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The Truth about
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So lets talk about studio monitors. A thorny subject to be sure, with as many opinions as is believable. As with microphones and sequencers, the debate often turns into flame-fests. Yet there has been some progress in our understanding of monitors. Nearly everyone seems to agree that one needs a "near field" monitor to accurately assess the music they are creating. A near field monitor is one that you keep pretty close to you, typically between 3-5 feet. The idea here is that the music we hear is dramatically altered by room acoustics. Go try a little experiment. Take
any speaker and put it in the corner of a room. You will hear bass resonating through the room that does not exist when the speaker is in the middle of the room.
Those with big buck studios can afford to treat their room acoustically, with bass traps and other devices. Perhaps those are the only places where one still sees the mammoth monitors that create wall sized sound. The near field monitor is the solution to minimize as much as possible the interaction of sound with the room. Because they are positioned close to you, you hear the sound directly. Because they are so close you need less volume, so less of the sound travels to walls and corners and bounces back at you.
Unlike a hi-fi speaker, which is designed, hopefully, to make all audio material sound pleasing to the ear, the studio monitor has as it's main objective to
paint an accurate audio image of the material, with no unnatural emphasis or de-emphasis of particular frequencies. This is what it means when a monitor is said to be "flat". and "uncolored" or "transparent". That's the theory at least. Reality sometimes paints a different picture. And this is where the arguing typically begins.
| Monitors for the Home and Project Studio
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Should a monitor really be flat? Some say
no. They say buy a monitor that you like to listen to, that your favorite music sounds great on, then match your efforts in the mix to produce that sound you love. Others, however, say if certain frequencies are over represented,
you will under-represent them in your mix. Huh? Ok here we go.
Studio Jock A has a bass-shy set of nearfields. S/he like the bass strong and thumpin' So they make those little 6 inch woofs pop to the beat. When Jock A goes to
Jock B's studio, equipped with subwoofers, Jock A realizes his or her mix is nothing but one giant wash of low frequency mud. Ah, dude, you lost that one. But before you go post on my forum "HELP ME!!!!!!!, my mix thounds like thiiiit" keep reading, ok?
| I like my Bass! Do I need a subwoofer? |
| If you really like bass you need a subwoofer so you can actually hear what bass you are creating. With small speakers you are NOT going to hear the full bass tone and you won't know if you hit a low C or a C#. But the people with subs will know. However, be advised to keep your subwoofer at a very low level when mixing, because, as I point out in the article, you run a risk of creating a bass-shy mix. |
Now Jock B in his premium subwoofer enhanced bass studio smiles condescendingly at Jock A, tweaks a mix to pure sonic bass perfection. The Bass is just blowin' everyone's chest away like a heart attack, but the rest of the mix appears strong and balanced in all frequency regions. Jock B smugly walks a CD to Jock A's studio and loads his latest mix. To their astonishment, the bass is gone, not even present except a little wimpy tap-tap-tap of a cardboard sounding kik drum. Tweak rolls on the floor, laughing his a** off. Jock B sputters, having lost his composure, "W-w-w.here did my bass go!??" Ahem, the "truth" is that because Jock B heard the bass so well in his studio, he did not put enough into the mix, and the little "flat" monitors at studio A didn't give a flying cone excursion.
This brings us to Tweak's Law, which says, whatever your monitors are good at is exactly what your mix will be bad at. So then, what is the "Truth" in monitoring? Who has the Truth? Hehe, how dare they name a monitor after it! Is it just like a war of religions? Nope. The "truth" really has less to do with the monitor itself and more to do with
the experience of the producer. The truth is that if your music is successful, people will listen to it in the car, on boom boxes, on their walkman, on mom's kitchen radio with the 3 inch speaker, in living rooms with surround systems, in listening booths a cd stores, on TV, and every once in a while, maybe 1 out of every 100 listens, someone will hear it on good speakers, and maybe, if you are lucky 1 out of 1000 on studio monitors. The
real truth is in the understanding of how your mix on your monitors
translates to other listening conditions. That is, you have to really "know" your monitors. The main thing is to get a set you are comfortable with, that you can listen to all day. Your ears will actually "learn" the monitor. As you check you mix on other systems, you will learn about your systems deficiencies and compensate. The truth is not a quality of the object, but a quality of ear, mind and experience. "It's in your head".
So, then, what makes a good monitor, other than the sound it produces? A good monitor is rugged, and can handle peaks, overloads, feedback mistakes and come back ready for more. It's funny. I started my sound development business on hi-end 3-way audiophile speakers, which worked great for a year. But with the constant tweaking of sound experiments in sub bass regions, the woofers just popped right out of their cones with a 360 degree rip around the cone. Bummer. Hi-Fi speakers are not made to take abuse above typical programmed material. Sure you can use them, just don't use them as the main monitors.
A good monitor does not artificially exaggerate frequencies. You do not want a speaker that sounds like a
"disco smile". That's where the bass and the treble are boosted and the mids are cut. They call it a "smile" because that's how it looks on a graphic equalizer. Lots of people really like that sound. If you like that sound, mix up a nice smile for your monitors. Then it might actually translate on other systems. But if you speakers make that automatically, you mix will be shown lacking in bass and high transients. Using that principle was the secret behind the Yamaha NS-10s, the most horrible sounding speaker ever made. On an NS10 there was no bass, no high end, just screeching awful sounding peaky mids. People who referenced on them had to boost the bass massively and cut the mids. The resultant mix? Yep, the disco smile. It made hit after hit and people thought they were magic. If you could make the shrill box sound passable, it would sound great everywhere else.
Lookup Reviews on Studio Monitors
So now you know my biases. I know you are wondering which monitors I think are "best" over there on the right. I know you aren't going to let me get away with just saying "the ones your ears like". So many choices! All the monitors you see are workable solutions. So how do you know if your ears like them? You have to listen (Doh!) of course, but listen "comparatively". I suggest taking along your absolute most known CD--a mix you know intimately and have head a few million times, like "Stairway to Heaven". You "know" how it should sound. It's in your bones. If you hear stuff you have never heard before, give that monitor a point. Now listen for deficiencies in the bass. Is the voice coil working really hard to produce very little bass? Is there a certain bass resonance, a sound of air rushing out the ports? Is the high end smooth? Or is it harsh and grainy. Is the box squawking at mid range frequencies? These are all "box deficiencies". The more speakers you listen to, the more you will hear the problems. Then it dawns on you, you can find a problem with every enclosure and know there is no perfect monitor. So you look at the higher end and you find that the better priced monitors typically exhibit fewer objectionable problems. The end is always a compromise with what you like and what you want to spend.
Fortunately, when you get your new monitors home, and set them up, placing them exactly where your ears want them, the learning process begins. As you gain experience attending to your audio, you will learn to improve your mixes. You'll know your monitor's "blind spots" and will learn to check on other systems. The more you do that, the more your monitors become a true reference. I hope I have shown that reference is not a quality of a box, but a quality of your attention and experience.
Questions
q: What is the difference between Active Monitors and regular Speakers
Tweak: Active monitors have have a power amp built right into them. Usually, these are mounted on the back. "Regular speakers" which are also called passive monitors, require an amplifier to drive them. The idea behind active monitors is to match them to an amp which is ideal to drive them. This takes some of the guesswork out of buying a monitoring system. Also, since active monitors are connected directly to your mixing board or audio interface, they eliminate speaker wires and hence another source of potential trouble
q: OK Tweak, just tell me the most important thing I need to know in One Sentence. Keep it real simple dude!
Tweak: Hah. Ok, here's one for you. The ideal monitor must deliver sound quality when you have sound quality and not deliver it when you do not have it.
q: Argh. What do you have Tweak? Do you like them?
Tweak: These. Yes they are nice. If buying today I'd consider Dynaudio's BM5a
q: Hey Tweak, I have Passive monitors. How in th' heck do I hook up my sound card to my home stereo. I can use passive studio monitors with a stereo right?
Tweak: Passive monitors work exactly like any other speaker system, so yes, plug them in like you would your speakers, observing the proper polarity for positive and negative. You may want to pay attention to the watts per channel of the amp. You don't want to connect a 35 watt RMS receiver to some big monitors that are designed to handle 100 watts per channel. And underpowered amp does more harm than an overpowered amp especially when you crank the underpowered amp up. I have used receivers of 100-120 watts RMS with passive monitors and they worked fine.
Also see:
At what volumes should one monitor ?
q: Is it possible to get a flat mix with any monitor, given you do acoustical treatment to the room and measure the room's response with test equipment?
Tweak: Indeed, bass traps and sound diffusers can dramatically help any monitor deliver its potential. A bad room can mess with the sound of the best monitors in the world. Check out this thread in the forums
Getting a flat monitor mix with any monitors
The Mastering Engineers "Secret Weapon?" Could it be true?
Wharfedale DP8.2A Diamond Pro
Active Monitor (6.5 in.)
Make no mistake -- these don't just
lead the class, they completely redefine it! The 8.1A provides a 1/4 in.
unbalanced input, and the 8.2A provides a balanced XLR-1/4 in. combo input.
Rear panel controls include Volume level and a carefully tailored bass
filter switch. For professional recording and post production, Diamond 8
speakers are a superb reference for the creation and mixing of program
material Tweak:
If you are looking for monitors for less than $350 a pair you should
check these out.
Reviews of Monitors at Studio-Central
Reviews of Studio Monitors on the Web
I am,
Rich the TweakMeister
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Cool Quote: "The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.." Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher |
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