Need help with my setup

[Signal 9 Studio]

I am running out of my computers speaker jacks via soundblaster card using 1/8" split to two 1/4" jacks into two channels of my mixer left and right. then mixer to a power amp to two Alesis monitor two's. My mixes sound great in the studio but not on the cd. I've tried alot of different mixes. Does myu chain to the monitor suck? is it the computer out?

 

[Toki987]

I am running out of my computers speaker jacks via soundblaster card using 1/8" split to two 1/4" jacks into two channels of my mixer left and right. then mixer to a power amp to two Alesis monitor two's. My mixes sound great in the studio but not on the cd. I've tried alot of different mixes. Does myu chain to the monitor suck? is it the computer out?

There`s several possibilities.
make sure you are not using the eq on the mixer to "make " the monitor signal sound good. Set the eq on each channel so that it does not affect the sound, only amplifies it. Compare the mix out of the card with headphones, then listen to the headphone out on the mixer. They need to be as close to the same as possible. That`s a start. The open air of the room, if it is sonically untreated can also make an open air playback sound different thatn the orginal material. The monitoring is a crucially important step. If you are hearing a mix that is different from what is actually on the computer, then you are probably not ever going to be able to burn a cd and it sound the same.

Then you might want to look at what is happening when you export your mix and prepare it for the cd. Are you doing anything to the eq or adding effects?

 

[Massive Master]

I used to have a set of Monitor Two's... I found it extremely difficult to make mixes translate well through them. They seemed to add a certain color to everything that went through them - Mixes, reference discs, commercial discs, etc. Putting them in close helped - a bit. Not enough to keep them in the control room.

Bad mixes sounded better, great mixes sounded worse. We called them "The Great Equalizers" (meaning a level playing field - not a reference to tonal EQ) at JEM...

I would suggest getting (borrowing, renting, whatever) another set of reasonably accurate monitors and do a direct comparison with them to see if they just aren't hitting the spot.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com