The studio monitor conspiracy...

Or.... why use studio monitors anyway?

http://forum.recordingrev...onitor-conspiracy.html


  I just kinda skimmed this story, but I thought it might be interesting to some folks here.....especially the ones (and you know who you are) who say you can't mix well on anything but studio monitors and don't even think about using headphones to mix....and home stereo speakers.....Gahhhhhhh!

Ok so I've got one foot in that group too.....  

Making a rule out of an exception isn't something I personally would caution. I also find it very irresponsible. 

I do have to work w/ cheaper monitors and headphones on the road, and w/ time and patience, I've learned to workaround it and to come up w/ something that's relatively "flat". And I guess I could also do it w/ regular speakers. BUT - there's no way I'd use that as my ultimate reference. 


Yes you can work w/ a humble setup, yes some guys may be able to pull out a great mix w/ headphones on a plane, but that doesn't make it recommendable. Just like some people will smoke and live until 115 years old and then be killed by a lightning. You're still better off putting all the chances on your side.

So to me, unless I see Paul999 credited on the back of a few outstanding albums, it's yet another blogger - and most of them are more interested in the sound of their own voice than anything else. Notice they all have one thing in common - they all claim to be the voice of reason and common sense, and they all stand against some big bad evil entity who's after your money and your soul.


And even if he was some genius mix engineer - advising people just to be genius is pointless. You're much better giving them some basic guidelines which are prevalent in most cases. 

Why not just mix through a can and string?

@

Just skimming it briefly my impression was he was trying to argue against a series of arguments he didn't really understand.

Which tended to make his points somewhere between uncompelling and irrelevant.

Which makes it difficult to even begin to discuss or consider the merit of his conclusions.

Haha I actually know this guy. He's one of my clients from Canada. He's actually a really good engineer and has a killer studio. There's two ways you can take that blog really.

1. This is what works for him and gave him results he can trust. Sometimes, there are little things we come up with that just work for us. There are super popular engineers that have their little secret things they use that they may not tell us about. For example, Dr. Dre, Wanya from Boyz to Men, Beau Hill all have little secrets that some of us would find strange. You know, that piece of gear or a single monitor that just gives you peace of mind? That said, I think the blog was quite credible without any bias since I know the guy.

2. Would I preach it? Probably not because when someone respects what you say (and Paul is pretty highly respected on that site) they tend to follow along. I have to take things like this with a grain of salt and just enjoy the read from someone I respect that has different ways of getting from A to B than I/we may, ya know? The stuff he's using works for him in his environment...it most likely won't work for someone else. I got a killer set of Genelecs in my other studio. I spent big bucks for them and think they sound great. However, we have a set of Rokit 8's (the old big one's they used to make) that came with the purchase of the studio that I absolutely love a bit more than the Gene's. They are far from being considered expensive or popular studio monitors...but the set WE have...works incredibly well.

So to sum it up, it's basically just a man sharing what works for him really and it's obvious that he's passionate about it. No harm no foul, even if we don't totally agree. I can throw you guys one better....since I'm the garbage man...lol...I use a set of Logitech X530's that I just bought for consumer type monitoring. They sound so good it scares me. Yet, when there is a problem with something, what I hear wrong on them is the same thing wrong on my Adam's or NS-10's.....go figure. I actually mixed and mastered a tune using them the other day just to see how off they might be...low and behold...completely acceptable. Not something I'd do for real nor would I try to make others do as I do...but I can say this, they are more than adequate for consumer listening purposes when you just want to hear how your mix will translate on a fair system. They have a sub and are 5.1. The only thing I had a problem with was even with the sub totally turned down, I had a bit too much 80 Hz pumping through them. So, I fired up the eq on my media player and killed it by -5dB and they sound great. :)

Actually to me, all speakers are in-adequate.
I still use JBLs and always will.

But flat, probably none are flat, and if you have to use correction you have changed the signal no matter if it is a 27 band equalizer or not.

Might as well use speakers you are use to and actually use to listen to music done by professionals in a studio (if there is such a thing anymore).

mike_mccue


Danny I think one point to consider is that if you create an argument against a fallacy... it only serves to substantiate the fallacy in some peoples minds.

Unfortunately it usually creates the most confusion amongst the people who might most benefit from simply disregarding erroneous or spurious information.

For example; what conspiracy?



There is none... it's tilting at windmills. So why even bring it up?


all the best,
mike

Yeah I can agree with that Mike...it's definitely a bit of a contradiction...and a pretty strong opinion, that's for sure. But the guy DOES do good work...so whatever works for him, ya know? :)
 
-Danny

droddey


I have a pair of little M-Audio StudioPro 3 speakers as my secondary monitors in the studio. I will say that, if I do a mix that sounds good on those guys, it generally sounds good on the big monitors, sans perhaps a little lows tweaking. OTOH, if I do a mix on the big monitors, it can sound great but not necessarily be very good sounding on other (lesser) monitors, which is mostly what people have.

Those speakers seem designed specifically to emphasize bad frequencies in a mix or something. If there's any mud, any mid-range honk, paper upper-mids, any overly sizzly presence, or harsh highs, they all stick out really badly on those speakers, whereas my big monitors will tend to make things sound better, partly I think because it has much better, solid low end response and that will often balance out those other things in a way that won't happen on a smaller set of speakers.

Ultimately, I guess, your mix is likely to lose low end when it translates to other speakers, more than anything (and get some extra harsh higher end on many other smaller sets), and that nice warm low end can hide a lot of things that would otherwise be a lot more noticeable. Not sure if this an attribute of the NS-10s that so many people use or not, but I wouldn't be suprised if similar sorts of things are going on with them.

Anyhoo, some of that strayed from the real point of this thread, just rambling... Regular stereo speakers, it would seem to me, are likely to be even more forgiving, more designed to sound good rather than revealing of flaws, maybe a little scooped perhaps as well in many cases?

In my experience Dean, it's been the other way around. Stereo speakers were less forgiving because of all the additional coloration totally cornfusing me. LOL! I think this is why this guy's blog is so hard to swallow for some people. Funny thing...and I swear I didn't make a mention of this thread or anything beforehand, but my phone rings tonight and it's Paul! Hahaha! I just had to rib him about that blog and I told him that myself and the Sonar forum think he's a lunatic. He cracked up laughing and said "I know but this has really been working for me!" So he sends me a mix to master and normally, I tell him a few things to fix etc. But this really sounded good and had all the right stuff. So though I'd never do a blog like that in spite of how passionate I can be sometimes, I gotta say...this worked out really well for him even if we think he's a lunatic. LOL! He's actually a really awesome guy, great sense of humor....talks way different than he types. But hey, if something works...what can I say? :) I can say I don't agree with the concept, but I sure approve the end results...even if it may be a weird way to go about it. Hahaha! :)
 
-Danny

In my experience Dean, it's been the other way around. Stereo speakers were less forgiving because of all the additional coloration totally cornfusing me. LOL! I think this is why this guy's blog is so hard to swallow for some people. Funny thing...and I swear I didn't make a mention of this thread or anything beforehand, but my phone rings tonight and it's Paul! Hahaha! I just had to rib him about that blog and I told him that myself and the Sonar forum think he's a lunatic. He cracked up laughing and said "I know but this has really been working for me!"

Ha! You must have been typing at the same time as me.  Get back to work eh!

I started to look at my monitors a bit differently after reading Mike Seniors new book on Mixing Secrets... the first few chapters are all about monitors and especially the lower priced ones that we all here tend to use due to affordability issues. 

There is too much technical stuff in those first few chapters to encapsulate here effectively, so just let me say that you should read it for yourself.... 

Flat is not necessarily as flat as we think it to be. And the ports don't help. 


I appreciate varying views on monitors and IMHO, if it works for you, regardless of how unconventional and against current thinking it might be, and if the mix you get is comparable to accepted industry standards for broadcast quality...... who really cares how you got it? 

Kev999


I'm currently using headphones and entry-level speakers, with the intention of upgrading to something better in future.  Studio monitors are rather expensive, so the question "why do I need them anyway?" seems reasonable to ask.  I hope to see some good answers before I eventually make the leap from skeptic to conspirator.

Many years ago-in the '70's, I had saved my gigging money to buy a home stereo.
While picking out the components I sat with my back to a wall of speakers while the salesperson
switched between them. Nothing he had said about speakers mattered to me and when
I heard the ones I liked I bought them.
I'm also the one that decides when something smells good or not and what others may think
is of no matter- when it's my hearing and my money it's my choice and be damned if I need somebody
to tell me what I need or not....but that's me. ( also wondering....if you don't know how will you
know if the person that you follow is right?)
 
 

Yep, this is what you need.

http://www.wallofsound.ws/



Actually studio moniters are usually better speaker systems and usually cost more for adequate ones.

But then, there have been dials on the amps and stereos that people just can not leave alone, no matter what it sounds like to you.

These are what I chose and enjoyed them until a few years back.
As you can read- now people are trying to learn about them.
( hard to find much info on them now)

This is the company that made them...and with so many "engineers"
talking about their recordings "transferring" to different systems ? what systems?
Check the transfer when listening with the AMT Limited Edition..as
I learned many a tune with my ears tuned to these. (my old bass friend still enjoys his...for
well over 30 years now) Best $4,500.00 you could spend if you're into listening.

bitflipper


Somebody once posted a noobish but thought-provoking question on this forum: if studio monitors are supposed to be flat, then why do they all sound different?

The answer, of course, is that no pair of speakers will ever be truly flat, transparent and uncolored. Even if you could design and build such a thing, it would only perform that way in an anechoic chamber. As soon as you placed it in a room, any room, the frequency response would be determined primarily by the characteristics of the room.

A less-obvious question that should follow is: why don't rooms seem to bother us when listening for pleasure or holding a conversation? If studios are acoustically wanting, surely my TV room is much worse (it is, I've tested it). So why don't acoustic problems impair my enjoyment of concert videos? Why am I not bothered by frequency anomalies and comb filtering when I listen to music in the car?

The answer is that our hearing is extraordinarily adaptable. We routinely tune out extraneous information all the time, an evolutionary trait that began when being able to quickly pinpoint and analyze sounds was crucial to not being eaten by predators.

This is why we can "learn" a pair of speakers and a room, and work around any deficiencies. If you want to mix on hi-fi speakers, go for it. As long as they are able to reproduce the range of frequencies you're interested in, you can eventually make them work with sufficient ear training.

I highly recommend Floyd Toole's book, Sound Reproduction. That book delivered more epiphanies per page than any other reference in my library, and hearing adaptation is an important concept throughout it. 

The most important lesson Dr. Toole taught me was that by far the most important tactic for the home recordist is to simply sit and listen to music, and thereby train your ears (read: subconscious) to recognize what good music sounds like on your speakers and in your room. It really works and costs nothing! And it's much more enjoyable than hanging fiberglass panels.

That doesn't mean quality speakers won't help. My own experience is that it really does make it easier. Same with acoustical treatments or adding a subwoofer. These things make it easier, but they are not what makes it possible.

Just so there is no misunderstanding or assumptions- I didn't recommend mixing with hi-fi speakers.
I am pointing out exactly what you did mention about "learning the sound of speakers". I also
recommend that it would help those that venture into recording to have a good listening system.
 
How is one going to learn what a good mix and sound is if they've never heard it?
If they believe they're going to know what quality sound is based on MP3's, earbuds and such
and think a good set of monitors is going to help...well that's nuts.
 
Listen to reference material on a good system and listen to the results on a good playback
listening system-compared against the reference material. That's learning sound and not "painting by the numbers". That is what helps one learn the sound of their monitors.
 
 

i can hear the difference between low quality and high quality monitors.
it's actually pretty easy to tell them apart.

and i can hear the difference between home stereo speakers, and a similarly sized near field monitor.

so what's the argument about, actually?


i've always thought, that having the right tool, to do the right job, was about making things easier on yourself.
not whether or not you can actually get the job done or not........