Monitors in a corner?

  • Thread starter Thread starter chamelious
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chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
I know the advice is DO NOT put your monitors in a corner, but what if you have to? Both my monitors are almost against a wall and one is a corner too, but its my bedroom too and not even my house so as with many people im sure, theres not a lot i can do about positioning.

Is there a way to help fix any potential problems created by this? I use M-Audio BX-5a's and i can upload if a photo of my mixing position if it'd be helpful.
 
If you "have to" then you are pretty much at the mercy of having to. You are in the absolute worst possible spot - by a long shot - in any room.

Fixing it? So much broadband trapping that you won't have room to walk through the room anymore.
 
Mm. Im sure i cant be the only one in this position. Its one thing to have monitors optimally placed in a studio, but then this is homerecording.com.
 
About the only thing you can do (other than all the broadbands :D) is to learn the monitors. Figure out how they translate and take that into consideration when mixing.

Burn a bunch of cd's and try them in different stereos. Boomboxes (do they still call em that??:p) car stereos etc...

If they sound too bass heavy, back off the bass and lower freqs when you're mixing. It'll probably be to the point of your mixes sounding weak and thin in your room but will translate decently to other systems.

Most definitely not the optimum but you work with whatcha got til ya don't have to...right?
 
chamelious said:
I know the advice is DO NOT put your monitors in a corner, but what if you have to?
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In that case add as much bass trapping to the other corner behind you as possible. Not just 2 foot wide traps, but enough to cover the parts of the walls near the corner too.

--Ethan
 
chamelious said:
Mm. Im sure i cant be the only one in this position. Its one thing to have monitors optimally placed in a studio, but then this is homerecording.com.
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No doubt - It's very common. And the problems are common also.
 
I'm no pro, but you say "potential problems". If you yourself have not had problems yet, then what are you worried about? I guess it all depends on what you are willing to live with. If and when you start having troouble with your mixes, then start thinking about proper rooom placement, room treatments, or compensating by "knowing" your room and monitors.

Cheers,
Rich
 
yes....same issues of space and room format here aswell....grrrrrrr.

Anyway, the simplest fix was to engage the service of quality 'monitoring only' stereo graphic equaliser..(attached to my main program amp and speakers) so that it is not attached to or affecting the actual mix at all......All I'm doing is tuning what I'm hearing into a more real and honest output.

I have a seperate MAIN MIX INSERT Graphic eq for actual tweaking during printing or mixdown.

Anyway, I managed (with time and experim) to cut the certain frequencies (lower end mainly!) that were lying to me originally, on the side that seemed effected the most...(yes,the side with the speaker in the corner!!)
I then locked these settings and stopped playing around with speaker placement..I'd found some sort of room-audio "neutrality", if I may.

I think I nailed it!...

And remember, it's just my own way of doing things, I'd much rather a room with better acoustics !!

You may want to hear how (well) it's worked for me..(I have links on my profile)

Cheers.
 
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Hmm thanks for the responses anyway. My mixes tend to translate okkk at the minute- it might help my room is quite large and not square shaped. The opposite corner to the one with the speaker in a corner is like 12 foot away and filled with bookcases.
 
chamelious said:
Hmm thanks for the responses anyway. My mixes tend to translate okkk at the minute- it might help my room is quite large and not square shaped. The opposite corner to the one with the speaker in a corner is like 12 foot away and filled with bookcases.
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hmmmmmmm....ok...thanks for the question, and I hope you got something out of these posts, anyway:D
 
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chamelious said:
Mm. Im sure i cant be the only one in this position. Its one thing to have monitors optimally placed in a studio, but then this is homerecording.com.
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So what's your point??? Just becuase other people do the wrong thing, that justifies it???

You asked a question, got the right answers, but I guess they're not what you wanted to hear.

You seem convinced that your mixes sound OK anyway, so why did you even ask the question???
 
Ridickolas said:
^^ That was a bit of an unecessary response.
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That's your opinion. Try to imagine how little it means to me.:rolleyes:


What I see is him dismissing everything he got as a response.

But, I do agree with you that my response wasn't as neccassary as the abortion your parents should have had.
 
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RAMI said:
That's your opinion. Try to imagine how little it means to me.:rolleyes:


What I see is him dismissing everything he got as a response.

But, I do agree with you that my response wasn't as neccassary as the abortion your parents should have had.
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I dismissed absolutly nothing, i took everything in- i was simply curious what solutions people employ when forced to deal with this less than ideal situation.

You on the other hand acted completly innapropriatly. You sound like a prick. Done.
 
Haha ok so it turns out i do have reason to worry anyway. I tried listening to each speaker indiviually, the one in the corner definatly has noticably more low frequencys coming from it. :( Best sort that out then.
 
chamelious said:
Haha ok so it turns out i do have reason to worry anyway. I tried listening to each speaker indiviually, the one in the corner definatly has noticably more low frequencys coming from it. :( Best sort that out then.
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I thought you would have expected that by now -- Considerably more. Corners are horrible. Spanning a corner is slightly less horrible, but still far from ideal. Having one speaker in a corner and the other not (probably having both up against the wall) is about as bad as it gets. Terribly skewed *and* uneven from side to side.
 
yep, corners are are bloody ugly, worse when they're only on one side!!

But I also found that when I got out of the habbit of "monitoring at craaaazzzzzeeeeee high volumes", things also improved in my less than ideal room....

I also constantly find myself (and it took a while to get into the habbit) pulling in the reins of the main mon knob, every few minutes or so.

I guess I just wasn't receiving as much incorrect information in the form of reflected/refracted energy back to my original seating position....seems to work!.

Oh yes, after the mix is completed and tested on various crystal radio sets, it's back to craaaaaazzzzzzeeeee volumes again!
 
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