AvanTone Mix Cubes

Yikes...after listening on these the JBL's feel completely void of mids...I guess it's not so much they don't have mids as the Cubes don't have the extended highs and lows.

It's getting more interesting as I'm listening to different material.  I just heard a pretty big plosive on a reference tune I'd not heard before.

Using two mix cubes to reproduce stereo is one way of using them. Make sure you also experience summing L+R signals at line level (even passively) and feeding a single power amp with that mono signal into one cube only. One cube is all you actually need. Then you get to experience what happens when several parts and too similar in sound and they end up all coming from the same place all lined up behind each other coming from a single point source speaker. Separation between those parts will be poor. You will need to do more to separate them more.
 
Single speaker is also good for mono compatibilty checks with wide stereo sounds such as from some synths. (or a very wide AB spaced pair of microphones picking up something very acoustic)

Donny it really sounds like you are getting into them and that is very good. I like to listen on the small speaker very quietly as well. It does not have to be that loud either. So many things start to stick out as being out of place. It is good to mix on them rather than switching back and forth to your mains. Setting vocal levels correctly in relation to the music is one of its great strengths. It helps balancing vocal harmonies too against the lead vocal.
 
Reverbs are harder to hear on the small speaker but I have found that if you can hear the reverb clearly on the small speaker it means there is too much of it usually. It will reveal if the bass is too loud too. You will learn what the correct amount of reverb and bass sounds like on the cube. It is interesting how much about the high end you can hear even when you cannot hear it well on the speaker. Excessive highs in your mix determine what you hear in the small speaker too.
 
There is a point when you can hear all the things in your mix nicely down low coming from a mono mix cube or small speaker and then when you monitor that up loud and in stereo again usually it sounds terrific and very well balanced. I find a small speaker mix can be cranked right up to 105 dB SPL plus (on the mains of course!!!) and the mix sounds fabulous still and does not hurt in any way. The spectrum appears well balanced. Nice amount of energy right from deep 40 Hz notes right up to 15Khz and beyond.
 
I am mixing a hip hop tune for a client and while the verses are sparser and clearer when the choruses come in there are a lot more parts and a lot of drama is added at this point. I have been having issues balancing everything on these loud choruses. I kept the music up on the mains thinking I would need to in order to hear all the detail better at these complex points in the music. In the end I pulled everything down to zero at that point and rebuilt the mix on the small speaker of the loud complex sections. I was able to bring everything back in again in the right proportions etc.. Then up loud on the mains it just sounded killer at these points now. It solved a problem for me.
 
I call it a small bottleneck to put your entire mix through yet when you do, it seems to create an almost microscopic view of your mix from another angle. It lets you hear when things are out of balance. Listen to quality reference mixes on the speaker to get an idea of how they sound too. Nice usually.

One other thing, balance both monitor to the same SPL\db level so you can do an accurate comparison.  77db to 82db works well in smaller project studios, 85db in larger rooms.  Any difference in volume between the Avatones and the JBL's will give you a false impression due to the volume change.
 
Kevin

I read Stevie Wonder used to hook the output of a perspective mix to an FM  modulator and broadcast it to car radios in the parking lot to hear the results of a typical car radio sound and how the mix sat in that environment.
 
BTW I know its not the same, but my Fosucrite DSP24 has the VRM with a set of "cubes" as one of the models..

This sounds like a very useful mixing tool.  I have been researching these for the past few days and plan to buy a single active mixcube.
Thanks for the info and the great follow up advice!

Hey guys, 
 
I'm no engineer at all and Have a limited budget but I was able to compensate by using good references and soundforge to make my mixes good even though I monitored with just Huge PA speakers. Well i thought I was being smart by selling those big bulky things and buying some inexpensive TAPCO's 5. Every since my mixes have been horrifically muddy and way too much low end. I usually can adjust but I can't because these damn tapco's make things sound TOO good. My mixes would sound just like my reference until i take them else where. Would a mixcube help with low end problems even though it won't play the extremes?

The modern day version of these speakers do a fantastic job and do the same thing very well. I am a user of the small speaker and believe they are very very useful for mixing on. You don't even need an expensive Avantone speakers either. I have just got a small powerful driver in small box and it also works very very well. Just as well as the original Auratones.

The speakers in these small boxes are not full range drivers at all. They have a limited low and high end. It is the mid range that exposes everything in your mixes so much.

Another thing, I believe it is better to not use two of these and switch them into mono. It is better to use one only and feed a L+R signal into it instead. And keep the volume well down while you are listening to them as well. Sit right in front of it. The reason why one works so well is it shows any mono compatibility issues straight up and is also great for preventing things that you may have panned extreme left or right from getting lost in your mix. As the mono sum signal tends to push sounds that are panned centre up a little. If you are loosing the extreme panned parts then all you have to do is just nudge them a tad so they become audible again in the small speaker. Then when you go back up to your main speakers again you will find not much has changed there with those parts. But now you have satisfied two speaker systems rather than just one.

They are not just for mixes that end up on TV's etc. They are very effective for hearing how your mix will sound on a full range system. They are fantastic for dealing with dense mixes with lots going on. They are great for setting vocal levels correctly over the music. Things that are even just slightly loud in you mains too like a snare that might be just a tad loud, and you wont hear it so much on the mains, tends to leap out more on the small speaker.
 
You won't get an original Auratone easily or cheaply and it will more than likely have been destroyed over many years of use. Don't waste your time trying to get one, it is unnecessary.
 
You still need to check your mixes up loud on your mains though primarily for bass and reverbs. You wont hear them very well on the small speaker. Saying that though if you do set reverb so that it is barely audible on the small speaker it is often just right on your mains. Buy your mains will always let you hear reverbs a little louder. There is some ground where you can get reverb barely audible on your mains and just hear it too on the little speaker. You have to juggle that slightly I have found.

Oh...they actually are "fullrange" too...but have steep roll offs, that would make them seem like they were not.  But I think our definitions of "fullrange" are a little different as well... where in the video I compared them to a 3 way speaker, where each speaker was NOT intended to be "fullrange" unlike the single driver Auratones.
 

I think Chris while we may have some slightly different views of the speakers but I think that we are both very much on the same page as to how good they are.
 
I like the words microscopic view of the mix. I have use the term feeding your mix into a small bottleneck too that creates this microscopic view.
 
I find it amazing that on such a small limited range speaker at such low volume so much information can be gleaned from it. It is a secret weapon in my view. I love it and spend way more hours on the small speaker than my main speakers by far. Yes I check things up there for sure. I tend to start the mix on my mains and get it 80% right and then switch over.
 
It is great also for things like kick and bass. If they suddenly go very low on the small speaker it means they need more mids and high range harmonics to still keep them audible. It means there is too much low end thump in those things which you only tend to hear on larger systems. It is a must for balancing vocals over music. Something many get wrong. People tend to have vocals way too loud. When you get this right on the small speaker they will sound perfect up loud on a big system as well.
 
I think the driver needs to be able to handle a little bit of power. I have got a 4" driver in a small box but it is rated at something like 35 watts though. Also I have got a decent power amp driving it too. (several hundred watts) I think that helps. Of course I keep that way down low but it is nice to have the headroom in the poweramp as well. You don't want it struggling or farting due to low end etc..Mine has actually got a tiny tweeter built in as well with a crossover but I have put a wirewound pot in series with the tweeter and have it off most times.
 
I find once things sound very balanced in this speaker, mixes just instantly translate perfectly to everything else including my car as well.