Music Composers Unite!
Monitors (the most important hardware in your studio/music room).
This post is from a thread on another music forum of which I will publish in full for anyone interested.
Before you can do anything in the way of making polished recordings, you have to be able to trust your ears.
This cannot be over-stated. You must be able to trust what you hear, and only then can you start to make good decisions. This is partly a philosophical, state-of-mind thing, but it is also partly a practical matter. You need to be able to trust that what you hear in the control room (or in the spare bedroom you use for recording) is what is actually on the tape or the hard disk. And that means that you need to have at least a certain bare minimum of room acoustics and monitoring quality.
If there is one area in your studio to splurge on, it is monitors (aka speakers). I'm going to do a detailed buying guide later, but for now it is enough to say that the studio monitors are the the MOST important component. I would rather make a record in mono on a four-track recorder with a single decent monitor in a good room than try to make a record on a Neve console with a Bose surround-sound setup in a typical living room. And I'm not even kidding.
Passable monitors don't have to be all that expensive, and they don't have to be glorious-sounding speakers, they just have to be accurate. Let's talk for a moment on why home stereos often make bad monitors, even expensive or impressive-sounding home stereos:
The purpose of a studio reference monitor is to accurately render the playback material. The purpose of a good home stereo is to sound good. These goals are often at odds with one another, and a simple frequency chart does not answer the question.
A common trick among hifi speakers is a ported design that delivers what I call ONB, short for "one note bass." The speaker designer creates an enclosure designed to deliver a dramatic "thump" right around the frequency cutoff of the speaker. This gives an extended sense of low-end, and it gives a dramatic, focused, powerful-sounding bass that can be very enjoyable to listen to, but it is the kiss of death for reference monitoring. Every bass note is rendered like a kick drum, and the recordist cannot get an accurate sense of the level or tonality of the low-end. If you play back something mixed on a ONB system on a different stereo, the bass is all over the place, reappearing and disappearing, with no apparent consistency or logic to the level. This is especially acute when you play a record mixed on one ONB system back on a different ONB system. Notes and tones that were higher or lower than the cutoff of the other system either vanish or seem grossly out-of-proportion.
Another serious consideration is handing of the crossover frequency. On any enclosure with more than one driver (e.g. a tweeter and woofer), there is a particular frequency at which the two speakers "cross over," i.e. where one cuts off and the other picks up. The inherent distortion around this frequency range is arguably the most sensitive and delicate area of speaker design. Hifi speakers are very often designed to simply downplay the crossover frequency, or to smooth over it with deliberate distortions, and often manage to sound just fine for everyday listening. But glossing over what's really going on there is not good for reference monitoring. The fact that this often occurs in the most sensitive range of human hearing does not help matters.
Other common issues with home hifi systems are compromises made to expand the "sweet spot" by, for instance, broadening the overall dispersion of higher frequencies at the expense of creating localized distortions in certain directions, a general disregard for phase-dependent distortions that occur as a result of simultaneously producing multiple frequencies from a single driver, nonlinear response at different volume levels, as well as the more obvious and intuitive kinds of "hype" and "sizzle" that are built in to make speakers sound dramatic on the sales floor.
The important thing to understand is that none of the above necessarily produces a "bad sounding" speaker, and that the above kinds of distortions are common even among expensive, brand-name home theater systems. It's not that they sound cheap or muffled or tinny, it's just that they're not reliable enough to serve as reference-caliber studio monitors. In other words, the fact that everyone raves about how great your stereo sounds might actually be a clue that it is *not* a good monitor system.
In fact, high-end reference monitors often sound a little boring compared to razzle-dazzle hifi systems. What sets them apart is the forensic accuracy with which they reproduce sound at all playback levels, across all frequencies, and without compressing the dynamic range to "hype" the sound. On the contrary, the most important characteristic is not soaring highs and massive lows, but a broad, detailed, clinical midrange.
The two most common speakers used in the history of studio recording are certainly Yamaha NS10s and little single-driver Auratones. Neither one was especially good at lows or highs, and neither was a particularly expensive speaker in its day (both are now out of production and now command ridiculous prices on eBay). What they were good at was consistent, reproducible midrange and accurate dynamics.
Now! if any members wish to contradict the message and advice given in the text above, don't be shy, please attach an example of a recording you've mixed and mastered on headphones as an exception to the rule. I'm prepared to be amazed (not) so bring them on.
Before you can do anything in the way of making polished recordings, you have to be able to trust your ears.
This cannot be over-stated. You must be able to trust what you hear, and only then can you start to make good decisions. This is partly a philosophical, state-of-mind thing, but it is also partly a practical matter. You need to be able to trust that what you hear in the control room (or in the spare bedroom you use for recording) is what is actually on the tape or the hard disk. And that means that you need to have at least a certain bare minimum of room acoustics and monitoring quality.
If there is one area in your studio to splurge on, it is monitors (aka speakers). I'm going to do a detailed buying guide later, but for now it is enough to say that the studio monitors are the the MOST important component. I would rather make a record in mono on a four-track recorder with a single decent monitor in a good room than try to make a record on a Neve console with a Bose surround-sound setup in a typical living room. And I'm not even kidding.
Passable monitors don't have to be all that expensive, and they don't have to be glorious-sounding speakers, they just have to be accurate. Let's talk for a moment on why home stereos often make bad monitors, even expensive or impressive-sounding home stereos:
The purpose of a studio reference monitor is to accurately render the playback material. The purpose of a good home stereo is to sound good. These goals are often at odds with one another, and a simple frequency chart does not answer the question.
A common trick among hifi speakers is a ported design that delivers what I call ONB, short for "one note bass." The speaker designer creates an enclosure designed to deliver a dramatic "thump" right around the frequency cutoff of the speaker. This gives an extended sense of low-end, and it gives a dramatic, focused, powerful-sounding bass that can be very enjoyable to listen to, but it is the kiss of death for reference monitoring. Every bass note is rendered like a kick drum, and the recordist cannot get an accurate sense of the level or tonality of the low-end. If you play back something mixed on a ONB system on a different stereo, the bass is all over the place, reappearing and disappearing, with no apparent consistency or logic to the level. This is especially acute when you play a record mixed on one ONB system back on a different ONB system. Notes and tones that were higher or lower than the cutoff of the other system either vanish or seem grossly out-of-proportion.
Another serious consideration is handing of the crossover frequency. On any enclosure with more than one driver (e.g. a tweeter and woofer), there is a particular frequency at which the two speakers "cross over," i.e. where one cuts off and the other picks up. The inherent distortion around this frequency range is arguably the most sensitive and delicate area of speaker design. Hifi speakers are very often designed to simply downplay the crossover frequency, or to smooth over it with deliberate distortions, and often manage to sound just fine for everyday listening. But glossing over what's really going on there is not good for reference monitoring. The fact that this often occurs in the most sensitive range of human hearing does not help matters.
Other common issues with home hifi systems are compromises made to expand the "sweet spot" by, for instance, broadening the overall dispersion of higher frequencies at the expense of creating localized distortions in certain directions, a general disregard for phase-dependent distortions that occur as a result of simultaneously producing multiple frequencies from a single driver, nonlinear response at different volume levels, as well as the more obvious and intuitive kinds of "hype" and "sizzle" that are built in to make speakers sound dramatic on the sales floor.
The important thing to understand is that none of the above necessarily produces a "bad sounding" speaker, and that the above kinds of distortions are common even among expensive, brand-name home theater systems. It's not that they sound cheap or muffled or tinny, it's just that they're not reliable enough to serve as reference-caliber studio monitors. In other words, the fact that everyone raves about how great your stereo sounds might actually be a clue that it is *not* a good monitor system.
In fact, high-end reference monitors often sound a little boring compared to razzle-dazzle hifi systems. What sets them apart is the forensic accuracy with which they reproduce sound at all playback levels, across all frequencies, and without compressing the dynamic range to "hype" the sound. On the contrary, the most important characteristic is not soaring highs and massive lows, but a broad, detailed, clinical midrange.
The two most common speakers used in the history of studio recording are certainly Yamaha NS10s and little single-driver Auratones. Neither one was especially good at lows or highs, and neither was a particularly expensive speaker in its day (both are now out of production and now command ridiculous prices on eBay). What they were good at was consistent, reproducible midrange and accurate dynamics.
Now! if any members wish to contradict the message and advice given in the text above, don't be shy, please attach an example of a recording you've mixed and mastered on headphones as an exception to the rule. I'm prepared to be amazed (not) so bring them on.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ray Kemp on -
Deborah Young said:Yes, Ray. It's been a while. I was afraid the ported thing applied to these speakers because they have a bass boost switch. I hope I can get decent results by turning off that switch.
Deborah,
I forgot to say how important ears were.
Looking forward to hearing some results of your work with the new gear.
Regards
Ray
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Permalink Reply by Albert De La Vega on -
Hey Per-Erik,
Your part of the world can't be all bad...You gave us Yngwie!! I'm just kidding about the whole take up arms business, I'm a lover not a fighter...I'm glad you both offered counterpoint, especially for someone like me, that lacks the experience and patience to deal with all of the technical mumbo jumbo. I wish i did, because I just end up getting frustrated
Per-Erik Rosqvist said:Hi Albert.
I am definitely convinced Roger is better at discussing the technology behind the things covered in this disscusion than I, having more/longer experience than me.
But thanks, I do try to be get an output as professional as I can get.
/Per-Erik
Btw, evil or not, the danes (me being half-dane) never took scotland, but england, so it's just pointless aggressive rethorics from Ray as usual...
(kidding ;)
Albert De La Vega said:Thanks for the info, I will give it a try.
And I'm no Scotsman, but I'll take up arms with you again those wicked evil Norsemen!!! Just kidding Roger and Per-Erik. I have heard their work and particularly Per-ERik's sounds very well mixed
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Permalink Reply by Simon Godden on -
Hi Roger,
I cannot afford monitors at the moment, so all of my output is 'monitored' via an M-Audio 2496 soundcard, a Micro AMP HA400 4-channel headphone amplifier & a pair of closed Sennheiser HD280s (silver). It sounds OK to me when I'm working with various effects (reverb, para-eq, compressor etc). But when I burn my work to CD and play it on my parents 'separates' system, it sounds f*****g amazing. Do I still need monitors?
Roger Noren said:But keep in my that room acoustics are just as important as good speakers, some would say even more important.
If you don't have a room large enough, it is very hard to get anything sound representative in the bass region, and acoustic treatment like bass traps will not help. Believe me, my studio is like that. If you have a room large enough, you will probably have to treat it acoustically for many $$ before your speakers will sound as intended. A rule of the thumb say as much as for the speakers.
In professonal studios you are forced to rely on monitors, because you have to present the result to costumers. In a personal studio were only you work, good studio headphones might be a better solution. If you are old in the game and have built your experience upon monitor mixing, you will protest against this statement. But if you listen to music in headphones primarily (some people do!) then headphone mixing can deliver a good result. A pair of cans for let's say 300 EUR will give you something that you'll have to pay 5 times as much compaired to as good sounding monitors and acoustic treatment.
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Permalink Reply by Dan and Deryn Cullen on -
It's pointless saying that any one piece of hardware is the most important in a studio. It is all as good as the weakest link.
If you have crappy mics and great monitors you will just end up with a well mixed crappy sound. If your soundcard/mixer has lousy A/D converters... ditto. If you have an underpowered PC/Mac then you will not be able to run DAW/VST well if at all.
You can have the best hardware set-up, the best acoustic treatment, a sprung floor and none of this matters at all if what you are recording is useless.
The most important thing in the studio is the 'software' in the brain of the person who is creating.
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Permalink Reply by Roger Noren on -
Simon, I don't know. I'm not familiar with the phones you have, so I can't say if they are suitable for mixing. Most people mixing in phones prefer open models, closed are normally better for recording. But I use closed phones too, Beyerdynamic DT250, and I'm happy with that.
All I'm saying is that you should consider the room you have, before you go investing money in expensive monitors. Maybe your room is suitable, and you will be happy to mix with monitors. Or you will be disappointed because of the room and your mixes won't get better. Maybe you don't listen to music that often in phones so you have a clear reference of the dryer and more spatial "headphone sound"?
Simon Godden said:Hi Roger,
I cannot afford monitors at the moment, so all of my output is 'monitored' via an M-Audio 2496 soundcard, a Micro AMP HA400 4-channel headphone amplifier & a pair of closed Sennheiser HD280s (silver). It sounds OK to me when I'm working with various effects (reverb, para-eq, compressor etc). But when I burn my work to CD and play it on my parents 'separates' system, it sounds f*****g amazing. Do I still need monitors?
Roger Noren said:But keep in my that room acoustics are just as important as good speakers, some would say even more important.
If you don't have a room large enough, it is very hard to get anything sound representative in the bass region, and acoustic treatment like bass traps will not help. Believe me, my studio is like that. If you have a room large enough, you will probably have to treat it acoustically for many $$ before your speakers will sound as intended. A rule of the thumb say as much as for the speakers.
In professonal studios you are forced to rely on monitors, because you have to present the result to costumers. In a personal studio were only you work, good studio headphones might be a better solution. If you are old in the game and have built your experience upon monitor mixing, you will protest against this statement. But if you listen to music in headphones primarily (some people do!) then headphone mixing can deliver a good result. A pair of cans for let's say 300 EUR will give you something that you'll have to pay 5 times as much compaired to as good sounding monitors and acoustic treatment.
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Permalink Reply by Per-Erik Rosqvist on -
Of course you were joking, I know that... Me too. Myself I haven't been in a fight since I was 13 or something.... :) Thus a lover, more than a fighter. Just like you...
Yeah Yngwie (when he does instrumental stuff on guitar) is great!
I am a computer scientist (here it means computing scientist) I am not very good at technical stuff either. COmputing has more with the brain/processor of the computer to do, than monitors or headphones :) Programming, you know?
Albert De La Vega said:Hey Per-Erik,
Your part of the world can't be all bad...You gave us Yngwie!! I'm just kidding about the whole take up arms business, I'm a lover not a fighter...I'm glad you both offered counterpoint, especially for someone like me, that lacks the experience and patience to deal with all of the technical mumbo jumbo. I wish i did, because I just end up getting frustrated
Per-Erik Rosqvist said:
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