the speakers. on my desk the speakers sit on auralex pads

Any help would be very much appreciated

John
 
thats the journey.... it sounds to me like your monitoring environment, room the speakers etc...

until we can hear it well, we cant fix it....well we can, but its cumbersome. my sons band did the old school of... to the car, take notes, retweak, to someone elses car retweak...and it sounds good, it sounds real good for HR but could use some "polish and pump."

Try another mix method might help. I was reading a producer /eng and he starts with the bass, the bottom and adds to that, some will start with the vocal and build around that.... experimenting can be fun if your not in a hurry.
 
Foam doesn't do much of anything for bass, so you need to get some bass traps! They're cheap if you build them yourself!
 
Is it me or my monitors ??
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Probably both -- And the space.

Going back to the "Rules of Audio" --

1) No matter (everything - listening skills and experience, hundreds of thousands of dollars of top-shelf gear, the best players in the world, years of recording experience, etc.), you will only hear as accurately as your monitoring chain allows you to hear.

Your monitors are giving you only a very limited look at what's going on.

2) No matter how accurate and consistent your monitoring chain may be, no matter how much headroom is in that chain, no matter how fast and powerful the amplifiers, no matter how well-matched the drivers, no matter how well designed the crossover networks, your monitoring chain will only ever be as accurate and consistent as the room they're in allows them to be.

"Slightly treated" isn't telling us much. And as mentioned, quite a few think that throwing a few sheets of foam up on a wall is actually helping the matter while most of the time, it's really only showing off the lack of broadband trapping (which is where you should always start, every time, without exception, period, end of story, etc.).

Long story short -- There's certainly an amount of experience that can guide around those rules to some extent (although they hold true no matter what, they can be "bent" by experience). The problem is that you won't gain that experience without having a more accurate representation of what's going on in the first place.

Think of the kid who grows up with bad vision -- who's never seen a sharp line or something as simple as individual blades of grass -- and think of the day that kid gets glasses and is suddenly able to see the detail of what's been there the whole time...
 
jpb123 said:
at home in the car etc etc my cd's just sound flat , no highs over boomy bass and mids way way down !!
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This is the most common problem home studio owners face, and it's always due to a lack of bass traps. The root problem is one or more deep nulls - you hear less bass and so add too much in the mix to compensate. This will help:

Acoustic Basics

--Ethan
 
Thanks Guy's,

I know the monitors are cheap but I had a funny feeling that it wasn't just the monitors fault , that it was my acoustic space and lack of " knowing " the monitors that really wasn't helping matters.

It's amazing the help and info that can be gained by asking a question on here , let alone the money that can be saved.

Once again many thanks

John
 
Ethan,

I've just spent time to read the acoustics link you sent me and realise EXACTLY where my problems lie !!

I fully agree with you saying that budget gear is far better than most " home " users give it credit for.

I spent 20 years in audio sales and have been on every Pro-Audio and MI product training course that the industry has had to offer , the german mic manufacturers will tell you why there stuff is the best, the u.s speaker manufacturer will tell you why his stuff is the best and well .......every soundcard maker in the world will tell you that they have the best / cheapest all round greatest product ever !!

One thing that not once has been said at any conference or trade fair I've been to is that when you learn how to properly use , place and understand these products the difference in actual sound quality between them all isn't that much.

I've only half heartedly treated my room and as such was far too eager to blame my monitors , foolishly thinking that spending more money would solve the problem instantly
I know now I was wrong...........I will look at building some bass traps and getting the basics right before blaming my tools next time !!

Thanks everyone

John
 
a little fun exercise would be to mix in Mono....then check it around, see where the bass is off.

you might have a lot of bass going on you dont even hear in your speakers/room. so then when you play it somehwere else its the dreaded "ugly surprise"..or sounds like ass. lol

Mono mixes can also force a lot of freq crowding and allow you to separate stuff with eq...but you probably heard all of this before.

so another trick might be to Mono mix, and chop off all the freq below 100hz or more, for a test...then see if that removes the "ugly surprises" your hearing and will tell you its the low freaks..rumbling more than your 5" can show you.

just a thought... theres an old saying if it sounds good in mono it will sound great in stereo...I dont know who actually said that first, maybe Abraham Lincoln?
 
jpb123 said:
One thing that not once has been said at any conference or trade fair I've been to is that when you learn how to properly use , place and understand these products the difference in actual sound quality between them all isn't that much.
Click to expand...

It's even worse than that. Just this month in Mix magazine, their technical editor wrote an article saying that room treatment is the last thing home studio owners should worry about, after they've bought replacement AC power cords and other "power" products. Not just putting acoustic treatment last, but praising BS products that rely entirely on the placebo effect. I expect such ignorance from audiophile magazine reviewers, but this is revolting to see from the "technical" editor for a major pro audio magazine.

--Ethan
 
I'd say work on your room, buy a decent pair of studio monitors (i personally use the KRK KNS-8400 and find them absolutely amazing) but most of all: mix at LOW volumes, no need to crank the speakers, it won't help, especially on poorly treated rooms. Chances are that even in your room, mixing at low volumes helps to attenuate a lot of the problematic reflections.
 
Ethan Winer said:
It's even worse than that. Just this month in Mix magazine, their technical editor wrote an article saying that room treatment is the last thing home studio owners should worry about, after they've bought replacement AC power cords and other "power" products. Not just putting acoustic treatment last, but praising BS products that rely entirely on the placebo effect. I expect such ignorance from audiophile magazine reviewers, but this is revolting to see from the "technical" editor for a major pro audio magazine.
Click to expand...
Coming from someone who actually has replaced his power cords and put quite a bit into conditioning and what not and had a measurable (if somewhat negligible) effect from doing so (probably more due to having cables that are as long as they need to be more than the quality) -- that has to be some of the most ridiculous and crappy advice ever.

Geez, I tell people to treat their rooms before they even choose their monitors or buy microphones.
 
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