Good bang for your buck studio monitors?
- Thread starter GHP
- Start date
I just want to hear opinions of people not trying to sell me something, they will tell you everything is cool cuz they want you to buy something. Im a little new to this aspect of the game so my ear is a bit untrained to this stuff so impartial opinions would help a bit, shit my computer speaker system sounds decent to me!
The only thing we can do is give you the names of speakers in that price range. ALL of our rooms sound different. I can take my speakers to youngmoes or vince spot and they will sound different. I know the sound of my speakers but mixing at their spot would be different from mixing at mine. different room, different modes, different everything.
You MUST use your ears on this one dog. Now if MY budget were $300 i'd go for event 20-20's, alesis monitor ones or tannoy reveal.
You MUST use your ears on this one dog. Now if MY budget were $300 i'd go for event 20-20's, alesis monitor ones or tannoy reveal.
Your mixes are guaranteed to sound different but not necessarily better right away.
Just about any monitors at around the $300 range will do you better than computer multi-media speakers. Frequencies will be more defined and you will get more clarity and flat response out of the box.
The thing is that you do have to get used to your monitors. It doesn't matter whether you have Truth monitors or top-end genelecs, you still have to adjust to the sound of the monitors. As already mentioned, your room comes into play also.
You can have monitors that are pretty bass-heavy such as the Mackie HR824's and you might find yourself feeling that your tracks have enough bass. Then you go to your home stereo to listen to your mix or your computer speakers and you may find that your bass dissapeared all of a sudden. If you have bright-sounding monitors then you may feel that your mix sounds good on your monitors and dull on other systems. You can also have poor bass response in monitors and/or poor high-end reproduction and come to find that when you listen to your mixes on other systems that you overdid it on bass and that your hi-hats are killing your ears.
So you really need to take the sound of your monitors and get used to mixing with their sound. You can't really expect a flat sound with any monitoring system. The advantage comes with monitors covering a good frequency range so that you will be able to hear what you have in your audio.
You can have a cd that you play all day long on your stereo. Then all of a sudden you play that same cd on a portable cd player and you may hear something you never heard before. The reason for this is that the portable cd player and headphone may be a bit more clearer on that certain frequency range. Studio monitors will allow you to hear much more than the typical stereo system or computer speakers.
It's good to listen to your mixes under headphones but it's not the best thing to mix in. Headphones can help you hear slight details in your audio but for the most part it's hard to judge lower frequencies on headphones because bass reproduction is not the easiest thing to accomplish with devices that small. You may also be adding reverb to a certain vocal at a time. On headphones the reverb can sound perfect. But once you play it on your monitors, you may find that you overdid it in the reverb because the room ambience will most likely introduce reverb also. So headphones are handy tools but you can't really depend on them when mixing.
Just about any monitors at around the $300 range will do you better than computer multi-media speakers. Frequencies will be more defined and you will get more clarity and flat response out of the box.
The thing is that you do have to get used to your monitors. It doesn't matter whether you have Truth monitors or top-end genelecs, you still have to adjust to the sound of the monitors. As already mentioned, your room comes into play also.
You can have monitors that are pretty bass-heavy such as the Mackie HR824's and you might find yourself feeling that your tracks have enough bass. Then you go to your home stereo to listen to your mix or your computer speakers and you may find that your bass dissapeared all of a sudden. If you have bright-sounding monitors then you may feel that your mix sounds good on your monitors and dull on other systems. You can also have poor bass response in monitors and/or poor high-end reproduction and come to find that when you listen to your mixes on other systems that you overdid it on bass and that your hi-hats are killing your ears.
So you really need to take the sound of your monitors and get used to mixing with their sound. You can't really expect a flat sound with any monitoring system. The advantage comes with monitors covering a good frequency range so that you will be able to hear what you have in your audio.
You can have a cd that you play all day long on your stereo. Then all of a sudden you play that same cd on a portable cd player and you may hear something you never heard before. The reason for this is that the portable cd player and headphone may be a bit more clearer on that certain frequency range. Studio monitors will allow you to hear much more than the typical stereo system or computer speakers.
It's good to listen to your mixes under headphones but it's not the best thing to mix in. Headphones can help you hear slight details in your audio but for the most part it's hard to judge lower frequencies on headphones because bass reproduction is not the easiest thing to accomplish with devices that small. You may also be adding reverb to a certain vocal at a time. On headphones the reverb can sound perfect. But once you play it on your monitors, you may find that you overdid it in the reverb because the room ambience will most likely introduce reverb also. So headphones are handy tools but you can't really depend on them when mixing.
Heresy pretty much said everything that needed to be said in his reply.
The important thing is to learn the acoustics of your room and the responsiveness of your monitors/headphones/whatever. Once you know that you'll know where to go light, where to place emphasis, etc...
The quality of your sound has less to do with what monitors you're using and more to do with how well you know them and the room you're working in. There's no getting around it. Your ears are the most important tool you have which is why it's vital to learn how to use them properly.
The important thing is to learn the acoustics of your room and the responsiveness of your monitors/headphones/whatever. Once you know that you'll know where to go light, where to place emphasis, etc...
The quality of your sound has less to do with what monitors you're using and more to do with how well you know them and the room you're working in. There's no getting around it. Your ears are the most important tool you have which is why it's vital to learn how to use them properly.
One more thing... If you've got a way to monitor now, you might want to consider making your audio interface a higher upgrade priority since that affects the actual audio data itself.
I'd take a top notch interface with crappy monitors over top notch monitors and a crappy interface any day, no question!
I'd take a top notch interface with crappy monitors over top notch monitors and a crappy interface any day, no question!
Right on i appreciate the feedback,
Kinda off topic but my sound card/ audio interface is an M-Audio Audiophile, I got it from a local guitar shop for like 130 dollars. Will I do OK with this thing? Now that i have it Im reading poor reviews on zzounds about this product, I hope i didnt get a bad audio interface. On the same lines you cant always rely on reviews from those sites since alot of the people who buy this kind of shit are amatures and probably dont know what they are doing.
I currently just want to use the audio interface with Reason and Cubase SE mostly MIDI sequencing stuff I'm hoping the equipment i got will sound good
Kinda off topic but my sound card/ audio interface is an M-Audio Audiophile, I got it from a local guitar shop for like 130 dollars. Will I do OK with this thing? Now that i have it Im reading poor reviews on zzounds about this product, I hope i didnt get a bad audio interface. On the same lines you cant always rely on reviews from those sites since alot of the people who buy this kind of shit are amatures and probably dont know what they are doing.
I currently just want to use the audio interface with Reason and Cubase SE mostly MIDI sequencing stuff I'm hoping the equipment i got will sound good
