Do ALL studio monitors/mixes intend to be FLAT?

[bvdd]

These questions are always implied but I've never seen them stated directly.

Obviously, some studio monitors achieve flat response better than others but:

1. Do all studio monitors 'INTEND' to be as flat as possible?
2. Do ALL professional producers strive for a FLAT mix?
3. Is a flat mix the main key (one of them) to your mix sounding good on all
speaker systems?

4. If not, when would you NOT want a flat mix?


Thanks
Bill

 

[FALKEN]

I think my mixes that sound best tend to be "flatter" looking in media player, although that is not something i try to do on purpose. with a full band if every instrument has space it should be pretty flat. if you are mixing something with fewer instruments or voice, obviously you can't cover every single frequency.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You're right, bvdd, those are all *excellent* questions which are often danced around but not too often addressed directly. Good post!

1. Yes, with caveats. Most monitors strive for "accurate" or "flat" reproduction within the constraints of cost. Obviously it's much easier to get a flat-responding monitor at the $800 price point than it is at the $300 price point.
That said, however, there have been popular and famous monitors in the past (and present) who were also well-known not to be that accurate or flat. My favorite example was the Yamaha NS10, which a few years ago you found in just about every control room worth it's salt. Response-wise...well...lets say they could probaly never get THX certification. But everybody had them because they were a "common denominator" de-facto standard; engineers knew just how they sounded, to it was easy to move from studio to studio and know pretty much what to expect.
These days, however, there seems to be a (thankful) trend to accuracy. Especially with the advent of 5.1 surround and the THX certification specification. There will *always* be some coloration, of course, but the idea is to get a speaker that sounds as accurate as possible given the price point/budget.

2. A "flat mix" is a different animal, however. If all mixes were flat, they'd all sound the same. On most mixes, one does want to fill out the spectrum; not emphasize one band too much or leave too many deep holes in the spectrum. But a "flat mix" will sound "flat", and that's not always a good thing. Bottom line: mix to sound good, not to "look" good.
Additionally, there is what's known as the "equalization curve". Simply stated, the higher the frequency, the less energy it requires to hit a certain volume. -6dB at 2kHz sounds louder than -6dB at 200Hz. By the true definition of "flat", a "flat-looking" mix would actually be shrill and tinny because there'd be too much high freq. A "flat sounding" mix has higher peaks in the bass ranges than in the treble.

3 & 4.) See #2 above for the answer.

HTH,

G.

 

[MichaelM]

1. Generally yes. Each speaker has it's own characteristics and frequency responses. The idea of having a flat response for your monitors is that when mixing you don't have to compensate for the response of your monitors, which makes it easier to create a mix that translates well to other speaker systems.

2. They want a mix that translates well to other speaker systems. This doesn't really mean a flat mix, what the mix 'looks' like will depend on the style of music.

3. Again not flat, maybe well balanced is a better term. eg - if you do a mix on 5" nearfields you don't want it to sound overly bass heavy on a speaker system say with a sub. Ofcourse that doesn't include car systems where the whole point is to fill your boot with subs so you can cruise around on a Friday night with your number plate rattling


Thats just what I think, I'm sure others have more educated views.

 

[bennychico11]

you also have to understand that the human ear is by no means flat or close to it. so what is a flat sounding mix to one person, may sound like a lack of high frequencies to another person. this is one of the reasons for there being so many varying opinions in the MP3 mixing clinic.

 

[boingoman]

Additionally, there is what's known as the "equalization curve". Simply stated, the higher the frequency, the less energy it requires to hit a certain volume. -6dB at 2kHz sounds louder than -6dB at 200Hz. By the true definition of "flat", a "flat-looking" mix would actually be shrill and tinny because there'd be too much high freq. A "flat sounding" mix has higher peaks in the bass ranges than in the treble.

G.

Hence the use of pink noise rather than white noise to help set system response, and a decent monitoring level. Pink noise has equal energy per octave. As you go higher in the audio band, each individual frequency has less energy. So the octave from 10,000 to 20,000 hz has the same energy as the octave from 20-40 hz. It tends to more accurately represent how we hear. And our ears are more sensitive to midrange at low levels, less sensitive to highs and lows (Fletcher-Munson curve). Monitoring around 85 dbSPL gets you to the point where the human listening curve flattens out a bit.

The "loudness" button on your stereo is essentially a bass/treble boost, to compensate for the fact that we hear less lows and highs at lower volumes.

 

[xstatic]

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that monitors are actually not designed to be flat. If they were, than they would all sound the same. I would say that the goal of a monitor is to be balanced. To have a natural sound between the different frequencies and at different volumes. This is often why there is such a variance in the sounds of the different monitors. This is also why people have preferences. Really good monitors will sound even at low and at high volumes. They will also have a good continuity in the frequency response of the monitor. Basically when you run a sweep of frequencies, the monitor will handle all of the changes smoothly and transparently and spike or dip at certain areas. One often overlooked area is the quality of the crossover between the LF and HF drivers. The crossover point is very hard to get just right without either phasing, peaks or dips. Plus, crossover points tend to happen right at critical listening points in the audio spectrum which makes that even more complicated to get just right. This is just a small part of the reason why a lot of big studios tend to use their nearfileds more than their mains.