best monitors for metal in the 1000-1500$ range?

A

anterak13

New Metal Member
May 23, 2010
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Hi there,

I'm building a bedroom studio, I've got a fairly recent i7 computer, a focusrite pro24 audio interface, and a schecter C7 guitars, a warwick thumb ripoff by dean. My last 1500$ will be spent on a pair of monitors,

plenty of choices there, and no way for me to decide...

On the cheap, the new JBL pro 2300 series with 8" boomers look good, so do the new ADAM A8X, or the M-Audio C8X.

A step higher in the ladder I've spot the dynaudios BM6AMKII or the BM12A (BM5A are praised but I fear they will be lacking bass), or the FOCAL CMS 65 or SOLO6 BE.

The room is approximately 10*15 square feet. What would you recommend for tracking and mixing distorted, low tuned metal music ?
 
I'd recomend you get your ass down to a music store to a listen to a few.

I'd say the dynaudio's are probably your best bet, or the adams.
 
Take half your budget and spend it on acoustic treatment, use the rest for monitors. There's no point in having the best monitors in the world if your room is no good.
 
Trevoire520 said:
Take half your budget and spend it on acoustic treatment, use the rest for monitors. There's no point in having the best monitors in the world if your room is no good.
Click to expand...

Joematthews said:
I'd recomend you get your ass down to a music store to a listen to a few.

I'd say the dynaudio's are probably your best bet, or the adams.
Click to expand...

:lol: soooo true I should really get my lazy ass to an auditorium, but .... yeah you know I have no golden ears myself, I don't know what's best. I think I could dig the shittiest of the bunch because it has more balls to it but end up f*** up my mixes because it's not producing the right kind of tone for mixing.

What do you guys use? just the two of you for a start?

Acoustic treatment should be alright, because there is my bed in the room. It already kind of absorbs everything :) I even recently discovered it could absorb beer :)

thanks!
:Smokin:
 
anterak13 said:
Acoustic treatment should be alright, because there is my bed in the room. It already kind of absorbs everything :) I even recently discovered it could absorb beer :)
Click to expand...

Sigged, it's just too good (and it surely is a joke, I mean, how can it not be)!
 
anterak13 said:
What do you guys use? just the two of you for a start?
Click to expand...

I use (in a bedroom :lol:) Fostex PM1's... which aren't the best.

I have 2 lots of 4 inch thick bass traps behind each speaker, 2 4 inch thick first reflection point absorbers, and a 6 inch thick cloud above the listening position. On top of that I have diffusion in the form of semi-filled CD racks on my back wall, and a wooden floor to make the room not too dead.

Acoustic treatment is necessity, not an option :)
 
anterak13 said:
:lol: soooo true I should really get my lazy ass to an auditorium, but .... yeah you know I have no golden ears myself, I don't know what's best. I think I could dig the shittiest of the bunch because it has more balls to it but end up f*** up my mixes because it's not producing the right kind of tone for mixing.

What do you guys use? just the two of you for a start?

Acoustic treatment should be alright, because there is my bed in the room. It already kind of absorbs everything :) I even recently discovered it could absorb beer :)

thanks!
:Smokin:
Click to expand...

You need treatment. Real treatment made from high density semi-rigid mineral wool.

It's really cheap and makes a huge difference, much more of a difference than the difference between a set of $1000 monitors and a set of $15000 (yes i did meam 15000) monitors
 
When you say "you need treatment" are you talking about me or the room ? (just joking btw :) )

That was no joke! the bed tames the room acoustics quite a bit. clapping my hands in the empty room made that tubular reverb, with the bed in it no more
verb.


Anyway I've been reading about this and if it really matters this much I'll take a closer look at it. I guess I should be using some sort of maesurement tool ? I can't just listen to sine waves and figure out "yeah theres an *obvious* 2dB dip in the 3KHz and that 250Hz b****rd is shadowing neighbouring freqs!!!

Also, as the room is pretty small, should I avoid 8" and stick with 6.5"? And should I favor front facing bass vents? If so then the dynaudios and m-audios are out, only focals and adams are left.
thanks again!
 
anterak13 said:
Anyway I've been reading about this and if it really matters this much I'll take a closer look at it. I guess I should be using some sort of maesurement tool ? I can't just listen to sine waves and figure out "yeah theres an *obvious* 2dB dip in the 3KHz and that 250Hz b****rd is shadowing neighbouring freqs!!!
Click to expand...

A bed will help damp reverb times at higher frequencies, but it's unlikely to do much under 200 Hz

Run some sine sweeps through your monitors while sitting at the mix position, if you can't hear any serious peaks or nulls in a small room without some acoustic treatment then there are 2 options, you're VERY lucky with your room or your ears are broken. Under 150 Hz expect peaks and dips of the order of ±8 dB and some nulls down -18 to -30 dB
 
I've got a Rode omni capacitor mic, if I play the sine waves and record the room ambiance with the mic, perhaps I can spot problems in a more deterministic way, what do you think? I've seen this ik multimedia ARC but they charge a lot for just a mic and FFT spectrum analyser :(
 
There's other threads about acoustic treatment on this forum, use the Search function. Reflections in a room are only one of MANY problems you can and WILL have in ANY typical room. Small spaces are particularly bad for sound, if you have a typical rectangular or square shaped room with right-angled corners, at the very least you need bass traps. If you're handy, you can even build your own at low cost.

But yeah, room acoustics are far more important than what kind of monitors you have. Fact.

Best of luck. :)
 
Hi guys!!!

I eventually walked down the street and went to the gear store !!!

I listened to what they had there, a pair of 6" genelecs and yamahas HS80.
The genelecs are pretty boomy but it seems like the bass is overdone. perhaps not a good choice.
Now the yams. what a joke! these things are so huge I'd have to push the walls to make them fit in my room! the dude played some hardcore tekno through them to show me how deep the bass was and I could literally feel the wind coming out of the vents on my face :guh:.

I really cant imagine mixing tunes with wind in my face for f***s sake !?

One good thing is that I could somehow evaluate things a little bit and set them apart.
The sad part of the story is, some ass hole broke into my car last weekend and it cost me an arm and a leg to replace the broken window. Now I'll have to wait until the cash level gets higher...

What have you been up to ? did you guys record some stuff or what?

peace!
 
Whats wrong with the monitors youve already got ?
pro mixing monitors are way over the top in price but once youve got them I suppose they'll never need replacing or updating .
BTW Their gonna sound weird to begin with, if anything grabbing hold of pro monitoring is like taking a step backwards until youve learned how to make sense if it.
 
Full_Tilt said:
Whats wrong with the monitors youve already got ?
pro mixing monitors are way over the top in price but once youve got them I suppose they'll never need replacing or updating .
BTW Their gonna sound weird to begin with, if anything grabbing hold of pro monitoring is like taking a step backwards until youve learned how to make sense if it.
Click to expand...

any major change in monitoring sound can be a stumbling block, but a move to better quality is always a good thing in the long run
 
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