Equing the monitor speakers and control room

  • Thread starter Thread starter nowhereman
  • Start date Start date
N

nowhereman

New member
I have seen many threads, pro & con about equalization. Should the room be equalized for a flat response from the main studio monitors? I see others say to leave equalizers out of the equation all together.

My setup is, ADAT XT, Mackie 1604 VLZ, Pentium 4 with Cubase VST32 & Nuendo, MOTU 2408 MKII, MOTU MTP AV, JBL 4401 Studio monitors, various mics & outboard gear as well as software based processing gear.

My basic quandry is the sound I am getting through my mixes. I can mix through my Sony MDR 7506 headphones and love the sound. Yet I can't duplicate this through any other speakers, that fat sound that I achieve through headphone monitoring.
 
Ideally the room itself should be Equalized, not the monitors
 
NWM,

> Should the room be equalized for a flat response from the main studio monitors? <

I don't think so. My philosophy is to get the best (and flattest) loudspeakers you can afford, and accept their frequency response.

> My basic quandry is the sound I am getting through my mixes. <

I'm sure your real problem is the acoustics in your mix room. Especially if your problems are related to bass. What you really need is bass traps.

--Ethan
 
If you are applying EQ and effects to your tracks while listening through headphones than it will sound like crap on monitors. Try doing all your tweaking with the monitors than listen on headphones. I bet the stuff will still sound rich and full on the headphones.

In regards to monitoring EQ, I wouldnt do it unless your REALLY know what you are doing. Chances are you would just end up creating more problems than you would solve.
 
Having a "flat" monitor eq isn't really a neccesary thing. The human ear is constantly adjusting its hearing sensitivities anyway. The big thing is to be used to your monitors in the environment that they are in, which mean lots of listening. Compare what you do with albums that you want to mix like.

I may be going against the norm, but I don't think having a super good room is a neccessary thing. Having certain major reflection problems cured is probably a nice thing but having every little frequency tweaked is just anal to me. The human brain adjusts for these. Like I said experience with your environment is primary.

-Sal
 
I kind of agree, we are all speaking about how the room should be flat regarding response etc, and how the ideal situation should be, but we all are dealing with real life cases here.

Unless you run a succesfull commercial studio, or are lucky enough to have the ideal circumstances you'll end up with a room that is not ideal for mixing music. I myself have a commercial studio but can't justify the enormous amounts of money to have the room altered to a perfect frequency responce. So I tried to get it as right as possible within the budget and the equipment used (which meant eqíng the main monitors) and learned how to deal with the sound. This way I've learned to produce accurate mixes.

The secret is indeed lying in knowing what the limitations are, and dealing with them the right way. Mixing in the bathroom is not done, but if you have no other option, a bathroom with blankets on the walls will do. If an external eq can help you with getting the sound better, than thats perfectly ok.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top