Dirt Cheap Monitoring

[moosensquirrel]

Hey, all.

I'm building a kiddie studio in my basement for the kiddie band. It's relatively low budget, unfortunately. Well, I need something soon to mix on. Maybe in 6-12 months I could pick up some Adam A7 studio monitors, but what about the next couple months? The band wants to record a demo album pretty quick, and I know more than anyone that it won't sound like a pro studio, but I'd still like to even consider imitating studio-like sound.

So, until we have a higher budget ... what would you mix on for $200? Dare I ask $100? Or even $50?!

* I am perfectly aware it won't be great, but we need something... So just temporary.

What we have to work with already:

- crap Nady PA speakers (15 in., freq. response from Idaho to Peru)
- Mission 707 bookshelf speakers
- weird old ElectroVoice? bookshelf speakers
- one JBL studio monitor salvaged from a dumpster
- old Bose bookshelf speakers with "creative" angled tweeter designs
- Sony MDR-V600 closed headphones (after I re-re-solder jack)
- semi-consistent access to Grado SR-80 open headphones​

I know it's not much, but I can say from experience I have no clue what I'm mixing with the Nady PA speakers aimed across the room at each other wired mono. Would you mix and master on headphones if you were in a crunch? Pick up dirt-cheap monitors? Use old bookshelf speakers? Help!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

My first question would be, "What's your hurry?" Why is it so imperative that you start recording NOW instead of in a couple of months when you can actually afford the monitors? And if it's *that* important, then why blow it by mixing on inferior gear?

That said, just head down to your local Best Buy and get yourself a pair if Insignia 2111 bookshelves. They are cheapo little house brand speakers, about as inexpensive as you can get, but still translatable enough for you to make meSpace streams off of.

G.

 

[bigtoe]

1) use what you have until you figure out what you need, if anything.

2) take no advice online regarding monitors for your use.

3) try the EVs. a pal of mine swears by the Bose you are referring to...i think they're horrible...but he uses them really well in conjuction with a receiver/amp combo.

4) repeat number 1+2.

Mike

 

[moosensquirrel]

I spent a couple hours trying out the three sets of bookshelf speakers (they are actually all my brother's, so I hadn't listened to them much yet). So I can write my thoughts on each choice:

Sony MDR-V600 - Bad, boomy bass, hyped sound that is awful for trying to make a neutral mix. I'll use them for recording because they are a closed headphone design.

Grado SR-80 - Much more accurate than the Sony's, but who wants to mix on headphones? Speakers in a room have a natural give and take between the left and right panning, but headphones seem so absolute in this regard. Maybe if I cross-faded them 30% or so, they could be alright. Since they are an open design, they would probably bleed too much for recording purposes.

Nady PA speakers - 25+ dB peaks and dips in frequency response

Mission 707 - I'm fairly impressed. The sweet spot is a little high, to so keep from kneeling and hunching simultaneously in my chair, I'm either gonna have to get some foam monitor pads that angle them down, or maybe go old-school and sit on a phone book. Bass can be weak, and it has some impurities to it. The treble is clear enough and clean enough. Not over-juiced, or veiled either. I could picture sounds as coming from the phantom center, center-left, left, center-right, and right. So imaging isn't impossible, just takes a little concentration.

Electro-Voice - I took the covers off, which made a mess and tore a few things. Underneath the covers, the tweeter on each speaker had heavy green felt cloth stapled over it. Odd... There is a treble dial on the back of each speaker, which went in and out depending on where it was turned. I'd like not to have a faulty control between the amp and driver, and I can't really tell what position is "normal", whether it is straight up and down or all the way to the right. The bass was unimpressive, and the treble made my ears bleed. Harsh in the wrong areas, and it actually began to give me a little bit of a headache. Same "five-point" imaging as the Missions, maybe slightly worse soundstage but slightly better imaging, if that makes any sense. These boxes are so old... Decent tone for the mids, but I don't know...

Bose - I took the covers off. Each speaker has a woofer and two large tweeters. One tweeter is aimed in and down, the other aimed backwards, up, and out. I think Bose had some "brilliant" hair-brained scheme to involve the room more in the music with the treble also bouncing off the wall behind you. The left and right speakers are mirrored to match each other, which is good. But what was Bose thinking?! Maybe, if positioned to the tenth of an inch in a perfectly engineered room designed specifically for these speakers, they could really sound pretty good. But what about real-world applications? When I set them up one way, I could find the treble sweet-spot by kneeling on the floor with my chin on the edge of the desk. This becomes immediately to bright and treble-only. But when I move my head somewhere else, the treble is too veiled and muggy because you aren't in the sweet spot. And then I even think I found the woofer's sweet spot (never happened before because they're always matched with the treble like they should be!). If I had these speakers balanced in some crazy, leaning-on-a-corner way, it could work only if I found someway to scale the tweeters back several decibels without adjusting the volume of the woofers. They did have very good tone, though. Just too many issues.

 

[Freya]

It sounds like the mission 707 speakers are your friends here. They have the major advantage of being just ordinary home hi-fi speakers too that someone might conceivably listen to your music on!

I notice you didn't test the JBL from the skip (good score, shame there is only one) You might want to use this too to listen to your recordings in mono!
You could wire things up with a speaker switch so you could select. This way you could check for mono compatibility.

You might want to find some headphones you are happy with as well. They don't have to be expensive ones but headphones are very different to speakers in the way they sound and of course many people listen to music on headphones these days, so you really want to check that things sound good on both!

I'm sure a setup like this would be great to get started on, at least till you find another good skip!

love

Freya

 

[bigtoe]

interesting impressions. what were you listening to? tones? music? were you mixing it? where were the monitors? were they on the floor or coupled to your environment? what were the amps? did the mix translate to other systems?

it's a pretty complicated subject to get into just in as far as evaluating them for your use. like, i'd rather listen to music on mackie 824s. i'd rather mix on ns10's. the ns10s sound horrible...

you really need to use these things over time to get a sense of how they are helping or hurting your mixes...so start mixing!

laters!

Mike

 

[mshilarious]

But what was Bose thinking?! Maybe, if positioned to the tenth of an inch in a perfectly engineered room designed specifically for these speakers, they could really sound pretty good. But what about real-world applications? When I set them up one way, I could find the treble sweet-spot by kneeling on the floor with my chin on the edge of the desk. This becomes immediately to bright and treble-only. But when I move my head somewhere else, the treble is too veiled and muggy because you aren't in the sweet spot. And then I even think I found the woofer's sweet spot (never happened before because they're always matched with the treble like they should be!). If I had these speakers balanced in some crazy, leaning-on-a-corner way, it could work only if I found someway to scale the tweeters back several decibels without adjusting the volume of the woofers. They did have very good tone, though. Just too many issues.

Sounds like a version of Bose's Direct/Reflecting system. The general idea was to bounce around the treble to create an artificially wider stereo image than the speaker spacing would otherwise allow, and also widen the sweet spot. The idea was to aim the tweeters at a side wall with the speaker mounted somewhat close to a corner.

In real life, it doesn't widen a "sweet spot" so much so make the whole room uniformly mediocre. That's an OK concept for simple home theater, but not what you'd want for studio monitors.

The other big problem with Bose is while they have some clever design concepts, they tend to use drivers that are garbage. I had an old pair of 201s or something; there was no crossover at all, just I think a cap in series on the tweeter. I ripped out the drivers and stuck in a reasonable quality tweeter and woofer with a real crossover, and used those for years, until I built my current monitors.

In fact if you can do basic woodworking (that is, bang together a box out of MDF and route a few holes), you can build killer monitors for $200, or go the simple route and use a Fostex full-range driver for less than $100.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The other big problem with Bose is while they have some clever design concepts, they tend to use drivers that are garbage. I had an old pair of 201s or something;

Well, frankly (but IMHO only) the 201s were the Ford Pinto of the Bose line. From the beginning (and I was a Bose dealer when the 201s first came out in the early 80s), they were a pretty crappy-sounding speaker, designed more to meet an economical price point than anything else.

I will agree that historically there have never been much special about most of the drivers that Bose used, and that some of their reflect-mounted tweeters were pretty cheap. I can't speak to today's designs as it's been a few years since I have kept up to date with that, but up to the end of the 90s that remained basically true IMHO.

All that said, though, I really think Bose gets an unfair bum rap in the recording engineer community. Of *course* their direct/reflecting philosophy is not at all appropriate for our needs, and *of course* the reflecting part of their systems only works properly if one followed the correct placement instructions.

But equally *of course*, just exactly the same as any other brand and manufacturer, not every model in their product line is of the same quality, and there are going to be hits and misses; and that through history Bose has had some very solid hits. Back when I was a dealer, the 201s were awful, the 301s were pretty good-sounding bookshelves (even with their naked paper tweeter arrays), the 501s were muddy-sounding, the 601s a pretty solid and balanced-sounding floor speaker, and the 901s among the elite top shelf-systems available, an excellent sound and imaging when set up properly.

And also *of course*, again just like with every other brand and manufacturer (and not just with speakers, but with any kind of product), the hits and misses varied from year-to-year. The original 301s were a fairly good-sounding bookshelf. The 301mkIIs were absolutely horrible-sounding next to them. It was like switching from a KRK5 to an NS10, the difference was that big. Now their up to the 301mkV, I believe. I honestly don't know what they sound like, but I can tell just by looking at their construction that the only resemblance to the original 301s is the number on the nameplate.

I guess my main point is it just bugs me when anyone stereotypes products by brand name (except for brands that are purposely meant to be economy brands, that's a different story.) To say that "Bose sucks" is just as unfair and inaccurate as it is to say that "Yamaha sucks" just because of the NS10 (ever listen to a Yamaha grand piano or stereo home amplifier?) And it works the other way around too; to bow down before a brand name is stupid as well. Except for boutique brands which are over-priced because they only sell limited design choices (and therefore have to be overpriced), any top-shelf brand is going to have it's share of also-rans and sometimes downright klunkers as well.

G.

 

[mshilarious]

I don't think you'll hear me say Bose sucks. I said they had clever products that lack a bit in quality of execution. They've done a lot of good products. The Wave radio is very clever, if priced somewhat shockingly. Bose also popularized the satellite/sub system, which was a general improvement both in the appearance and sound of the average home system. In fact I had a Lifestyle system c. 1993, and even long after I stopped using the speakers, the control unit was an excellent enough CD player that used it for many years. That was really good industrial design. But the satellite speakers themselves, a Fostex 3" full-range driver will embarrass them in sound quality.

Back to the D/R system, that's actually a good case study in studio design. The engineering philosophy behind D/R says what do we do when our customers will be dropping this system into a totally untreated room? And it works for that, but not to the extent required for a studio monitor.

In a studio, we ought to be asking the other question, how can we make the acoustics as good as possible? Once you've done that, monitor design is mainly a question of driver selection, as most of the typical sub-$1,000 offerings use the same basic design.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I don't think you'll hear me say Bose sucks. I said they had clever products that lack a bit in quality of execution. They've done a lot of good products. The Wave radio is very clever, if priced somewhat shockingly. Bose also popularized the satellite/sub system, which was a general improvement both in the appearance and sound of the average home system. In fact I had a Lifestyle system c. 1993, and even long after I stopped using the speakers, the control unit was an excellent enough CD player that used it for many years. That was really good industrial design. But the satellite speakers themselves, a Fostex 3" full-range driver will embarrass them in sound quality.

Back to the D/R system, that's actually a good case study in studio design. The engineering philosophy behind D/R says what do we do when our customers will be dropping this system into a totally untreated room? And it works for that, but not to the extent required for a studio monitor.

In a studio, we ought to be asking the other question, how can we make the acoustics as good as possible? Once you've done that, monitor design is mainly a question of driver selection, as most of the typical sub-$1,000 offerings use the same basic design.

Yeah, I didn't mean to pick on you, Jon, though upon reflection (pun most definitely intended) that's kinda how it sounded.

And I absolutely agree about the needs of the studio/engineer vs. needs of the home/listener think, which is why I said that most Bose products are not appropriate for users interested in this forum.

I would also add the Bose 800-series loudspeaker to the list; those have probably been used for at least as many successful live sound/PA events as just about any other make/model.

It's just that I guess I hear not only a definite propensity of Bose-bashing in these forums - only rarely for legitimate reasons - but a whole lot of general bashing by brand regardless of the brand. We seem all too often to forget that both the ADAT and the Masterlink were manufactured by the same company, or that the same company that makes the U47 also makes the TLM103, which are about as different in character as any other pair of condensers by different manufacturers.

G.

 

[moosensquirrel]

When I was a young fruit, I believed Bose to be the end-all audio system. My views have changed slightly as I've aged. I don't believe it to be the end-all, but I'm partial to Sonus Faber currently. I've heard their Cremona Auditor M. Mmm.

Well, I guess I should have answered a few more questions. (Glen, I'm not sure if you remember me. I very much appreciated your time writing to me previously. I bear in mind many things which you were the first to tell me. Thanks many times over.) The band members are age 18-21, and we generally play moderately unknown worship songs with our own twist, usually for church events of one sort or another. We'd like to be writing our own music and recording it as well, but I'd also like to practice two hours a day and save 25% of my gross income for retirement, and both of which get pushed back far too regularly. All four of the others are in college, working little or not at all. I'm the only one not in school, and I'm not able to work more than my current part time job because of medical complications. So money is tight, especially with Caribou Coffee, movie theaters, text message plans, and other cultural bonds that rob us of our spending money.

As for gear, we just bought a 3 month old A&H GL2400 24-channel mixer, used briefly by the largest children's theatre in this hemisphere for a rock show and then priced to move because of unexpected cash-flow issues. I didn't mind. I was able to get it for $1300 ($2000 new) as well as a tour of the theatre, a potential internship, a contact in the metro area for future reference, and even a potential buyer if we decide to sell the board for some reason. They really liked it.

I bought a R0de NT1-A out of my own pocket, along with a good quality steel pop filter. I personally own a modest collection of mic and instrument cables; the cheap Nady amp, speakers, and mics I may have mentioned; a Taylor 714CE acoustic guitar; a lower-line Charvel electric guitar (one of the very last lines before Mr. Jackson lost Jackson/Charvel to his wife in his divorce ... details are hazy ... correct if necessary ...); Vox AD30VT electric modeling amp with effects; 88-key Yamaha unweighted workstation/digital piano; and an E-MU 0404 soundcard. Also, my brother has been borrowing a drum set for two years that we've added to, and the other band members have their various instruments and amps.

So we've got a modest studio in a bedroom-sized finished room in the basement, and the other houses are far enough away that things can be loud (for the others, I wear earplugs ). The room is mostly untreated. It is carpeted with standard Sheetrock walls and ceiling. I've got quilts and a little carpet covering the better part of broad, reflective surfaces, but I'm well aware that doesn't do much, if anything. I visited a local foam supplier and was quoted $16 for a 2' by 2' foam square with 1" ridges, and $25 for a square the same size with 4" ridges. I guess I could get decent un-ridged foam of the size for $10.40, but I don't know if there are any advantages to foam if it doesn't increase the surface area. I haven't looked in to fiberglass panels or bass traps as of yet. I'm afraid the band will leave me on my own to pay for any room treatment, even though it will have a dramatic effect on our recordings. So I've begun to collect egg cartons, and I only have a few of those so far.

As for what I was doing when testing the speakers, just listening to red-book CDs through the CD-ROM drive using the soundcard's DAC through a two-channel, audio-only receiver with the sound as unaltered as possible by tone controls and the like. I primarily listened to jazz with female vocals (Stacey Kent) and a piano-rock band I favor (Keane). I listened to a little generic-but-good Christian rock and a little Coldplay, but this test was abbreviated. I'm certainly not an expert, or what some would describe as having 'golden ears', but I believe I've trained my soft, peach-colored antennae to pick audible things that Plumber Joe (snicker) wouldn't be able to hear. That said, I can normally arrive to my own conclusions of a pair of speakers (and the gear it's running through) given an hour and a half or so, including much more variety in music than a little jazz and rock.

One last note: I don't know how much it came across, but I was trying to express that the Bose drivers sounded the best of the lot I tested. The tweeters were just excessively out of balance to the woofers if you did manage to worm your way across the floor into their odd, low sweet spot. So if the speakers were balanced and aimed conventionally, they'd actually be the best of the lot, I believe. No bad press in this instance.

Edit: Roughly 8 months ago, I was interested in getting a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 8.1 or 8.2 speakers. If I recall correctly, they were virtually identical to the Quad 11l and 12l, differences lying in the finish and whether the front or back was ported, but drivers and circuitry supposedly identical for a far cheaper price. My brother just reminded me about them now, and I looked them up, but Wharfedale moved on to the Diamond 9.1 and 9.2, which appear to be passive. I checked back and the Diamond 8 series looks to be passive as well. I thought being active was one of the major selling points for me, but I must be remembering wrong?

 

[moosensquirrel]

Gosh, I've been listening to this same piano loop on Sonus Faber's website ever since I checked how to spell "Cremona Auditor". It's getting a little old...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

(Glen, I'm not sure if you remember me. I very much appreciated your time writing to me previously. I bear in mind many things which you were the first to tell me. Thanks many times over.)

Of course I remember you, Boris. It's hard to forget someone who understands the genius of Rocky and Bullwinkle . Glad to help out every once in a while.

Again, I wasn't intending to pick on any one person or post with my li'l ol' Bose rant. That was just the result of a culmination of some 3+ years listening to a general consensus on this board of talking about Bose as if it were some kind of scam being perpetrated upon the public, like the Enron of audio manufacturers.

Go with whatever speakers work for your ears the best and allow you to make the most translatable mix. It's as simple (and at the same time, as suprisingly complicated) as that.

G.

 

[moosensquirrel]

Are you going to force me to make a new thread? Or are you going to provide some beginner's tips on room treatment?

I'd do a search, but (don't laugh) the blammed internet protection on this computer hardly lets me combine any words in a Google search. But links it usually doesn't mind... I've found a couple of advanced resources, but not much for a beginner's guide.

Speaking of treatment, of sorts, have you heard about the Portable Vocal Booth by RealTraps? You can read about it http://www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm or watch two short clips, here and here, each a minute and a half long.

I could hear a small difference on the singing and a larger difference on the clapping and male voice, but this is using the cheap built-in speakers in this rubbish Dell "all-in-one" PC. I think I'm going to have to burn the videos to a disc in order to hear it on real speakers.

But maybe forget the room and just acoustically treat where the mic will be? It won't work for everything, but it certainly will for vocals.

 

[mshilarious]

But maybe forget the room and just acoustically treat where the mic will be? It won't work for everything, but it certainly will for vocals.

We have an entire forum dedicated to it: Studio Building (see below).

Cliff notes version: add as much rigid fiberglass insulation to your room as you can fit and afford

OK, treatment around the mic. Sometimes, yes. I have a portable panel I built, and I use it judiciously. It really depends, but that often doesn't hurt. The biggest problems though are low frequencies. So if you are recording female vocals, probably you just need to kill some early reflections, which isn't too hard.

It gets a little ugly if you try to track drums and especially record a bass amp. Then it gets worse when you try to mix with the peaks and nulls in the bass.

But don't fret. Just keep on adding insulation I'm up to four boxes, I think. That's 32 cubic feet. I would add another box, but I'm pretty much out of places to put it

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Are you going to force me to make a new thread? Or are you going to provide some beginner's tips on room treatment?

Sorry, pal, you're just going to have to make a new thread!

JUST KIDDING!

You can try this article out for starters. This should get you going on the basics of room setup and what is needed for basic treatment. If you want to dive into more detail from there, it sounds like you have already found the motherload, which is the "Acoustics Info" and "How To" tabes at Ethan's Real Traps website. Then from there, as Jon recommended, browse around the "Studio building" form in this BBS for more random nuggets of info.

But maybe forget the room and just acoustically treat where the mic will be? It won't work for everything, but it certainly will for vocals.

Both sides of the equation are important and have large impact on the final sound.

The thing to remember about mic isolators (actually sE Electronics kind of started that whole idea with their "Reflexion Filter" )is that they do a good job of taking a bad-sounding room (or bleed from other instruments) out of the voclas, but they in and of themselves won't necessarily give them a good sound. It's like a mini version of a vocal booth, great for isolation, but the resulting "dead" sound usually will need some spicing back up in the mix.

Which brings up to the mixing room treatment. The whole idea here is to be able to trust what your monitors seem to be telling you. Even though your speakers may only be a few feet from your ears, you'd be surprised at how much can happen from there to hear because of the room.

You're just making, as you called it, a "kidie" set-up, so you understandably don't necessarily want to go hog wild with all this stuff, that's cool. I'd at least start with the recommendations as far as actual mixing location as speaker setup, however. That requires a minimum of money, only the cooperation of your wife in letting you out of the corner That in and of itself can work wonders. (OK, so maybe having to buy her diamond earrings isn't so cheap. Try starting with a nice dinner instead ).

Then as a next step, try what you can about placing your current furniture, if any, (padded couches, bookshelves, draperies, etc.) in ways that may help. A bookshelf with books of staggered sizes or *thick* draperies, though imperfect, when strategically placed can help tame bad cases of first reflections as talked about in that article I liked to, and padded furniture, again while quite imperfect, in the rear corners and along the back wall can help mitigate bass modality problems somewhat. From there, you can try some of the DIY idea both on Ethan's site and in the Studio forum.

G.

 

[moosensquirrel]

Real quick before I head to work: should the quilts be double or triple thick on the walls? Or doesn't it matter if they aren't one super-thick quilt?

 

[e_rock]

making your own?

In fact if you can do basic woodworking (that is, bang together a box out of MDF and route a few holes), you can build killer monitors for $200, or go the simple route and use a Fostex full-range driver for less than $100.

I'd love to hear a little more about this. Can you elaborate? I can easily do the woodworking.

 

[moosensquirrel]

I haven't done it myself, but speakers can be built. Making the cabinets can be a little tricky, concerning ports (if you choose to use them), air volume, and cabinet tuning. If you add other drivers and make it a 2-way (or more-way) speaker, you have to consider matched impedance and sensitivity between the different types of drivers, as well as location of each driver in the cabinet. When you throw in different varieties of drivers, you need to put in one or more crossovers, which adds to the cost and complexity.

I don't know enough about the quality of the parts, but Parts Express is a good resource for speaker components. Look at that site or any forum for "Speaker Building or "DIY" (Do-It-Yourself).

They make kits too, but they can start getting expensive.

Here are a couple of links I stumbled upon just now:

http://home.earthlink.net/~etunstal/diy.htm
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Speakers/speakers.htm
http://www.diyspeakers.net/
http://www.scrounge.org/speak/speak.htm
etc...

So do some research, and happy building.

 

[mshilarious]

I'd love to hear a little more about this. Can you elaborate? I can easily do the woodworking.

PartsX is a good source, as moosen mentioned. They have a few monitor kits, but I haven't used the Dayton (PartsX house brand) drivers. For the price, it might be worth a try.

I use lots of other Dayton stuff like crossovers, capacitors, etc., and that stuff is all fine. Also, I don't do much woodworking (other than the routing), so I buy their premade cabinets, which are pricy, but I get a wholesale discount. I would strongly recommend the Jasper circle jig for routing holes, I love that thing.

At Madisound you can find some higher-end drivers and parts kits. Something like this will crush any passives you can buy for $300:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=379

To save beyond that, just piece together your own parts using 6.5" drivers and build your own crossovers using PartsX parts. Madisound also carries Fostex full-range drivers. I'm gonna do a step-by-step construction with the Fostex drivers and PartsX boxes for Glen's site when I get the chance, hopefully within the next week, complete with pictures, measurement, and evaluation.

Of course with passives you still need a power amp, but I think it's better to DIY quality speakers and shop for a used power amp than buy lower-end actives.