Monitors

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Cooperman

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Hi everyone,

Can someone explain to me the need for "specialized" monitors for mixing down? When I mix down I just use normal stereo as the monitor. How do "near-field" monitors differ from ordinary speakers?

Thanks
Paul
 
High-end near field monitors will reproduce details in the sound that home speakers just are not capable of. This is desirable for fixing "problems sources" in a mix. A word of warning though, they will sound different than what you are used to.

If you are just recording demos, a set of home stereo speakers will work okay for you. What is really important is to be objective about your mixes, and to listen to them on many different systems until you just "know" what it should sound like on yours.

Good luck.

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
if a regular home audio system doesnt reproduce details in the sound that studio monitors can , whats the point ? how many people will listen to your mix on near field monitors ? if it aint broke...why fix it ? im not monitor bashing , i want a nice set too , but i just want to understand..

i also understand that studio monitors reproduce the exact frequency response of your mix , so when mixing with studio monitors , you would want to acheive a totally flat sound right ? then , listen to your mix on a range of other systems and see how it sounds... that is correct simply speaking right ?

thanks...

- eddie -
 
Hi Eddie,

All that you say is true. Ultimately, the mix must sound good on the average boom box, car stereo, and book shelf system. This is the reason that any engineer who is worth his weight will be running from the control room to the nearest consumer audio system to listen to the mix. It would be crazy not to. For one, near field monitors do not create the kind of low end the consumer systems do.

But what is intersting is that if you have mixed with something like some Yamaha NS 10's, and can make it sound good on there, your mixes will sound REALLY GOOD on a consumer system. This is true with most monitors that are worth paying for (and not all are!).

Things that will get by you on home stereo speakers will jump right out at you on good studio monitors. Like I was saying earlier, the good near field monitors will enable you to hear things in the mix that you won't hear so well on cheaper speakers. Why this is desirable is that you need to hear details that can cause problems with the mix.

I posted a song on my website from a past client of mine. About 15 secs into the song, there is a really hard constanent "c" that the singer sang. One person who downloaded it heard it. He probably was using some pretty good speakers. Another guy didn't really hear what we where talking about when he downloaded it. Probably a cheaper set of speakers. But they both thought it sounded good.

I used to mix through home stereo speakers back in my dark ages of recording (with my little old Fostex X-26, god rest it's soul). I listen to that stuff through my studio monitors and gringe. I have remixed stuff using better monitors, and found that the results are much better. I can simply hear what is REALLY going on in the mix.

So run out and get a set of Events, or NS 10's, or KRK's. Hear what you have been missing..... :)

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
To get that flat signal for mixing, studio monitors alone won't work. To acheive a flat sound, you should use a two (or dual) 31 band EQ (with the use of an RTA) to even out the imperfections of your control room.
 
Oh boy! I don't want to sound like a jerk, or to belittle anyone's ideas. But the only way I can respond to using a graphic eq inline to the monitors is that it would create so many sonic problems without solving one real problem with control room monitoring.

First and foremost. Twice I been to a 'professional' studio where they did this. In both cases, the studio abandoned their whole monitoring system in favor of Event 20/20 monitors over JBL, Tennoy's, and Alesis monitors. But the real issue in both cases was treating the control room to solve hot frequency issues.

The problem with using an inline eq of any kind in the monitor path is that eq's change the phasing of the signal. Until you get into graphics, or parametrics that cost well over $2000, you will have significant phasing problems that will make what you are listening to very inaccurate. Even with the high dollar eq's, there is going to be some phasing that is going to happen. This has implications that are staggering. This is just not a solution. That money would be much better spent on treating the room to make it flat. Rule #1 in studio monitoring is to use the shortest, cleanest, most high quality, and fewest components in the system. Bottom line!

Funny thing though, there is no way to make a room totally flat. Nor is that neccesarily desirable. Many of the biggest, and most sought after studios in the world have control rooms that have a 'sound'. The important thing is to know how that 'sound' translates into the really world.

Good luck.

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
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