Studio Monitors - Yes or No?

[Omega_Void]

You can mix something with a Sony earbud, but it will be much easier with a decent monitor.

Although the earbuds won't suffer from the lack of room treatment, so they'd be good for comparison at least.

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.

I second this.

One thing that I found helped the "portability" of mixes when I was stuck with crappy monitoring is: once you've bashed the mix roughly into shape, take a minute to drop a prametric eq on the two bus and play around with massive rips. Yank the high shelf down at the highest freq, then roll the frequency down and listen to how the mix changes. Do the same with the low shelf, rolling upwards. Yank the midband and roll it around, play with the bandwidth. Listen not to the effect on the overall sound, but how the relative balance of the instruments changes. This highlights the frequency ranges where the balance is wrong. When the relative balance remains more or less the same however you eq the two-buss, it will translate well to other speakers.

YMMV, but it worked well for me.

 

[Horhe]

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.

What monitors did you have before the Opals that the difference was so dramatic?

 

[Jevil]

The best monitors is those which you are used to.

My friends studio has a treated room and some expensive monitors and I can't mix there! I'm not used to them.

I prefer my Sennsheiser headphones at home and my Hifi and car's audio system to test mixes.

 

[Ermz]

What monitors did you have before the Opals that the difference was so dramatic?

Event ASP8s. About 3 months prior to that it was a pair of Mann PMA6s. TBH the treatment made more difference than the Opals (which is saying a lot). There would have been no point buying them without it.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

NSGuitar, try to understand this. You feel everything is fine because you haven't experienced otherwise. I'm gonna do a really really stupid analogy, before you had sex you when you were a kid, you were fine werent you? Now that you did have sex, you know what it's like and you would never go back to not having sex.

You're pretty much talking without having experienced it and trust me, it's night and day, a year ago I mixed in my bedroom and thought was fine, did all the mixing in my monitors and checked the low-end and some fine tuning on my headphones. Worked ok for me, now that I'm actually working in a studio, for some reason the control room was horrible acoustically, so I built tons of broadband absorbers and bass traps and holy jesus christ, seriously, you have no idea, the difference is pretty much as, where before I THOUGHT I heard everything and now I ACTUALLY hear everything, even details I never heard before. What that translated into mixing is pretty much hand to hand with listening, you hear more you are able do to more, you hear frequencies that were jumping out everywhere that are now attenuated, now you can hear those frequencies focused so you're able to sculp the mix around those frequencies right. So yes, treat room.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Event ASP8s. About 3 months prior to that it was a pair of Mann PMA6s. TBH the treatment made more difference than the Opals (which is saying a lot). There would have been no point buying them without it.

BTW, do you have a sum-up of all the treatment you did somewhere? I remember following your treatment quest to some point and even then the amount of rockwool was pretty extensive

 

[Ermz]

Umm I think it only added up to around $1,300 or so. If there was more space to cram in the room, I'd keep going with it, but I've kinda hit some physical limitations in here.

 

[NSGUITAR]

NSGuitar, try to understand this. You feel everything is fine because you haven't experienced otherwise. I'm gonna do a really really stupid analogy, before you had sex you when you were a kid, you were fine werent you? Now that you did have sex, you know what it's like and you would never go back to not having sex.

You're pretty much talking without having experienced it and trust me, it's night and day, a year ago I mixed in my bedroom and thought was fine, did all the mixing in my monitors and checked the low-end and some fine tuning on my headphones. Worked ok for me, now that I'm actually working in a studio, for some reason the control room was horrible acoustically, so I built tons of broadband absorbers and bass traps and holy jesus christ, seriously, you have no idea, the difference is pretty much as, where before I THOUGHT I heard everything and now I ACTUALLY hear everything, even details I never heard before. What that translated into mixing is pretty much hand to hand with listening, you hear more you are able do to more, you hear frequencies that were jumping out everywhere that are now attenuated, now you can hear those frequencies focused so you're able to sculp the mix around those frequencies right. So yes, treat room.

Very interesting. See, I've been in a fully treated studio before and it didn't seem to make that much of a difference. I've got plenty of experience with it, I just sincerely never noticed a drastic difference. I did notice a small one, but that is all. Maybe I'm just so used to the gear I'm using that I know what sounds right coming out of it, and I'm not used to hearing it in different environments?

 

[dcb]

Very interesting. See, I've been in a fully treated studio before and it didn't seem to make that much of a difference. I've got plenty of experience with it, I just sincerely never noticed a drastic difference. I did notice a small one, but that is all. Maybe I'm just so used to the gear I'm using that I know what sounds right coming out of it, and I'm not used to hearing it in different environments?

try this : play sine waves from 20hz to 400 Hz and walk through your room.
youll hear drastic differences in loudness, because of room modes and standing waves. the differences can be up to + - 20 db.

youd be surprised what even the smallest change in position will have on the loudness (and reverberationtime) of certain frequencies.
how can you possibly ever tell what your mix really sounds like
in an environment like that.

your mixes might even sound phenominal on your system. but take your
mix out to the car, to your friends hifisystem, to a pro studio - your mixes will sound different. mixed in a treated room, your mixes will translate wayy better into "the real world".

 

[timislegend]

try this : play sine waves from 20hz to 400 Hz and walk through your room.
youll hear drastic differences in loudness, because of room modes and standing waves. the differences can be up to + - 20 db.

youd be surprised what even the smallest change in position will have on the loudness (and reverberationtime) of certain frequencies.
how can you possibly ever tell what your mix really sounds like
in an environment like that.

your mixes might even sound phenominal on your system. but take your
mix out to the car, to your friends hifisystem, to a pro studio - your mixes will sound different. mixed in a treated room, your mixes will translate wayy better into "the real world".

...loudness is perceived.

stationary waves can be subdued by room calibration.

monitor position and fixed level mediums are key.

i do agree that any position movement will change sound propagation material however even in the million dollar studios i have worked in are faced with severe comb filtering and stationary wave disparities.

translating a mix from one studio to the next entirely depends on one's ability to compensate for sound pressure that differs practically everywhere.

*it is told that one of the best places to mix music is 83db C weighted outside in the middle of the dessert at 73 degrees fahrenheit ...at sea level with zero wind fluctuation.

(as you might know, this is rarely practiced and most engineers don't have the time nor the money to do this with every performance).

opinion:
but... i believe (truly) that most serious engineers will benefit from spending a couple 100 dollars/pounds/euro on small diffusion to aid in the battle of tedium.

capturing a room every 45 min to calibrate your system can be cumbersome (to say the least).

 

[Skinny Viking]

Nominated for worst advice of the year.

We seriously need like our own "Razzie" awards here ...

have like a sticky thread where the absolute dumbest things said are compiled and at the end of the year we all vote

could even have it in catagories

Most obnoxious noob
Dumbest advise
etc

We could call it the John Storm Award or something

 

[Ermz]

We could give out awards called 'Failies' ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[guitarguru777]

Dude ...

The name of the award should be the NSGUITAR Lifetime Achievement Award!

 

[Skinny Viking]

Dude ...

The name of the award should be the NSGUITAR Lifetime Achievement Award!

no no .. I'm liking "Failies" as the overall awards but we do need some kind of top award of the year which I thought the "John Storm Achievement Award" is perfect. He's not an active member here and in fact only made like one post but oh man, that one post changed all of our lives in so many ways

 

[timislegend]

please forgive the assertion.

...you all seem extremely cynical about amateurs.

i have not been on this forum for very long ...so i do realize my place. i am just curious as to why.


does it insult you personally when an individual doesn't quite grasp a theory that is supported by years of discipline?


please understand... this question is not intended to come across as inconsiderate or disrespectful. unfortunately we commune in a sterile domain where text can be represented as arrogant.



ps. please do not nominate this question as a contender within the "razzie" or "failies" because i do realize the question seems insolent.

 

[Skinny Viking]

please forgive the assertion.

...you all seem extremely cynical about amateurs.

i have not been on this forum for very long ...so i do realize my place. i am just curious as to why.


does it insult you personally when an individual doesn't quite grasp a theory that is supported by years of discipline?


please understand... this question is not intended to come across as inconsiderate or disrespectful. unfortunately we commune in a sterile domain where text can be represented as arrogant.



ps. please do not nominate this question as a contender within the "razzie" or "failies" because i do realize the question seems insolent.

as you've pointed out, you haven't been on here very long. That being the case you probably haven't tasted the fine wine that are some of NSGuitar's posts You're also probably unfamiliar with who John Storm is .... http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/466567-how-do-mix-drums.html

enjoy

There have also been numerous new people who have joined on here and within minutes established themselves as complete assholes in their attitude towards the people actually trying to help them

To top it all off, there is a level of good natured albeit harsh humor shared by most on this forum ... the longer you're here, the more you'll appreciate it and recognize it for what it is

 

[Ermz]

I'll go out on a limb and say I'd speak for most of us in saying that we don't take issue with amateurs for being amateurs, but rather when they come in with some highly dubious comments such as '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 tend to get that stick, lodge it firmly in yer anus and get to typing. IMO one of the worst things about this industry is the free flow of gross misinformation, and many of us longer time members pride this place on not fostering, nor propagating it (not to any great degree at least).

 

[timislegend]

i understand the sense of territorialism and the lack of respect for new member's potentially asinine questions.

and maybe if they were resourceful enough, these new members would use search engines to acquire their knowledge.

but flooding new threads with egregious responses to questions that can just be ignored can be very confusing as to the intention of your professional manner.

one of the worst things about this industry is the free flow of gross misinformation

i will agree with this... because i do realize that there are more derogatory issues with regards to the span of this industry.

"...cynicism is a useless ideology to subscribe to while attempting to obtain an understanding in sound principals."

"ignorance is the first side effect of cynicism."

i realize it sounds like i am preaching jungian philosophy but i learned this from a world class engineer who is extremely respected today.

am i misinformed?

opinion:
to attempt discovery makes you a great engineer... anything after that becomes a methodology within physics and subjective creativity.


i know it is difficult to refrain from belittling the ignorant ...but we are striving to become (in some permutation) great engineers with a mutual sense of respect and humility.

i figured this is the whole purpose of a forum.





once again... i do not wish to disrespect any member of this forum... if anything i have said here offends the position of an individual ...please let me know (pm)... i will humbly apologize.

 

[Force666]

Tim, while I see where you're coming from, it's not really relevant to this thread. NS didn't ask a dumb question, he stated misinformation as fact.


This isn't a "professional" forum, it's a place for professionals and hobbyists to share knowledge, opinions and to have fun. On top of that, it's chock full of extreme metal fans and engineers. If you've really spent so much time within these circles you'de know that ball-breaking is just part of the game.

A sense of humor is the first sign of intelligence.

 

[SocialNumb]

Hobbyists chiming in.