taking the cheap way out for monitors

  • Thread starter Thread starter distortedrumble
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distortedrumble

distortedrumble

all up in yo grill!
ok in the idea of "flat" monitoring.....if i use some bookshelf speakers and have my reciever equalizer flat....would that be cheap decent setup? the idea is cheap as in using what i already have
 
It's better than having your equalizer not flat... :)


The issue is your speakers are not flat, they aren't designed to be. There meant to sound nice, not accurate. If you mix on them, your tunes will sound perfect on your speakers through your converters in your room...

Which may be exactly what you need. But if you'd like others to hear them in other places, proper reference speakers are a must...

Many folks will say the mixing with headphones is a terrible idea, but I say good headphones are better than bad speakers in a bad room.
 
Chrisjob said:
Many folks will say the mixing with headphones is a terrible idea, but I say good headphones are better than bad speakers in a bad room.
Click to expand...
I disagree.... IMO - it's easier to learn how to translate bad speakers than it is headphones.
 
so bad speakers over good headphones

what about some edirol micro monitors?
 
Edirol MA-10D

Check them out at www.edirol.com
There is a speaker link on that page.
If you are REALLY limited money-wise, like me:D
 
Also - and if you ARE going with headphones for mixing, at least get an open-design..... this will at least give you a fighting chance at getting bass and imaging in place.
 
Yorkville YSM-1 passives...about as cheap as it gets for good monitoring...approximately 200 for a pair
 
I have some cheap Edirols. They're not too bad but they aren't great. My audioteknique headphones seem to give me the most detail in the mix so I like listening on those at some point. I think I get the best "imaging" from them although I'm not to sure about the terminology.
 
get some used moniters, from ebay, from a music store. You can get ok moniters for 100 bucks. Now most are smaller and have not much bass... but at least they are accurate.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
I disagree.... IMO - it's easier to learn how to translate bad speakers than it is headphones.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Bruce...

But I think it takes more time to learn to translate bad speakers in a crummy room than it does to save up 500 bills for a pair of decent nearfields
 
Ok here is a question for you all:

What about running a 1/3 octave EQ with Real Time Analysis to compensate for book shelfs?

I have a great pair of JBL bookshelfs. Here's what I do: I run the outputs from my computer into my Behringer Ultracurve (RTA/EQ) then into a Pioneer AV receiver (set flat) then to my JBLs. The Behringer runs pink noise through the system it reads the pink noise in your accoustic setting and then auto sets the eq to "flatten" the room. It gets tricky placing the test mic and then you have to tweak the eq curve a bit to fit your ear but it works.

I use this RTA approach when I do live sound and my mixing performance has really improved. From what I can tell everyone should tune their control room using an RTA. So if you use the RTA/EQ to adjust the room to flat then why couldn't you get away with using a really good pair of bookshelf speakers?

BTW there is some RTA software out there that will allow you to tune your PC based studio.

jack
 
My buddy uses one of those to set up his PA for live gigs. He says it is the best tool for tuning a room. I never thought about using it in a studio wow good idea. Are thier any other manufactures of these?

Call me parniod, but beringer's prices are so low, I just assume they are complete garbage. But hey thats just me.
 
It's weird that there's not alot of pro grade RTA/EQ's about. I believe that dbx makes some designed for serious pa work at very serious prices. Behringer has the UltraCurve8024 (what I use) that is discontinued and a new version UltraCurve 2496 that has digital and analog IO's running at 24, 96.

Then there is the consumer end of it. You can find on Ebay eqs with built in RTA and mic but you have to manually set the EQ curve to flatten the room. Your stuck with RCA's.

BTW, the Behringer I have is a good piece of kit. It gets a bit hissy if you are pushing the master or freq. gains too much. That's easy to avoid. It has a limiter too that keeps you from blowing out your speakers accidently but it seems to pump pretty easily.

Jack
 
williamconnifer,

Thanks for mentioning this - I was about to do the same thing using an older piece of equipment. This looks like it would do a much better job. I'll begin my usual research and acceptance process - Ha Ha !

Looks like Sonar will even talk to it as it seems to accept midi sysex commands:
http://www.adrstudio.com/DSP-8024-StudioWare.html

Here's an older 8024 review:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0101/behringer8024.htm

Here's some 2496 specs:
http://www.musicclub.com/behulprodeqe.html
http://www.behringer.com/02_products/prodindex.cfm?id=DEQ2496&lang=eng

1. Two high-performance 32/40-bit floating-point SHARC® digital signal processors for ultimate sonic resolution

2. Ultra high-quality AKM® 24-bit/96 kHz A/D- and D/A converters (113 dB dynamic range)

The 2 items above are what I'm concerned about - word resolution/accuracy (it has word clock I think) but I'll research that like I said.

Here's a 2496 review:
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/68255.html

I'm getting some pretty good ideas about how to use this thing for balancing some mixes a little better too !

Great tip,
kylen
 
fluxburn said:
get some used moniters, from ebay, from a music store. You can get ok moniters for 100 bucks. Now most are smaller and have not much bass... but at least they are accurate.
Click to expand...

$100? Where?
 
Teacher said:
Yorkville YSM-1 passives...about as cheap as it gets for good monitoring...approximately 200 for a pair
Click to expand...

I second that !

Malcolm
 
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