self explanitory the best mixed music to judge studio monitors. I'd like a good selection cause after my room treatment's done I want to re listen to my monitors and see if I need to get a second refrence pair like the the Yamaha HS50M's
great albums to listen to for learning monitors?
- Thread starter doulos24
- Start date
Simplicity2202
New member
not sure of a whole album but i read somewhere or a compilation of songs that were good the ony one i can rememeber is
Elton John
goodbye yellow brick road
is a well balanced and mastered song for testing studio monitors
Massive Master
www.massivemastering.com
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Pink Floyd - DSOTM
Metallica - (The "Black" album)
Danielle De Niese - Handel Arias
Jacco Muller - Silueta (especially the pre-Cantaur CD pressing)
Steely Dan - Aja
That covers clean, dirty and in between. The only thing you need beyond those are BAD sounding albums. Just as important is that bad recordings actually sound bad. Too many "studio monitors" (for lack of a better term) don't cut it there.
Pink Floyd - DSOTM
Metallica - (The "Black" album)
Danielle De Niese - Handel Arias
Jacco Muller - Silueta (especially the pre-Cantaur CD pressing)
Steely Dan - Aja
That covers clean, dirty and in between. The only thing you need beyond those are BAD sounding albums. Just as important is that bad recordings actually sound bad. Too many "studio monitors" (for lack of a better term) don't cut it there.
Seafroggys
Well-known member
My friend got this boxset of new DVD-Audio remixes of Gabriel-era Genesis, like the first 4-5 albums. He sent me a few mp3's....some of the best, if not the best, sounding recordings I have ever heard. No tape hiss, really nice high end, very dynamic, hardly any buss compression at all, if any.
Dark Side of the Moon is also a traditional great. Black Album is phenomenal, one of the last dynamic heavy rock/metal albums to come out via mainstream
Dark Side of the Moon is also a traditional great. Black Album is phenomenal, one of the last dynamic heavy rock/metal albums to come out via mainstream
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
I don't buy into the theory at all. What point is there listening to something if you have no reference to work from?
The best albums (though I think individual tracks are more appropriate) are those you're intimately familiar with and have heard on everything from a transistor radio to a THX surround system and know what it should sound like, so you can tell what's missing or what's there that wasn't before, whether the overall balance sounds both right and good (two different things) at the same time.
If you just haven't listened to albums that way before, or if you never had a good reference to hear them on before, then any listening tests you perform have very little meaning.
G.
LemonTree
Suck 'em and see!
I agree with Glen here, take the time to relearn your CD collection...hear how things sound now? that's your new refference and that's how you learn your moniotors.
As time goes on you'll learn new monitors quicker and can jump to massive's method of having a few choice cuts over several genres of music. Some good choices in the list there too, Aja is one I reach for first followed by kula shaker's pigs, peasants & astronauts and ofcourse superdiscount by ettien de cercy .... what hifi's test CD for 5 years running in the late 1990's
As time goes on you'll learn new monitors quicker and can jump to massive's method of having a few choice cuts over several genres of music. Some good choices in the list there too, Aja is one I reach for first followed by kula shaker's pigs, peasants & astronauts and ofcourse superdiscount by ettien de cercy .... what hifi's test CD for 5 years running in the late 1990's
thats garbage what you just said I can learn any speakers doing that
what would be the point in having a flat set of monitors then?
there should be a compromise. find songs that are mixed by the best and hearing them on a refrence set a good home stereo or in the car etc. Then compare that to the same song or songs on the new monitors. If it's mixed like trash and cheap monitor make them sound pretty that's not what I'm after!
I can learn a pair of behringer truths but why would I want to?
MasteringMills
New member
The Beach Boys - Sunflower
Daniele Luppi - An Italian Story
that dog - s/t
U.S. Maple - Long Hair In Three Stages
The Most Serene Republic - Population
Daniele Luppi - An Italian Story
that dog - s/t
U.S. Maple - Long Hair In Three Stages
The Most Serene Republic - Population
Yonce N Mild
Voice of Sanity
Isn't that what he's trying to do? Learn his monitors?
Uhm if you owned a pair of behringer truth's your might.
LemonTree
Suck 'em and see!
If you've never HAD a set of flat monitors then you've no idea how they sound....you have to LEARN them and the best way to do that is with music you have been listening to for years on many various sources.
Garbage, eh?
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
That's right, you can. That is exactly why it's not garbage.
Many studio monitors - including your Yamahas - are far from flat. But that's not the main issue here. The issue is, there's no way to tell what something sounds like or what it does to the sound of something if you have no idea what that something is supposed to sound like.
"Aja" and DSOM (just for two examples already mentioned) are great sounding albums that, quite frankly, sound great on just about anything even halfway decent. But if you have never heard those albums before, or at least don't have a good and detailed "sonic memory" of what those productions sound like on other quality playback systems, you have no reference to tell just what your monitors are or are not doing to the sound.
It's just like video monitors; video engineers need to use calibrated and standardized color bars in order to determine just how tuned in or not the color reproduction is on the monitor. If you just show a video - one that the engineer is not intimately familiar with as to how it's "supposed to" look, there's now way of knowing whether that color balance he's seeing is from the monitor or is the actual color coming from the source. Is that high contrast or that red shift because of the type of film stock used or the age of the print or the choice of the director/cinematographer, or is it because of an inaccuracy in the monitor? There's no way of knowing without having a reference to to work from.
in audio, the sound version of color bars would be (depending on what you're checking for) either a 1kHz tone or pink noise. The difference is there's no good way to adjust or calibrate the audio monitor for true flatness, and that the ear cannot relate to test tones or pink noise the way the eye can a bit more easily relate to color bars.
So what is needed is audio program material that the listener can use as a reference; that is material they are intimately familiar with and have a good "sonic memory" or mental impression of just how, on average, the material "should" sound.
There's nothing wrong with that, in fact I'd highly recommend that. My point is that the more familiar you are with the material, the better you'll be able to do this. With unfamiliar material, it will not only be a harder and longer process, but it will be far more difficult to know how much of the difference between your car stereo and your Yammies is because of the car stereo and how much is because of the monitors.
If it's mixed like trash it'll sound like trash everywhere. If a mix is colored by the mixing monitors/environment (not to mention the ears), you'll be bale to tell when you try to play it elsewhere on multiple systems.
Why are many of the commercial albums you listen to mixed or mix-checked on NS10Ms or Auratones? It's not because those speakers are anywhere near flat in their response (the Truths are flatter than either of those). It's because they have learned that if they make theor mixes sound like "X" in those monitors, that it will sound like "Y" almost everywhere else. They are easy for those engineers to translate what they are hearing in the studio to what sounds good outside. That doesn't mean it will actually sound good in the studio; I think very few of those engineers would actually prefer to listen to music on NS10s or Auratones, they just now how to use them to make stuff that translates better in "the real world".
You may very well find that what sounds perfect in your studio is not what sounds best elsewhere, because of coloration in your monitors, your room or your ears. That is not unusual, especially in home studio setups with economical monitors. You'll need to learn that difference - that "translation", as it's called. Obviously we'd all like the amount of that translation to be minimal, which is why we strive for better monitors and room acoustics whenever we can. But flat or bumpy, either way you'll have to learn what your monitors are doing to what you hear, and the easiest way to do that without creating a mountain of CD-R drink coasters that just wind up filling the local landfill for a thousand years is to run some programming through your monitors that you are the most familiar with and let you ears work out the details.
G.
my current monitors are mackie hr624s the are not flat but they are acurate from 50hz -22khz within + or - 2db so unless I'm spending alot more then that. I mean like 4 times as much they are pretty darn flat the key word here is second set as in a refrence pair the yamahas or now mix cubes or something like that somthing that gives me a roomless refrence a base to work out while learning my new acoustic space get me now?
before i had a home stereo with line in and would run th mix through the preset eq sets, but that set is gone now and needs replaced if I"m relearning my room
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greyharmonix
*....*
my vote: ok computer by radiohead. there are songs in there with unique mixes along with standard rock mixes. it's got a little bit of everything and there's alot of tinkering sounds that maybe don't come through as well in a regular car stereo but with monitors the tinkering sounds come through better. alot of albums go for a signature mix sound throughout the entire album, but this album's cool because the signature mix is that there is no signature mix all the songs have something different that stands out. smashing pumpkins melencholia and the infinate sadness is sorta the same way but i don't think it's as intentional.
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
My apologies for not understanding you idea of augmenting the 624s with something more "common", and your idea of re-checking the 624s - which I assume you know pretty well already - in the new environs. I own and use an old pair of 824s myself and am familiar with the 624s, and yeah, the Yammies will sound entirely different than the Mackies. it'd be an interesting combo. I thought you were talking about learning the Yammies with no known reference to listen against.
In that case, I have three tracks from three entirely different genres that I'd like to recommend, each for their own specific reason:
The Main Theme from the soundtrack to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". One of the best examples of simplicity, clarity and fidelity I have heard, and IMHO one of the best recordings ever made. Listen to this on quality monitors and you'll understand why it's important to have smooth response all the way through the whole frequency spectrum, even if you're just listening to a cello. Great for checking how well a monitor handles high-order harmonics. Any veiling or coloration you hear is going to pretty much ID itself as coming from your playback/listening chain, and not from the recording itself.
The track "Lay My Love" from the album "Wrong Side Up" by Brian Eno and John Cale. This track is a humbling, lesson-teaching tour de force of complex rhythmic arrangement and the creative use of the full palate of all four dimensions of pan space, frequency spectrum, dynamics and dramatic build. "How many tracks can you identify?" is a great exercise in critical listening with this cut - and a fun drinking game when you get less serious
. Not to mention whether your monitors will allow you to pick out just what the almost subliminal accompanying vocals in the second half of the track are actually saying. The better your monitors and the more you listen, the more this mix sucks you in and the more you hear."Rocks" by Primal Scream, from the album "Give Out But Don't Give Up". For those wanting a more rock sound and who are fans of the hard-panned-two-guitar sound, but want more instrument and vocal tracks to work with than just two guitars, a bass and some skins, and wants to hear how to do it all by giving each instrument it's "space" in the mix without sounding like a muddy mess. Does a nice job of striking the balance of being a tight, structured, full production without drawing attention to itself as being a "production". A nice balanced mix with lots of stuff for testing your monitors while still sounding like a rocker anthem of a song.
G.
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My only gripe about Radiohead's productions is that the drums always seem kind of lo-fi...But hey, some people like that.
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, but I think a seperate set will help me learn my mixes better then the same speakers in emulation mode while I'm treating and tuning my room. I will have some broad band absorbton added as well as changing the mix position and I lost my old mac computer speakers which I loved so out with the old in with the new
Massive Master
www.massivemastering.com
Speaker emulation? Not like a guitar cabinet, but actual loudspeaker / monitor emulation?!?
Every day, I think that I've heard of it all and then I hear of something unimaginable...
Okay - Just turn that off right friggin' now and never, ever turn it on again. I can't imagine for a solitary nanosecond where that would be a good idea.
Unless I'm wrong and you're talking about something different...
Every day, I think that I've heard of it all and then I hear of something unimaginable...
Okay - Just turn that off right friggin' now and never, ever turn it on again. I can't imagine for a solitary nanosecond where that would be a good idea.
Unless I'm wrong and you're talking about something different...
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
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. 
G.
G.