Studio Monitors - Yes or No?

[Joshua Wickman]

I never understood why people are so prone on getting a properly treated room for mixing.. It's really not THAT necessary at all...

"I never understood"

You say this then throw out advice. :Spin:

There is a reason behind room treatment and why so many say "TREAT YOUR ROOM FIRST!"

My best (sound quality) upgrade out of all my gear was my room treatment. Made the biggest diffrence in my mixes.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

It's a mystery beyond our understanding. Silly rooms are all the same!

Exactly. This is the reason I can put the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in my laundry room and it'll sound just as nice as it would in the Vienna State Opera.

 

[laszlozsolt82]

buy a pair of active nearfield HS50`s; it`s in your price range (for example), if you got a little room (lat`s say 4*4) an 5`` speaker it`s enough , in a much bigger room go with the HS80`s if you can afford them. And believe me treated rooms are crucial to obtain better mixes.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Ok, I was being a dick, but let me elaborate a bit. In my opinion, acoustics are a huge part of our craft, and a basic understanding of how sound works physically is one of the most important tools an AE can have. For me, it's also one of the most interesting aspects of working with sound. The convenience we're being offered by the rapid development of tools such as drum triggers, drum replacement software and virtual amp simulators has made the basic, fundamental cornerstones of audio work seem trivial to many of us. It seems it's almost too easy to get where you want without actually understanding how you're getting there. Steven Slate samples weren't made by just putting up a drum set, throwing some mics in there, hitting record and using magical plugins to make them sound good. In the end, Slate is actually a really, really talented and knowledgeable engineer who knows what he has to do and why to be able to deliver us samples that sound so good you can just throw them in a mix and forget them. Engineering is an art, and the minute you start disregarding the basic principles you also start disregarding the craftmanship.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. What I'm trying to say is, OP, treat your room, then get a pair of decent monitors

 

[Jan [MTW]]

I won't Treat my Room. Cause its alread treated perfectly. Maybe Not for mixing but for Living and sleeping. Haha

 

[FloridaRolf]

You may also consider to work at McDonalds with that attitude

 

[Jan [MTW]]

I am Student and Living at Home. But when i am finished with School i would Love to work at McDonald.(dreamjob). Haha

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I won't Treat my Room. Cause its alread treated perfectly. Maybe Not for mixing but for Living and sleeping. Haha

Who says your treatment should look like a bunch of planks and rockwool thrown together by a 5-year-old? You can make broadband absorbers and bass traps look like awesome interior details if you put a little thought in them. Choose a nice-looking wood for the framing and a fabric you like for the panels. Fuck, my wife-to-be has made two interior decoration pieces that look exactly like acoustic panels in our living room and bedroom because she likes the way they look. And she's a nut about having an aesthetically nice flat.

 

[narcossintese]

I never understood why people are so prone on getting a properly treated room for mixing.. It's really not THAT necessary at all...

You can make a great mix without a treated room but you can´t deny that it´s much more difficult to get the low end right when you´re hearing +10db at 100hz that actually is. The same thing for the studio monitors. You can mix something with a Sony earbud, but it will be much easier with a decent monitor.

:zombie: WTF!... I would have bought 'em.
I thought, when you buy monitors they are alway in pairs.

If two is going to cost you too much, you can get at least one and mix in mono, and rely on something less expensive for pan (headphones or whatever).

 

[>>>GENZ<<<]

If two is going to cost you too much, you can get at least one and mix in mono, and rely on something less expensive for pan (headphones or whatever).

 

[narcossintese]

Most sources are mono. Guitars, bass, vocals... IMO it´s better to buy one decent monitor, that will allow you to make good decisions about the tones of your mix (and pan stuff using a headphone or whatever stereo output you have), than to get a shitty cheap pair of monitors. Also, you can always buy a second one later when/if you get the money. There are people that actually prefer mixing in mono even when there is two monitors avaible.

I´m not saying that the final render should be in mono, of course not!

 

[Zack Uidl]

^ I do not agree.

If you are reamping, for example, how are you going to hear how dual or quad-tracked guitar fit with the rest of the mix when it is only in mono. I would not want to rely on headphones to make that kind of judgement. I know that some people mix in mono for a bit, but in my opinion, you would be better off with cheaper monitors than one good monitor.

 

[Ermz]

I never understood why people are so prone on getting a properly treated room for mixing.. It's really not THAT necessary at all...

Nominated for worst advice of the year.

 

[Zack Uidl]

^hahah

 

[NSGUITAR]

Nominated for worst advice of the year.

It wasn't advice, ermz. the places I've mixed are treated to an extent, but not completely gung-ho. I've just never found it that important for some reason. For me, it's never made a 100% huge difference.. Just a little one. Idk, maybe I'm wrong and I SHOULD treat my room excessively.

 

[Ermz]

You are, and yes, you should.

Familiarity with an environment means much more than anything else. I would rather still mix in a lightly treated room I've known intimately for 5 years rather than an unfamiliar fully treated mix room I've been to for all of 15 minutes. Since we are talking about our own personal mixing spaces, then the more treatment the better.

Once again, I can't even begin to stress the importance of good monitoring. Until around mid-last year my mixes were utter shite. As soon as I got serious, fully treated my space and invested in good monitors my mixing did not improve... it exploded, literally overnight. I had all the right ideas down about the process, but I couldn't implement any of them since there was no confidence in what I was hearing.

 

[guitarguru777]

NSGUITAR is about as serious as he is about owning Waves Mercury Bundle

 

[Force666]

This thread is fucking retarded.

 

[NSGUITAR]

You are, and yes, you should.

Familiarity with an environment means much more than anything else. I would rather still mix in a lightly treated room I've known intimately for 5 years rather than an unfamiliar fully treated mix room I've been to for all of 15 minutes. Since we are talking about our own personal mixing spaces, then the more treatment the better.

Once again, I can't even begin to stress the importance of good monitoring. Until around mid-last year my mixes were utter shite. As soon as I got serious, fully treated my space and invested in good monitors my mixing did not improve... it exploded, literally overnight. I had all the right ideas down about the process, but I couldn't implement any of them since there was no confidence in what I was hearing.

Interesting. I never realized how much of a difference it could make. I guess I got discouraged when I moved into this new place because it's so damn hard to treat it, so I sort of gave up =/

And Guitarguru.... Fuck your mouth

 

[narcossintese]

^ I do not agree.

If you are reamping, for example, how are you going to hear how dual or quad-tracked guitar fit with the rest of the mix when it is only in mono. I would not want to rely on headphones to make that kind of judgement. I know that some people mix in mono for a bit, but in my opinion, you would be better off with cheaper monitors than one good monitor.

I would rather stack 4 tracks that I know that sound good on mono (because I´ve checked on a decent monitor) than stack 4 tracks that I have no idea of how they really sound (because I´ve checked on shitty unnacurate monitors).