What to trust...monitors or consumer speakers?

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JonPaulP

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I was mixing a song and on my monitors, the vocals sounded a little low and overpowered by the instruments, so I increased it and it sounded fine. When I took the file to another computer with consumer speakers, the vocals were way too loud.

So, are monitors always accurate? Does mastering help to make the sound more consistent with other systems?
 
JonPaulP said:
I was mixing a song and on my monitors, the vocals sounded a little low and overpowered by the instruments, so I increased it and it sounded fine. When I took the file to another computer with consumer speakers, the vocals were way too loud.

So, are monitors always accurate? Does mastering help to make the sound more consistent with other systems?
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Monitors are not always accurate, and nor are consumer speakers. But both can be as good as each other. It depends on their quality, not on what they're labelled.

Have you tried commercially recorded material of a similar genre on the monitors? How does that sound? How does your material compare?

If the consumer speakers are lacking in bottom and top ends, that will accentuate the middle, and hence the vocals.

Nothing will make the sound more consistent with other systems, because they are all different (as are the listening environments in which they're located). The point of having monitors is to get as close to your 'ideal' sound as possible so that there is a reasonable chance of it sounding ok on other systems. But this means you need to have confidence in the monitors' capacity to be a good neutral reference.

Because many of the participants in this forum are amateur enthusiasts on limited budgets, we often have to make do with what we can afford, which is not always the best. We therefore make do with what we've got, and work out ways of coping with deficiencies. One way is as I have mentioned above: 'calibrating' your monitors by listening to connerically recorded music and adjusting your mixes to produce similar results (as best as you can).
 
I would personally recommend trying to learn your monitors and still use the other set to check on as well. Definitely take some other material, preferably in a similar genre and listen through both setups. This should help give you an idea of where each setup is lying to you.


Randy
 
The best answer is the most expensive, and that is to get some monitors that your ears like into a room large enough and set up and treated well enough not to mess with what you hear too much.

But even then, you'll still have to do the same thing you have to do now, only that stuff just makes it that much easier. That includes mixing at proper volumes (i.e. turn it down for a while) in order to help get the LF-to-HF balance right, setting up your speaker and head positions in the room to minimize acoustical problems, and learning how your room is mess with you.

Have you considered - just as a test - borrowing your consumer speakers and using them to mix on? Then put those speakers back in their consumer room on their consumer system and listen to the mix. Chances are you'll hear at least a slight difference. This will help demonstrate how speaker position and room acoustics can mess with your head and your mix.

Llearn how your room and monitors translate to the outer world, and remember that the idea behind decent monitors is to allow you to hear what you need to hear in order to mix.

Also remember, just because something says "studio monitor" on the box doesn't mean it's any good. There's a lot of crap "studio monitors" out there, especially in (but not limited to) the economical range. Finally, matching monitors to one's ears is as custom of a decision as matching shoe sizes and styles to one's feet. One man's ear's "crap" loudspeaker is another's golden boy speaker.

G.
 
Thanks for the responses!

I listened to commercially recorded songs of the same genre and the vocals were also lower in volume. I had the monitors set neutral for the bass and treble since I thought that would give a more accurate sound, but now I've increased the treble a little bit and it sounds somewhat similar to the consumer set of speakers in regard to the clarity of vocals.

By the way, I'm using an Edirol MA-15D for the monitors...is it any good?
 
JonPaulP said:
By the way, I'm using an Edirol MA-15D for the monitors...is it any good?
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I've never heard them myself, so I have no personal opinion on them. But it's your personal opinion on them that counts. As long as they let you make a translatable mix - and maybe those adjustments may help with that - and they don't fatigue your ears too quickly, that's all that matters.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I've never heard them myself, so I have no personal opinion on them. But it's your personal opinion on them that counts. As long as they let you make a translatable mix - and maybe those adjustments may help with that - and they don't fatigue your ears too quickly, that's all that matters.

G.
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It's common for ears to get fatigued from monitors? Is ear damage something I should watch out for?
 
If a set of "monitors" has EQ controls on it, then I don't consider them to be real monitors. Just having the EQ circuit in line causes phase and time discrepancies, even if you leave the controls at +/- 0 dB.

If you feel that the overall sound of your monitors is lacking in a certain frequency range, then you either need different monitors or your room has a problem.

That said, I will always trust real studio monitors, and check my mixes on numerous different playback devices, such as car stereo's, ipod ear buds, boom boxes, hi fi home theater speakers, lower level home speakers....
 
JonPaulP said:
It's common for ears to get fatigued from monitors? Is ear damage something I should watch out for?
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I'm not talking about any kind of damage - unless you listen to your music way too loud, of course, though over the log term they can affect your judgment if they are too fatiguing-sounding.

By "fatigue" we're in this instance referring to how comfortable they are for you to listen to and for how long you can work with them at a sitting before you just want/need to give your ears a break. Some folks find some speakers to be maybe too harsh sounding or too boomy or too something for their ears and their tastes and plain get tired of working with them.

It's only basic sense that the more "comfortable" your ears are with the way the monitors sound, the easier it makes the task. But this goes hand in hand with your ability to actually make a mix. They can be as comfortable as a warm blanket on a winter day, but if you just can't get a good translation out of them, they're useless. OTOH, if you have a monitor that you can translate easily and make a great mix, that doesn't help any if you can't stand listening to them for more than 5 minutes at a time.

G.
 
JonPaulP said:
Thanks for the responses!

I listened to commercially recorded songs of the same genre and the vocals were also lower in volume. I had the monitors set neutral for the bass and treble since I thought that would give a more accurate sound, but now I've increased the treble a little bit and it sounds somewhat similar to the consumer set of speakers in regard to the clarity of vocals.

By the way, I'm using an Edirol MA-15D for the monitors...is it any good?
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Jon, I started out a couple of years ago with the MA-15D's. I know that they're not exactly top of the range, but what the heck, it was all I could afford then and in the meantime I've replaced them. I managed to make decent mixes on them especially at low volume and after I added a sub. But I was always comparing commercial CD's on them and trying best as I could to get close. And before that I was using Hi-Fi speakers. The thing is like the guys before me said, to get your ears used to how your speakers perform in the room you're in.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I'm not talking about any kind of damage - unless you listen to your music way too loud, of course, though over the log term they can affect your judgment if they are too fatiguing-sounding.

By "fatigue" we're in this instance referring to how comfortable they are for you to listen to and for how long you can work with them at a sitting before you just want/need to give your ears a break. Some folks find some speakers to be maybe too harsh sounding or too boomy or too something for their ears and their tastes and plain get tired of working with them.

It's only basic sense that the more "comfortable" your ears are with the way the monitors sound, the easier it makes the task. But this goes hand in hand with your ability to actually make a mix. They can be as comfortable as a warm blanket on a winter day, but if you just can't get a good translation out of them, they're useless. OTOH, if you have a monitor that you can translate easily and make a great mix, that doesn't help any if you can't stand listening to them for more than 5 minutes at a time.

G.
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Thanks for the clarification Glen!

joeym said:
Jon, I started out a couple of years ago with the MA-15D's. I know that they're not exactly top of the range, but what the heck, it was all I could afford then and in the meantime I've replaced them. I managed to make decent mixes on them especially at low volume and after I added a sub. But I was always comparing commercial CD's on them and trying best as I could to get close. And before that I was using Hi-Fi speakers. The thing is like the guys before me said, to get your ears used to how your speakers perform in the room you're in.
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Thanks for telling me about your experience with the MA-15Ds, Joe. So, they sound a little more accurate at a low volume? That's good to know! I'm also constantly going back and forth between iTunes and Cubase to compare sounds.
 
That's pretty much what I do still. I started off on home stereo speaks, burned a lot of CD's to check translation on different systems, learned em pretty well....

then got some monitors (Adam A7) and basically started the whole process over again until I learned how they translate from my setup in my room to other systems. Boombox, compooter, car stereo, home stereo...

I've got a fairly well treated room but it's not perfect so I just keep burnin off CD's and tryin em in different systems. It's comin together for me and it'll come together for you.

If I can quote a famous fish...:p "Just keep swimming." :D
(can ya name that movie?)

Peace...........Kel
 
Finding Nemo ftw! Yeah I got kids....

Name the fish for bonus points. What were we talking about?
 
Or possibly if you're so used to pop style mixing bringing out the vocals too much, you could be mixing them that way on the monitors and then the level gets even higher on consumer speakers (some do this while others do the opposite and boost both ends of the spectrum).

ie a solution could simply be 'mix the vocals lower'. How would that sound on your monitors?
 
The549 said:
Or possibly if you're so used to pop style mixing bringing out the vocals too much, you could be mixing them that way on the monitors and then the level gets even higher on consumer speakers (some do this while others do the opposite and boost both ends of the spectrum).

ie a solution could simply be 'mix the vocals lower'. How would that sound on your monitors?
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I used to mix the vocals a little lower since I noticed that the commericially-recorded songs seemed to have lower vocals. But, ever since I turned the knob on the treble setting yesterday, the vocals now sound pretty seperated from the rest of the mix. I wondering if I should mess with the Bass settings too.
 
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