Newbie - Question about using PA Set as Studio Monitors

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nissaaaa

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Hi

I am a singer and musician based in Berlin. I write my own music and after 8 years of trying... I think I am getting closer to actually getting an album finished. But still, I am giving myself at least 6 months to get some tracks done I am actually happy with.

I feel very ignorant about what I am trying to do and pretty daunted by the task. And I have made lots of mistakes so far. Around 5 years ago I bought myself a transportable PA-Set for performances. Maybe I should have invested my money otherwise.. but too late now!

So now after deciding to produce the majority of the tracks myself, I am wondering if I can use this PA-Set for mixing: Factotum Performance Voice Systems. Unfortunately the set is not well known internationally, so the english specs can't be found easily on google. But I am uploading some images from the product infos.

The speakers are actually pretty good, ie. active "satellite" speakers and there is a nice big subwoofer. So does anyone know if these speakers are good enough for monitoring????

thx,
n.

Factotum Performan - GB2.webpFactotum Performan - GB.webp
 
You can do it with about any speaker. Not having a relatively neutral reproduction- makes it very much more a trial and error' series of 'best guess. Simple as that.
 
mixsit said:
Not having a relatively neutral reproduction- makes it very much more a trial and error' series of 'best guess.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I am guessing that you mean making sure the output is clean and unmixed... or are there any other factors that would make the speakers work differently than officially manufactured studio monitors?
 
The kind of monitor you'll want at home are called nearfield monitors.
Any kind of speaker will work, these just seem a bit excessive. How large is the room you're in?
 
Well you're going to have to make sure you have the room treated first of all.

Do you know anything about how flat the response is on these things?
 
Basically every speaker has a certain frequency response. It covers a certain frequency range and then it also does it either rather flat (ideal for mixing) or has hype in certain frequency ranges (think of something like Beats headphones, they have a strongly boosted low end), which is not helpful for mixing.

It should be in the user's handbook. The subwoofer and the speakers will have separate graphs most likely. You can already see the one for the subwoofer in the picture that you posted. It's the graph with the red and blue lines. I don't know how accurate it is though since it looks like they're using some BS comparison to make it seem "BASSIER!" than its competitors.

If the graph is going crazy like a rollercoaster, then the speakers will be challenging to mix on since they'll misrepresent what is actually being played.
 
Thanks so much for this. I found it. :)

I checked the manual, (which I thankfully still have..:) and there is no graph, but a table...

Frequency Response : Hz (+-5db) - sub 40-100 Hz / sats 40-20000 Hz

So I am guessing this means I should avoid using the subwoofer, but the sats are okay?
 
Since most PA speakers are pretty big, usually a 12 or 15" bass/midrange unit and a high power, horn loaded tweeter I would have said no, not very suitable, too big and coloured for good judgement of sound quality*.

But these are dinky! Much the same size as my Tannoy 5As and this other speaker from the same stable...Voice Systems Eclipse

Is said to be quite neutral. The usual rules apply, listen to lots of music of the genre you are interested in and get to know the sound. I would not, by the way, use the subwoofer unless your music has a lot of deep bass in it and even then only after installing a lot of bass trapping treatment.

*Of course there are some very high quality PA speaker, H&K spring to mind and equally there are some seriously big ass'ed monitors that would make an excellent PA rig!

Dave.
 
OP, all we can really say at the end of the day is that the setup is not ideal but you could do a lot worse. There are people here making great mixes on shittier equipment.
 
Hi, thanks again for all your answers.

It turns out that one of the speakon outputs on the amp/mixer/subwoofer is faulty. I thought it was the cable so I replaced it.. and found out the loud buzzing sound comes from the mixer/amp not the cable. Beh. :facepalm:

So I either can get it fixed, or maybe get myself a power amplifier so that I can power the two satellite speakers. Problem is, I just heard from a friend about systems being balanced or unbalanced... which makes the whole thing very complicated. I don't quite understand it. Is it the speaker/ monitors that are balanced or the cables? My friend said if the audio interface has balanced output, the monitors also need to be balanced.

But as far as I understand the speakon cables are the things that are not balanced. Which would mean that all I need is a TSR cable with a speakon adapter attached.... right??
 
Your friend has added just enough information to confuse you and not enough to help. You need to connect mics with balanced mic cables, and it's a good idea to connect any line level stuff with balanced cables as well when possible.

The biggest problem with using a power amp is that there is processing ahead of the Speakon outputs that you likely won't get from the main line outputs.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
The biggest problem with using a power amp is that there is processing ahead of the Speakon outputs that you likely won't get from the main line outputs.
Click to expand...

Assuming I understand you, that would be good wouldn't it, since I want to use them as studio monitors...?
 
nissaaaa said:
Assuming I understand you, that would be good wouldn't it, since I want to use them as studio monitors...?
Click to expand...

No, you want the signal to go through the crossover and whatever other processing they did to make the speakers sound right.
 
What everybody else said, but the room you're doing the listening in is going to determine how accurate your monitoring experience is. That is, it needs to be treated. Post up some of the mixes in the mp3 forum when you get a chance.
 
You can mix on these if you want, but is suspect when you replay your mixes on other kit you will discover all sorts of things don't sound right. Micro PAs are becoming very popular but to make them sound right, they do a lot of clever cheating. The small tops have higher crossover frequencies than normal speakers, and then the low mids and bass is managed by the bottoms. In a PA this is fine because with widely spaced speakers, most PAs run nearly mono for most sources with radical panning only for effect because people on both sides need to hear everything, not just people on their side. Having the bottom end pretty well mono doesn't matter. In the studio panning and stereo field is very important and these speakers may well encourage you to produce results that move left to right as somebody plays. Like a piano, panned to one side. As you move down the keyboard it gets more central! They other thing with these PAs is they are optimised for the kind of sound you need live. This might well be considered a 'coloured' sound, designed to enhance the content, not be neutral. The driver design is optimised for the loud end of the range, and often when turned down they're a bit lacking. Of course you don't need mega expensive and huge studio monitors, all the popular near fields prove this, but to mix on these you have to assume how your bass will sound, as you can't hear it. They often produce bass heavy mixes, which for some genres isn't an issue. I've got a few big PAs and I'd hate to use any of them to record on. They would work, but while the sound is great, live, they are not truthful enough for the studio.
 
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