Speakers or headphones?!

[Nico2112]

After mixing with headphones for 10 years, I finally decided to try and mix using speakers.
I can't say they are monitors cause they aren't.

I have a pair of Infinity cabinets, fitted with 8" woofers and 1" soft dome tweeters. I chose this pair of speakers, because they are my finest sounding ones. I'm using them with an RCA 100watts per channel HI FI amplifier.

Now here's what's killing me:
I decided to work everything using these speakers: Compressing, EQ and levels.
But no matter what I do, the mixes are not coming out as I expected. Literally...they SUCK!
I'm aware that whenever you change something in your mix chain, mixes are not going to sound "like they used to", but I never thought it was going to be this hard.
My mixes are lacking punch, and the low fundation is all wrong.

Here's a link to it, so you can listen:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=371758&songID=5956635

I know that the basic answer is to get a good quality set of studio monitors, and to train my ears to them. But, unluckily for me, you can't find them in stock in my country. And if you special order them, they end up costing $1000 (KRK's RP-8)

The headphones I've been mixing with are Sky's monitoring headphones (freq response 20Hz-20,000Hz), and to my ears, they are the flattest sounding headphones I could get here.

Here are my choices:

1) Go back to my headphones

2) Find a pair of woofers and tweeters that don't colour the sound that much, and fit them in my cabinets. The deal here is, how I can tell or know which ones to buy?

3) Save up and pay the insanely high price for the KRK's

4) Build my own monitors (which in the end could result costing more)

Please, help me decide the best option.

Disclaimer:
I don't sell my recordings, or do them for commercial purpose. I'm just a picky audiophile. I know I'm making a big fuzz about this, but I really care about my sound; no matter if my family is the only one that are going to hear my work. That's why I got into this forum, to learn from all you guys, and to improve my recording/mixing skills, using the gear I have.

Sorry for the long post.

Any input is going to be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[mixsit]

The next best thing -and what's needed in any case regardless of how good they are is to learn your speakers, room, ect, cross check them against finished mixes/cd's, your phones and other systems.

 

[bkkornaker]

The next best thing -and what's needed in any case regardless of how good they are is to learn your speakers, room, ect, cross check them against finished mixes/cd's, your phones and other systems.

couldnt have been said better............

no matter what your mixing on, double check em with commercial CDS, and play your mix the the car, or the Cd player in your living room........OR both!

you can mix using anything....headphones, great monitors, crappy 2 in speakers......doesnt matter.........BUT......with great monitors, youll notice you wont have to keep double checking and re-mixing as often as you would with junky speakers.....

example........i would mix on m-audio BX5 monitors, and i would check my mixes on the car stereo like 2 to 3 times and have to keep fixing the mix untill i was satisfied......

now i use Event 20/20BAS monitors.....and i only have to check the mix once on car stereo, and sometimes i may not even have to go back to fix anything, or maybe just once.......

the better the speakers your mixing with.....the less times youll find yourself going back to fix something in the mix...........

 

[Nico2112]

Thanks for your repplies

Definately I will have to get to know better these speakers.

I always test my mixes on a boom box, car stereo, and my home sound system.

I did some experimenting today, moving things around, and found a nice spot at ear level for the speakers to be placed on. I heard a big improvement. Definately their placement wasn't helping.

It's amazing how getting things off your chest help you see clearer. I needed to vent my frustration.

I'm staying with these speakers....I just have to "tame" them!

Thanks again

Cheers!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

My mixes are lacking punch, and the low fundation is all wrong.

Ding ding ding!

Come on people, let me see some hands in the air. What does it mean virtually every time someone with a virgin mix monitoring setup at home complains they are not getting the bass right (and it happens here probably twice a month on average)? And how do we solve that problem?

Come on, everybody's hands should be in the air by now.

Nico, I'd bet my next gig that your problem has as much or more to do with your physical monitoring setup and room acoustics than it does the quality of those Infinitys. Your bass is probably lacking in the mixes because your room and mix position are artifically boosting them in your ears.

Get your mixing position out of the corner of the room if it's in the corner. Get your monitors out of the corners of the room and try to set them up symmetrically around the center of your wall, puting at least a half foot (preferably as much as 2 feet) of space between the back of your monitors and the back wall if you can. If you have those speakers sitting on the floor, put them on some fairly high-mass speaker stands to get them off the floor. Finally, check the Studio Building Forum on this BBS for tips on how to build some inexpensive bass traps to help tame the bass modality of your room.

Only after you have gotten your room at least somewhat tamed this way will you really be able to truely tell what your monitors can do for you. Hell, if people can make hit mixes on Yamaha NS10s, there's no reason why it can't be done on those Infinitys, as long as the room is not messing with you too much.

G.

 

[Nico2112]

Thanks Glen for your repply, that's exaclty what I needed to know

Here's a little background of what my workspace is like:

I have my mixing PC here at my pharmacy (yeah, I know, odd place). I have it right on the sales floor. I mix at my lunch hour, while the pharmacy is closed.
Virtually, I can't modify the room I'm at; it's a huge space (65'x65') with tall concrete ceiling (about 10'). My desk and PC is located at one corner of the sales floor. The first mixes (the ones that were really bad) were done with the speakers placed to my left and right, on the floor.
Now, I have them in front of me, placed over the corners of the desks, and it sounds much better.

My PC being on the sales floor is one of the main reasons I've been mixing with headphones for so long.

Thanks for all the input. It has really helped!

Cheers!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Nico,

You sure your problem isn't that you have been hitting the Vicodin & Demarol supplies in the stock room a bit too hard? Siesta!!! (just kidding )

If you're sitting in the corner, that could very easily be messing up the bass in your monitoring. If you can't change your situation, there's probably not a whole lot you could do other than to try and learn how to compensate for the artificial bass boost - which might be tough to do well. But in that kind of situation there's no guarantee that even $2000 worth of monitors will help much; the room will mess with those just as much as it will the lesser monitors.

Can you get away from the corner at all? Even if you could straighten the tables out and get yourself out of the corner and your back away from the back wall, that might help a bit. Is there a way during lunch that perhaps you could push your desks up against the counter, for example? See attached.

G.

 

[talontsiawd]

Mixing is not where i shine. However, like people have said, where the speakers are can make a huge different. I have been using the same room since i started. But it used to be my bedroom as well. So for a long time, i had very little control of speaker placement, etc. I would say that the difference between finding the right spot for my speakers and the minimal treatment i have done has made a bigger difference than the speakers themselves. I'm not exagerating. Again, mixing is something that i still struggle with so it wasn't the end all thing. But yeah, realize how all this plays a critical role. With headphones, you just slap them on and they will sound the same, speakers have much more variables.

 

[Nico2112]

Glen,

I'll try moving them today, but I know it's not going to be an easy task. I hope I have enough time to move them back before opening time.

Thanks again mate

Vicodin?Demerol?...what are you talking about??