Why Studio Monitors?

[cephus]

I am interested in mixing using something other than headphone and have been reading the "best monitors for under $500" threads. I am just trying to figure out why studio monitors have any advantage over using a home stereo.

I want a representative mix that will sound good on any sound system that someone would use to play my songs, right? Car stereo, ghetto blaster, iPod, home stereo. No one who listens to my song is gonna have studio reference monitors, so why should I optimize my mix using them?

I was thinking that it would be be more cost effective and more representative to just use home stereo speakers and a receiver. Thoughts?

 

[zed32]

the reason is that Monitors are designed to have the flattest response. home stereo speakers are not designed with flat response in mind, and are usually hyped more in the low and high frequency ranges. some cheaper ones are just thrown together using whatever speakers might look cool without much engineering going on as far as frequency response and stuff like that. the reason for using a speaker with a flat response is that you wont have as many exaggerations within certain frequency ranges in your mixes. if you mix on a set of home stereo speakers that happen to boost low frequencies by a large amount, your mixes might sound thin on any other set of speakers, wether it be in someone else's car stereo, or headphones, or even a different set of home stereo speakers. on the other side, it could sound super bassy and muddy if you play through a set of speakers with even more exaggerated low frequencies. since monitors try to avoid boosting any particular frequency range, your mix should come out sounding more level and will work better on different sets of speakers with their own characteristics. of course the final sound of the mix is up to the person behind the mixing desk. this is what i've gathered from most of my research done on this message board and elsewhere.

and if you were trying to be sarcastic, well then maybe someone else will read this response and find it somewhat helpful? haha...

 

[cephus]

Unfortunately, I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm just stoopid.

My thinking was that all of the different brands of monitors color your mix differently, so you'd always end up with some kind of frequency prejudice. I guess this prejudice is minimized by design. Thanks.

 

[zed32]

there are variations in sound between different monitors, but most of the time it has to do with actual sound quality, and not so much with hyping certain frequencies. either way, mixes done on studio monitors should come out sounding more neutral than ones done on regular stereo speakers, since the whole purpose of building a studio monitor is to make a speaker with flat frequency response. differences in "color" between different sets of home speakers should be much greater than the differences between good monitors. some home speakers are designed to have sharp, bright highs, some are designed to have softer, warmer highs, some want a fat round lows, some go for a tighter, punchier low end. but with monitors, the goals are all the same: to create an accurate speaker with a flat response. the differences in sound between monitors will be attributed to the detail and clarity of the sound that is reproduced. that is done with higher quality construction, materials, design, etc. for example, they wont try to add 'clarity' by boosting the high frequencies (which is what is often done in home stereo speakers). now of course i've never designed or built any studio monitors or home stereo speakers myself, this is just what i have gathered from listening to people with more knowledge than myself. hope this helps.

 

[ibleedburgundy]

I just bought some M-audio BX5's (300$) and they sound great. When I mixed my music on the monitor speakers rather than headphones, I was able to make a better mix and the effects of the plug-ins were more defined for me to fine-tune.

 

[zed32]

i actually have a pretty good example now that i think of it. i have a Sony home stereo thing in my room that i sometimes use as one of my references for testing out my mixes. now i've been using my same monitors for a while now, so i'm sort of used to how to mix on them (they arent very good), but no matter what, when i play my mixes on the Sony in my room, they sound like they have no bass, the low frequencies sound weak. i can take that same CD and listen to it in my car, and it will sound just a little too bassy. i'll listen to it on my boombox at work, and it will sound normal. imagine if i mixed using my Sony speakers. it would probably blow up the speakers in my car because i would be compensating in the mix for the lack of low end reproduction from the Sony speakers. it would sound too bassy on pretty much any set of speakers other than the Sonys. but since i mixed them on my monitors which are flatter in sound, i can get the mixes to be more neutral sounding so that they arent going to sound overly offensive thru any particular set of speakers.

 

[giraffe]

here's the thing
not all speakers hear all parts of the frequency spectrum well
but (good) studio monitors do

so your sony's sound like crap in the say 200-500 region, so you turn that up
now on every stereo that doesn't have thoes speakers the mix will sound muddy.

and you can use hi fi speakers to mix
they just have to be very good ones, and will end up costing the same, or more.

 

[Monkey Allen]

I just bought some M-audio BX5's (300$) and they sound great. When I mixed my music on the monitor speakers rather than headphones, I was able to make a better mix and the effects of the plug-ins were more defined for me to fine-tune.

I have those monitors, they are so good

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

You can take things even further by having two seperate nearfield monitor arrays. I have a Mackie 824 setup and some Tannoy's so I can jump from one to the other. When I have something that sounds great on both I know my mix is happening.