I run a home studio out of a spare bedroom, no acoustic treatment. It is just a little hobby of mine, I'm still pretty inexperienced at the whole mixing concept. I cheat a lot.
Hi Nathan,
I'm in pretty much the same boat as you, and I think that "cheating a lot" is not just inevitable it's actually a reasonably smart way to go - provided that we understand when we're cheating and why.
Our set ups will never match the equipment quality or acoustic properties of a professional studio so my current goal is to learn how to make the best use of what I do have. Fortunately, that doesn't mean that my results will inevitably be rubbish, it just means that I need to know where the traps are and how to step round them. There seem to be a range of strategies that allow us to do that, and still get good end results.
For instance, I knew that my room would be unreliable, but only I recently discovered that my monitors themselves would not be as consistent as I'd thought. I just bought the Kindle version of a highly regarded book on mixing by professional engineer and Sound on Sound writer Mike Senior.
Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio and it tells me about a whole new range of problems I never even knew I had. Fortunately it also seems to give tips on how to get round them.
The opening pages deal at some length with the deficiencies of “ported monitors” and how they can mislead the unwary. Apparently the ports are there to overcome some problems, but the cost is that they create others. There are several pages of graphs and explanations, but here’s a sample:
...although the speaker’s overall low-frequency output is boosted by the port, the relationship between the sub-50Hz levels and the rest of the signal is seriously skewed at the same time, which makes it trickier to make judgements about instruments with low-frequency components
He then gives some photos of popular powered monitors which fall into that category. They include types which would probably be used by a pretty decent chunk of the members here. They include the KRK Rokit range (which I have), Behringers like yours, and some Adams and M-Audio (which I have a pair of in another room).
This seems to bear out the usefulness of strategies like using good quality professional recordings as 'reference tracks' so that we can to some degree 'borrow' the balance from a professional studio. There's no point in getting too stressed about the weaknesses in our gear, because it's still good enough to get results that are still very acceptable. We're more likely to be let down by lack of experience, knowledge and practice than by the equipment, and learning the craft and building the skills is half the fun! The bottom line for me is that if I like the end results, and they suit my purpose, then I'm not going to be too fussy about how I got there!
All the best with your hobby.
Chris
