Monitoring Woes

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason James
  • Start date Start date
The walk-in closet in 4'4"x4'4"x8'high. The walls are sheetrock, the ceiling is blown acoustic.

SEE ALSO ATTACHED PIC

The monitors are on home made supports (from the floor) that hold two shelves with the VSR-880, CD Burner, Tape deck etc. The Event PS5's are on their side (tweeters out) and are actually supporting the weight of the second shelf. There's a picture attached (sorry it's messy), perhaps that will help some. It's shot thru the door into the "closet control." I'm considering "coming out of the closet" and moving into another bed room. It's just real easy to work out of the closet since most of the recoding I do is by my self.

I'll take a listen to the JBLs. I'm also considering the Passive Reveals and gettting an Alesis RA150. All 3 systems are in the same price range.

Also, about what I was saying earlier, just getting used to the monitors and learning to mix on them. Do you think that's true, or should any of the aforementioned monitors in a decent room give accurate results that translate into the real world.

Thanks so much for the help.

Jason
 

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First the closet :)

Whereas you can design a larger space to be acoustically correct for its purpose, you have no such luxury with a very small place. Therefore, there is only one thing you can do, which is to make it as "dead" as possible. In other words - get foam and start glueing.

The monitors. The reason I recommended the LSr's is one very simple one, they are many times better than any comparable product in their pricerange. You would find none of the other monitors you mentioned in high end studios, where as you will find more and more 25's in exactly such places, as well as in many post and surround facilities. Also, the different set-up configurations (switches in the rear) have some settings which make them ideal for a small space.
 
Jason,

Another big problem I see you have are reflecting surfaces and diffracting edges very close to your monitors.

These secondary wave fronts (see pic) will interfere with the direct signal and cause response peaks and dips. The closer things like this are to your monitors, the higher the amplitude of the reflections and diffractions, and greater the response anomalies.

Try too pull your monitors out in front of the gear and shelving.

barefoot
 

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Bare foot, How'd you know what I look like? Just kidding, great recommendation. I put the monitors as far a way as possible thinking, it would allow the low end to develop more. I'll move the monitors closer and see what happens, also, I'll put foam ect on walls behind and to the side of me. Would carpet work, or is studio foam better? I have carpet hanging in the room where I track and it seems to help with reflections.

Thanks for the info.

Jason
 
Jason,
I recently purchased passive Reveals and an Alesis RA150 (the budget didn't allow for a Hafler.......yet) and I can't complain. OK, I don't have a "high-end" studio either.
BUT the Reveals are rear- ported and need to be kept quite some distance forward of any walls, etc. and I think in a closet situation the rear porting could be a problem.
From memory barefoot refered to this type of thing in another thread a while back.


Peace.......ChrisO :cool:
 
Re: Wierd.

atomictoyz said:
I just realized something, A studio buys and uses nearfield monitors costing an average of lets says $800 a pair. He then sends his pre-mastered stereo mix to a mastering house. The Mastering Engineer then does what he can to the mix through multiple types of Monitors (not nearfields) each one costing around $3000 to $8000 a piece, Ive seen then upwards of $20,000 each....Just to dither is all back down to a 16bit, 44.1Khz CD for the consumer who inturn puts it into $250.00 all in one JVC desktop stereo system with speakers that cost about $20. The moral of the story is nearfields may not be the best vehicle for listening to a CD as a reference. Listen to post mixed things through home stereo speakers outside of the studio. Does this make sense or have I lost my point somewhere?


Peace,
Dennis
Click to expand...

I agree with Dennis. After 35 years in the recording world, I have learned that only the very rich have even $1000 speakers and the majority of the market place have really bad speakers.

Listen to all the kids going down the street in their cars with 18 inch drivers and no mids or tweeters and the 600 watt power amp pushed to it's limit.

If you want to sell product in the "real world" master it on "real world speakers" that best represent the type of system your listening public will have and try not to add too much EQ. In a poor system it won't matter and a good system will have a good EQ to level it out. Hell, I can even get some bass out of a Beatle record on my home system!

Everyone has their "favorite" sound and builds or buys a system that will produce it no matter how you mix it. A good mix is fairly flat with the "bad" hz's lowered and the good ones raised a notch or two. Too much one way or the other will ruin a good recording. The level is very important as is the position of the instrments and vocals. Try your final mix on the best set of home speakers you have and then listen to it on a few friends systems or take it to a stero store and have them demo it on ALL their speakers! Also, you should listen to it in an average size room with the average furniture and your car.

Thanks to all who post the good information about products and tips. Even after all these years, you can still learn a thing or two.
 
Jason- thanks for posting that photo- I thought MY "studio" was small! I'm recording and mixing in a small room too, and had a lot of trouble getting used to it. Same story- sounded great on my 20/20's, but sounded horrible in the car or home stereo. I finally hooked up three different sets of consumer speakers through a speaker selector switch in addition to the monitors. Now when I mix I can hear what it's going to sound like on R.S. Optima 7's (small cheap speakers), Fisher 8" and Klipsch G1's, just by switching between the speakers. Except for the 20/20's, I bought all of these speakers used at garage sales (CHEAP). I use the Events 90% of the time, and reference mixes on all of the speakers. My mixes have improved considerably, but then, MY mixes had a looooooong way to go!

Bob
 
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