Monitors - why do I need them?!

W

westermane

New member
Hi all,

This may be a stupid question, but I don't know the answer right now - so please enlighten me!

I do not understand why monitors are so important. The way I see it, if you mix using a decent pair of regular speakers and it sounds good through them - then that should be sufficient.....because that's the type of speaker people will be listening to your music on, right? So why are these monitors so important - what advantage to they give you?

Thanks for your help!
 
Monitors and Home speakers provide 2 very different
frequency responses.
Home speakers tend to accentuate frequencies 80hz
(bass) and below while also providing a sort of colored,filtered mid & hi. They are built to provide an extra added boost and color for the average audio listener.
Monitors on the other hand are made to give a totally
flat frequency response; no bass boost,mids or accented hi's. This gives the engineer,recordist, or whomever the opportunity to actually judge the true sound of thier recordings audio spectrum without any
additional coloration. In this way you can determine,whether you need to EQ,tweak,adjust each sonic frequency and actually hear the difference. Try an audition of 1 of your recordings at a music store and compare music played on home speakers vs music on
a monitor. You'll hear the difference.
 
Listen to a good pair of monitors like the mackies and youll immediately hear whats monitory about them and why they dont sound like aiwa speakers. They are generally very clear and transparent in all the frequencies and as misetrque said they dont bump the bass and mask the mids like home speakers. There is a fullness about them without anything being colored... the highs are drier and clearer than in most consumer speakers. Thats one of the first things that jump out at you when you listen to monitors in contrast to speakers. Consumer speakers are not all the same (neither are monitors) but the closer you get to some kind of truth or flatness about your mix, the less youll be groping in the dark and guessing at whats going on and the more it will translate to differently colored consumer speakers (after youve learned them).
 
Consumer stereo speakers are made to make your music sound good...studio monitors are made to make your music sound accurate.....music mixed to sound good on those monitors will translate well on all speakers...music mixed to sound good on those stereo speakers..well, they'll sound good on those, but on other speakers, who knows...
 
Rtz,

Very good answer...you are correct...however, here in the classroom, lets say poo-poo...
 
...or you could use the Swedish word for it...(checking my swedish translator).....Meshuggah....
 
so it seems like monitors really help you adjust the EQ to perfection. but what about the track volumes in the mix? by using regular speakers for adjusting the volumes, can you screw up too? to this point, i've kept the EQ flat on most of my tracks (mostly because i don't know what to do with it yet), and am mostly just worried about levels and effects. it would seem to me that you could burn a CD, go listen to the song on every speaker you can find, take notes, go back and make some adjustments and be finished with it. i can understand why the pros use monitors, but for me - i just wonder if the money you pay for a pair of them is justified by a much better mix.
 
???

f'ing yeah what? i need to get monitors, or my tiral-and-error mixing solution will suffice?! i have a pair of bose speakers that i'm mixing with, so at least they're good non-monitors!
 
Bose are good SPEAKERS not MONITORS! Why waste time thru trial-and-error through your SPEAKERS when
you can eliminate all that by using MONITORS and ACTUALLY hearing/judging what your music REALLY sounds like!

BTW, What borough of NYC are you located at!!??
 
ok

Good point. I guess I'll go to the music store and try to hear the difference. Oh, and I'm not in NYC right now - but I'll be moving to Manhattan in July. Thanks for the help...
 
Gidge is ALMOST right. Meshuggah is not Swedish for 'shit'. It's more like 'the shit'..

But don't listen to Gidge, he's probably drunk and needs to go to bed.
 
Westermane,look me up when you come to Manhattan!
I work there and have a small apartment there also.
But I keep my recording equipment in my house in New
Jersey.
LOL @ Mesh'! :)
 
I am sure that most people here will disagree with what I am about to say. I would like to exercise my freedom of speech, the following is my opinion only and that was my disclaimer-are you ready, lets go then.

I mix with my studio headphones.
I mix with my studio headphones.
I mix with my studio headphones.
I mix with my studio headphones.
I mix with my studio headphones.

This provides me (I said me) with optimum results. There is no distraction when you have these on, you hear a fuller sound than through monitors (in my opinion) and you can have them on a high volume night or day (they are designed for comfort, for hours of wearing).

Whenever I listen to music (not my own) and want to distinguish between the various instruments, the panning, effects used etc I listen through headphones as this provides the most conclusive results im my opinion.
 
Krystof,

Im curious as to the model headphones you are using....I'd also like to hear a MP3 of something you mixed on those headphones.....Now, Im not gonna argue that you cant get good results with them, but Id be willing to bet that the results are not "optimum"....they may be "optimum" for what you are doing, or "optimum" for what you can afford, but they are not better than mixing with monitors for anybody....mix a song using only the headphones for reference and then mix it using monitors, then take both mixes around to a few different sources (car, stereo, boombox, etc.) and then come back and tell me I was right....
 
I disagree, I totally disagree.

To what?

I don't know, I just feel like disagreeing.


To me, the importance of studio monitors is just the amount of detail that they have. I just can't get that same minute detail out of regular speakers.

My buddy has a pair of floor standing sony speakers, matched to a sony amp, that has enough detail for mixing, but they are probably as expensive as regular studio monitors.
 
Sonusman recently said that the two most important components of your system for getting good sound are the mics and the monitors. In my own limited experience, he's right about the mics. I'll take his word for it regarding the monitors.

Yet having said that, I've asked a question here before that nobody really knows how to answer it seems. At this point, the stuff I'm recording is *very* simple - voice and acoustic guitar. Minimal compression, and minimal EQ tweaking required - mostly just adjust the levels and trim the ends off the track. I'm not even panning anything. So, why not do this through cans? I can understand completely why monitors are superior for multi-track takes with a handful of instruments and panning and all that. 5-7 hundred dollars is a *lot* of money to pay if I don't need to. I don't know what I'm missing, I know. But do I need to? If I were playing with ONE other instrument, I'd be down to my local monitor emporium tomorrow like *that*! (dobro snaps fingers dramatically)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top