Speakers / Monitors

A

AndyMan

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Hi All.


Forgive me if this comes up all to often. I feel my recordings sound like crud because of the speakers/monitors I use for play back. I have an entry level gaming machine with 16GB of RAM. A Focusrite scarlette solo. A Shure SM58. A Custom 2X12 cab with Celestion Green backs. I use Reaper for a DAW. The speakers are Logitech 2.1. I'm at work, so I don't know the exact model/part number. Do I need better speakers? Or do I suck capturing my guitar sound? I can provide sound samples if needed

Thanks for noticing :-)

Andy
 
Sounds like crud when you play it back on what? Same speakers? How are the speakers placed? What kind of room did you mix/monitor in?

If you used the same speakers to mix AND play back, your recording should not sound like crud unless everything sounds like crud on those speakers. Capturing guitar tone from a speaker cab can be tricky because what the microphone hears close to the cab is not what you hear 10 feet away.
 
Gaming speakers are not what you need for mixing, but as markmann says, it should sound the same for the tracking and playback.

How are miking the cabinet? There are lots of possible mic positions, and unless you put your ear down where the mic is, you have no idea what the input to your DAW sounds like until you play it back.

Do you have acoustic treatment in your room?
 
AndyMan said:
Hi All.


Forgive me if this comes up all to often. I feel my recordings sound like crud because of the speakers/monitors I use for play back. I have an entry level gaming machine with 16GB of RAM. A Focusrite scarlette solo. A Shure SM58. A Custom 2X12 cab with Celestion Green backs. I use Reaper for a DAW. The speakers are Logitech 2.1. I'm at work, so I don't know the exact model/part number. Do I need better speakers? Or do I suck capturing my guitar sound? I can provide sound samples if needed

Thanks for noticing :-)

Andy
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Sample would be helpful. Mic placement in front of the cabinet is very important (the SM58 should be fine for your use).

Having good monitors (preferably studio monitors) and/or good headphones are critical to mixing. I'm familiar with the Logitech and Klipsch 2.1 offerings, and even started with PC speakers about 20 year ago. They're fine for casual stuff (gaming, movie viewing) but don't have the detail and 'flat' response needed for doing more surgical level sound engineering needed for proper mixing. Even basic $500 Yamaha studio monitors will far exceed the Logitechs in clarity. Once you have proper playback speakers/monitors, then you can address any weirdness the room you're in may be creating (ie - treatment for the room).

You have a good enough interface for recording and mixing, so next steps are:

1) Mic placement in front of the cabinet, using an adjustable mic stand
2) Studio monitors (expect to spend $500+ for a decent pair)
3) Headphones?
4) Room treatment, as needed
 
There is much to do with the room you are in as well. $2000 studio monitors may not be the best decision if the space isn't helping you.

Let me try to place this in perspective here: I have been mixing in shitty rooms for decades. It is possible that I can pull shit out of my ass because of that experience from shit monitors, because I have been there before. That obviously is not the best way. Lot of second guessing and learning from those guesses.

Once I payed attention more about the room I am in treated it acoustically, and invested in better monitors, it got way easier. Could I do that as easily with crappy monitoring? No.

Did room treatment make a huge difference with the ease of what I was hearing? Absolutely the most beneficial and least expensive investment. Would it be the best investment if I didn't upgrade my monitor speaker? Hard to say.

So it really depends upon your budget and your goals. Both monitor speakers and the room they are in are huge factors that will work together. If one of those in a budget were to be my first investment, it would be monitors at first. . But the close second is the cheaper room treatment. But then, that is going to depend on the room. If you have a square box of a room, you are going to struggle with room modes. It is just a consequence of where you are. Better monitors will help, but the elephant of the room will still give you struggles.

Look up Room Modes. JH Brandt has a calculator that will show you what you are dealing with. My control room in it's present state with DIY acoustic treatment has a huge null at 80hz. Meaning that frequency is cancelled out no matter what I do. So I am changing the size of the room. Granted, not everyone can do this. Do I still create quality projects with this lacking frequency? Yes I do, because time and experience has allowed me to learn how to compensate. I could not do that easily without good monitors, a sub, and the room treatment to attempt to control it.

Sorry if this is beyond what you were looking for man. You can create great music in any room. How easy and well that is done, really just depends on the guy writing and recording. Great recordings have been done in shit spaces with crap gear for decades. It really comes down to you man.

Cheers!
 
A lot of good hints in the above posts but the common one that nails it is that your ears are nowhere near where your mic is placed. What the mic hears, isn't what your ears are hearing because they are in different places. So how do you get your ears to hear what the mic does? Headphones, good ones.

What the mic hears is affected by both where you place the mic and often where you place the cab in the room. Put on those headphones and start experimenting. The more you isolate your ears from the room, the better you are going to hear what is going to be on the track.

Skip the rabbit hole of treatment and expensive monitors. You need to learn placing sound sources in a room and mic placement on sound sources. Good headphones will help you eliminate the room from your recording and mix decisions. Once you got that down, you'll be ready to step up to something else.
 
Folkcafe said:
A lot of good hints in the above posts but the common one that nails it is that your ears are nowhere near where your mic is placed. What the mic hears, isn't what your ears are hearing because they are in different places. So how do you get your ears to hear what the mic does? Headphones, good ones.

What the mic hears is affected by both where you place the mic and often where you place the cab in the room. Put on those headphones and start experimenting. The more you isolate your ears from the room, the better you are going to hear what is going to be on the track.

Skip the rabbit hole of treatment and expensive monitors. You need to learn placing sound sources in a room and mic placement on sound sources. Good headphones will help you eliminate the room from your recording and mix decisions. Once you got that down, you'll be ready to step up to something else.
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Um, the room also affects what a mic hears. It's not a rabbit hole. It is something that affects everything. It isn't just some bullshit thrown out there by idiots that recommend others follow...

Anyway, yeah, good headphones are good to have also. 👍
 
jimmys69 said:
Um, the room also affects what a mic hears. It's not a rabbit hole. It is something that affects everything. It isn't just some bullshit thrown out there by idiots that recommend others follow...

Anyway, yeah, good headphones are good to have also. 👍
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I started recording in crappy studios in the 70's where the treatment was literally egg cartons on the walls. You learned placement in the room in addition to mic placement on the source to get good results. That is what my post is about. How to get good results, in less than ideal spaces, is a fundamental skill in recording.

This notion that some noob is going to slap up some absorption and that is going to balance a room is unrealistic. Often times you fix one problem to only further highlight a worse one, usually in the bass.
 
Folkcafe said:
I started recording in crappy studios in the 70's where the treatment was literally egg cartons on the walls. You learned placement in the room in addition to mic placement on the source to get good results. That is what my post is about. How to get good results, in less than ideal spaces, is a fundamental skill in recording.

This notion that some noob is going to slap up some absorption and that is going to balance a room is unrealistic. Often times you fix one problem to only further highlight a worse one, usually in the bass.
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Not disagreeing with you in any way man. Just not a rabbit hole or waste of time to invest in treatment especially in a small space. Hense why I suggested the room mode calculator so that the op can know what he is facing.

We are all stricing for the best results, just in different ways.

It's all good man! 👍
 
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jimmys69 said:
Not disagreeing with you in any way man. Just not a rabbit hole or waste of time to invest in treatment especially in a small space. Hense why I suggested the room mode calculator so that the op can know what he is facing.

We are all stricing for the best results, just in different ways.

It's all good man! 👍
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Perhaps it is just me but I'm not getting the sense that the OP, who currently cannot figure out the physics of sound energy between a speaker cab and microphone, is otherwise an acoustics physics savant and will instantly understand the complexities of John's fantastic spreadsheet. I could be so wrong here.

Which is more important when a beginner and just learning, technique or treatment?

When I give advice, I try to figure out the knowledge level of the OP and then, what is appropriate for their circumstance. I certainly miss at times but still feel it is important for those who are less experienced to stick to basics first.
 
Folkcafe said:
Perhaps it is just me but I'm not getting the sense that the OP, who currently cannot figure out the physics of sound energy between a speaker cab and microphone, is otherwise an acoustics physics savant and will instantly understand the complexities of John's fantastic spreadsheet. I could be so wrong here.

Which is more important when a beginner and just learning, technique or treatment?

When I give advice, I try to figure out the knowledge level of the OP and then, what is appropriate for their circumstance. I certainly miss at times but still feel it is important for those who are less experienced to stick to basics first.
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All good. No bitching here. Just giving my experience.
 
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Folkcafe said:
Perhaps it is just me but I'm not getting the sense that the OP, who currently cannot figure out the physics of sound energy between a speaker cab and microphone, is otherwise an acoustics physics savant and will instantly understand the complexities of John's fantastic spreadsheet. I could be so wrong here.

Which is more important when a beginner and just learning, technique or treatment?

When I give advice, I try to figure out the knowledge level of the OP and then, what is appropriate for their circumstance. I certainly miss at times but still feel it is important for those who are less experienced to stick to basics first.
Click to expand...
Gotta walk before you can run. :D
 
I think that advice about room treatment is important, but it's important in its place. And one thing I've noticed about pretty much everyone that has ever spoken of it, since I first landed here in 2009, is that not one of the advisors actually began their excursion into home recording by treating their space. Because it's one of those things that one discovers as one goes on and encounters issues that might necessitate the treating of a room. In other words, there's a progression to this game and some of the more basic elements come first, of which room treatment isn't one.
Because there are ways that one can compensate for the difficulties of a room {just through things like utilizing the existing furnishings}, it follows that there are more important things to be getting to grips with ~ initially.
It's kind of the same with monitors. While we may all have our opinions about which ones are good, great or gross, I've heard fantastic mixes that weren't even done on studio monitors, but on ordinary stereo speakers with a hi~fi amp.
This is a progressive craft.
 
AndyMan said:
I feel my recordings sound like crud because of the speakers/monitors I use for play back. ... Do I need better speakers? Or do I suck capturing my guitar sound?
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You're actually pretty vague and it's hard to know exactly what your problem is.
How can we know whether you need better speakers ?
How can we know whether your guitar sound is good or bad ?
That's like me asking you if my acoustic bass guitar sound played through a guitar amp with the chorus setting at 75% is a good sound, without actually playing you the sound or putting it in the context of a mix, even a rough one. Or like asking the president if your pension plan is sound ~ without telling the Prez what the plan consists of.
We are but mere mortals, Andy. Furnish us with the requisite sound and information.
 
Hmm...Room treatment IS important but then people were and are listening to reproduced music in ordinary living rooms for well over 50 years and many with very, very high quality equipment (back in the day? Kef R105, Spendor BC1/3, Quad ELS) Yes, treatment no doubt could have improved their listening experience but very few bothered. The fact is they knew what a violin or a sax sounded like live and the ear/brain system could compensate for the crap room. When was the last time yer average punter here went out and listened to live acoustic music?

So, all the bedroom wannabe has as a reference is the highly processed sound from bands on CD or worse MP3.

I will venture to say that an SM57 virtually touching the speaker fret will pickup virtually no room sound, no matter how bad. The amp should be delivering around 90dBC SPL in the room (a modest meter can be had for $20 or so but a phone app will do at a pinch) 90dB is loud enough to give a good sound and a good room rejection ratio but not SO loud as to alert the gendarmes. Basic rookie error is to have the amp too loud and too distorted.

Last thought: Google for "Recording electric guitar sound on sound Aug 07" perhaps THE most in depth discourse on the subject?

Dave.
 
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