Anybody use PC speakers with their set up for reference mixing?

[DanLights]

i will only mix on cheap/poor speakers. tuned studio monitors just give a distorted perspective of sound to my ears, and every time i have attempted to use adams/genelec/yamaha/KRK/event speakers the mix comes out horrible on actual real speakers. you know, the ones actual people own and use for their music listening enjoyment.

why not mix everything on the speakers that are actually going to be used to listen to the music on??

if you can make it sound good through laptop speakers or an ipod dock, it will sound good anywhere. there is nothing in the world worse than spending hours on a mix only to have it sound like a fart through a macbook, which lets face, is what 90% of people are going to be hearing the final mix through. i never understood the point of high-quality studio monitors that sound 'better' than anything else.... why would you want it to only sound good in your own personal mix environment?

you could say that i just don't 'trust' studio monitors and find the concept esoteric and generally counter-intuitive and misleading for home recording.

a tuned mixing environment is a whole different beast however, not meaning to dog on decade-old professional production methods from the comfort of my garage; i'm just talking about home recording

You are insane and I beg to listen to some of your work. When you make a "good" (cause nothing on those things actually sound good) sounding mix on your shitty speakers, it will sound like absolute horseshit on other places, cause your speakers color the sound and you never really hear the real thing. When you put that mix on professional monitors, all those frequencies you can't hear will pop up and will sound like uncontrolled shit, all the details your super speakers don't reveal will go wild. It's insane, period.

 

[lucaskills]

^ +1

But i do have a PC Speaker System for Reference next to my studio monitors. I own this speaker system for more than 5 years and know all its flaws, but i can say that if my mix/master is good on them they are good in general.

But i only switch to them when my mix is nearly finished or while i am in the mastering process. not before, because of DanLights reason.

 

[DanLights]

Yeah of course it makes perfect sense to use cheap speakers/headphones/earbuds to reference your mixes, in fact the more reference systems the better, but you shouldn't be MIXING on them cause you can't really rely on them, you could write details down and then try to fix on your monitoring system if possible, and yeah normally only when your mix is near finished, makes no sense to reference mixes you know are still missing something

 

[_Protoss_]

I even like to check my mixes in my shitty macbook speakers. If it sounds decent and clear in there, it'll be good. For the low end i just use something else.

 

[DeclanWhite]

my vocals pop out way more on my macbook pro speakers, so i like to do that. and various speaker systems around the house.. and car

 

[zirkonflex]

I mostly do my stuff on headophones that I listen all my music on, it really gives you a feeling of being "at home" with your frequencies.
I'll then listen thru it on the monitors to check details, individual volumes or saturation and compression.
I think you should really have something familiar to get the frequencies right, but not to cheap, or you'll miss some stuff (especially in the highend).

 

[DanLights]

I mostly do my stuff on headophones that I listen all my music on, it really gives you a feeling of being "at home" with your frequencies.
I'll then listen thru it on the monitors to check details, individual volumes or saturation and compression.
I think you should really have something familiar to get the frequencies right, but not to cheap, or you'll miss some stuff (especially in the highend).

that's why everyone says you should get to know your room and your monitors well. If you never use them, you won't get to know them as well as your regular street headphones

 

[Charles J]

i JUST started doing this. we got a cheap-o pair of speakers from wal-mart for like $25 bucks.

works a fucking TREAT for getting overall balances... especially with gtrs/vox/snr

 

[darthjujuu]

harmon kardon HK395. all over ebay, they ship with dell desktops...seriously the best for reference mixing. they're relatively flat too, and the sub goes up to the mudrange so they're perfect for monitoring shitty bass.

 

[zirkonflex]

that's why everyone says you should get to know your room and your monitors well. If you never use them, you won't get to know them as well as your regular street headphones

I may get that in years of experience with the exact same monitors (which I will probably never have), but its way easier and more secure do go for something you surely now.
But youre right, I even picked my streetphones to sound close to my system, its very usefull to have that kind of safety on your working space.
My real big problem in that way is that I have been listening headphones only since I was a kid ... I really feel strange listening on speakers in general ... it feel so unprecise ... I always feel that iam missing out on details (I have been in a some well treated rooms with good monitors but I still feel the same).

Ill have to see how this turns out for me, guess I'll try to listen on my system as much as possible

 

[setyouranchor]

I'm using these little shit things: http://speakerchampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/3.jpg

Also considering getting these in the next month or so: http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...XgGIWe2gT509S_Bw&sa=title&ved=0CAkQ8wIwADgA#p

I'm using these at the moment:http://www.google.co.uk/products/ca...XrHp3SzQWW-PHYDA&sa=title&ved=0CAkQ8wIwADgK#p

They aint exactly the best... in fact they suck pretty bad, not much low end at all, and barely any highs

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

I do it, I use a pair of logitechs that came with a sub.

 

[zackpennington]

Macbook speakers and iPod earbuds. I also like to hop in my car to monitor bass (factory bose).

 

[JayB]

I always switch back and forth between monitors and decent PC speakers. I also test mixes out on everything from car stereos to ipods to cd alarm clocks lol, even my 5.1 surround system.

 

[timislegend]

i use a7s for mixing... and mixcubes for reference.

 

[JeffTD]

Klipsch 2.1 set - sounds fucking awesome for normal listening/movies, and is great as a 'real world' check. I sometimes disconnect the speakers and just use the sub with my ADAMs when watching movies - it's pretty badass!

 

[setyouranchor]

Nice one dudes. I only ever really referenced on ipod and car stereo. At the moment, I'm having the dilemma of mixing headphones (audio technica ATH-50) or some half decent pc monitors and have some money left over. My room is pretty much impossible to treat as I'm in my parents attic (its like a pyramid up there) but I've learnt my monitors pretty well and my mixes arnt too bad. Would it be more beneficial to get another reference source up there, or just a set of decent mixing headphones?

 

[Tommy Gun]

ehhh... i use my Tascam VLM-3's as my Mac speakers. I will occasionally A/B with other things when listening for something specific, but since I even use my Tascams when I watch movies, you tubes, etc. they are what my ears are used to anyway. Sick thing is, thus far, I can't hear a strong difference between these on my desk and the NS10's in the studio. I'm sure a lot of that is environmental though.

 

[JeffTD]

If you've got other 'commercial' systems but lack detailed monitoring, I'd go for some nice headphones.

 

[setyouranchor]

I've got my plain ol' logitech speakers, which are pretty shitty even for pc monitors, car stereo, ipod, cd player and my main monitors are my Alesis M1 Active MK2, which I'm really quite use to now. However, I need another detailed mixing reference. Think I'll go for the headphones