Which Studio Monitor Would Be Appropriate?

[sciszor]

Not much of a techie - just wanting to make my sound a little cleaner, a little more pro. Most of my stuff is VST based synth/techno/industrial-type stuff. I'd like to hold my studio monitor speaker budget to around $700 for the pair. If there's something great for this style of music that might push that a tad, that's okay. I definitely don't want to break $1K just out of general principle - again, these are my first monitors - I'd like to figure out what I like and get some opinions before I make a really serious investment.

I'll be putting the things on separate stands right next to the PC - from what I've read I need near-field for that, but I've heard that some monitors that claim to be near-field are in fact not...

Secondly, is an external, hardware mixer essential? If I got monitors with volume controls right on them, I shouldn't need it necessarily, right? I know I don't want to be stuck controlling all of my volumes through software.

Thanks!

 

[leavings]

If you search the board for 'monitors', 'studio monitoirs', or something along those lines you will find a lot of feedback on what systems people here prefer among various price ranges.

You don't need an external mixer if its only purpose is to control the master volume. There should be an easier way to control that through your computer or the monitors themselves. I don't use one, but I'm not familiar with your setup so the I can't tell you for sure.

Hope that helps,
Peter

 

[manning1]

try this and demo it......
computer soundcard out to a good sounding hi fi receiver/or studio power amp driving a pair of yorkvilles. cheap solution that thousands of folks are happy with.
peace.

 

[sciszor]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll search around the forums then. For gear, I actually have a decent (i think so anyhow) ESI waveterminal soundcard, which I've been using for a while now. 2.8ghz Athlon in there, over a gig of RAM. Built the system myself, although I was thinking about a new soundcard since the ESI's drivers seem a little sketchy to me under XP (i'm running SPII).

I think I'm going to stay away from the separate amp thing. I don't know much about bass response and all them fancy 3 dollar words, but I do know that I want active, bi-amp near-field monitors and it's just a matter of choosing which ones will do the job the best for under a grand..

 

[distortedrumble]

hes doing techno stuff so hes going to need some kind of sub system if hes trying to get it accurate. check out the samson 65as or 80as and theres a 120a sub thats seperate from the monitors but useful for what you want

 

[Richard Monroe]

In that price range, I prefer the triplet to the pair. A pair of M-Audio BX5's and the SBX subwoofer is $700 for the three, and I prefer that setup to any two monitors you can get for $700. If you can afford $800, get the BX-8's and the sub. The monitors themselves, either the 5's or the 8's, are seriously bass deprived, but with the sub, they rock.-Richie

 

[manning1]

i know a lot will disagree, but the only time i think one should spend lots of money on monitors like pro studio monitors is if one runs a commercial recording studio earning big chunks of money. the other problem i have for small daw users overinvesting in monitors is - and i have friends do this all the time THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE of what most consumers have.
also ive been in too many commercial studios where they often mixdown
on small speakers like auratones. and the ever present ns10m.
inho yorkvilles or a pair of home hi fi 100 dollar speakers is enough
maybe augmented by a cheap sub.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

i know a lot will disagree, but the only time i think one should spend lots of money on monitors like pro studio monitors is if one runs a commercial recording studio earning big chunks of money. the other problem i have for small daw users overinvesting in monitors is - and i have friends do this all the time THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE of what most consumers have.
also ive been in too many commercial studios where they often mixdown
on small speakers like auratones. and the ever present ns10m.
inho yorkvilles or a pair of home hi fi 100 dollar speakers is enough
maybe augmented by a cheap sub.

You have a point....... the thing to remember about monitors is that they're really your only way to hear what's going down. If they aren't revealing enough, then you can't be sure of any sonic problems. The more budget-oriented monitors have sonic compromises out of necessity (how else do you think the cost is kept low!), so a certain lack of audio resolution is to be expected when compared to high-end monitors.

This is not a problem if one learns to identify sonic issues and learns to compensate for them (ie, learning to translate what their monitors are telling them). Obviously, this makes the job slightly more difficult since you always have to second-guess what you're hearing, compared to the confidence level of using high-end monitors that tell you precisely what's going on.

But this has to be balanced with scale of use... running a pro facility where time is an issue and engineers need a high-degree of confidence in what they're hearing usually means investing in high-end monitors that are very revealing. Hobbyists and home-recordists who can take their time and have only themselves to please can use whatever monitors they like as long as they learn to translate their sound with them.

It isn't so much about whether a monitor can do the job or not, it's more ab out how much has to be put into learning them. In general, high-end gear means having to worry far less about inherent limitations, allowing the AE to concentrate solely on capturing sound. Lower-end gear means the AE has to put more effort into the gear itself with respect to its limitations for optimum use.

 

[manning1]

hey blue bear did you know on american hot rod there is a guy working for boyd coddington (who designs groovy hot rods i love but cant afford) called blue bear. are you the same guy ? thats a great show......anyway back to monitors.
i think what turned me off big PRO monitors is ive seen friends invest huge
amounts of money in tuned control rooms and monitors like i mean thousands
and thousands and i dont know often still there doesnt seem to be huge improvements. its a whole very difficult area. a poster on another forum made a great statement about gear that i wished i'd thouight of about he had chased too many gear rabbits down too many holes.
you know its like a whirelygig at the fair - are you just spinning your wheels going round and round or could the money be better spent on say better preamps, mics or soundcards. some AE's tell me in the "old days" actually some speakers were actually not all that great but somehow important songs were done on them. tis a true conundrum. i think its maybe true to say that no matter how much one spends this alone wont make one a great AE. its a gift. sopme have it and can do it on cheap speakers like auratones that translate well to lots of environments. i personally dont know the answer.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Hi Manning... nope, I'm not the guy working for boyd...

Within the last several months, I sprang for ADAM monitors -- pricey - yes; but absolutely worth it. I wished I had bought them earlier.... they're like a microscope on the sound.

Based on my experience with them, and the striking difference between them and any other monitor I've worked with/heard, there's no question about the advantage to the high-end monitors. The proof is in the listening....

Does that mean you can't get good results with lesser monitors? Definitely not... but the good stuff just makes it that much easier!

 

[manning1]

those adams ARE nice. oh well - maybe one day.
it sounds like your running a commercial facility in the capital.
makes sense.