Studio Monitors for audio work

[YamaYairi]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

No Yama this is wrong. Let's say we're auditioning sounds in GC Hollywood studio room (gawd forbid). That room (hypothetically and because of it's material construction) is 9dB artificially heavy at 2.3k, 3.4k and 125Hz. Now you have that extremely HEAVY influence of +9db@ 2.3,.3.4 and down at 125Hz while you're listening. You then proceed to make some in store, sonic judgment as to which of the 3 monitor brands your auditioning sounds most flat to you and ultimately come to some sonic conclusions. Of course remember that whatever eq curve/repsonse that particular brand is offering you is HIGHLY skewed by the GC room. The old wives tale that jazz or classical music is a better choice of audition material is just that...a wives tale. It absolutely doesn't matter what program material you've chosen as each and everyone one of those monitors (first and foremost) generates sound to your ear that is grandly influenced by that room, which of course is not flat. You may in fact come to a conclusion that monitors "B" are the most neutral in the GC room and they well may be (in the GC room). All of those conclusions however go flinging out the window when you get home to a room that's NOT +9db heavy at 125, 2.3 and 3.4 but indeed (hypothetically) your room is +9dB heavy at 400Hz, 4.1 and 6.5.

I understand all that. The speakers I am suggesting would be purchased in an audio salon, not GC, and these stores usually have some kind of room treatment. I have gone speaker shopping in audio stores and take the speakers home and get similar sound out of them. And I do understand that it is not reasonable to assume that your listening room / studio will have the same acoustic properties as the listening room in the store. But the salons take pains to keep their room acoustics pretty neutral so you can make an educated decision. They don't want their customers to get home and be pissed off when the speakers they just purchased sound like crap.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Free Online Room Acoustics Analysis

http://www.atsacoustics.com/page--Fr...ysis--ora.html

Well...I guess that couldn't hurt. Auralex and GIK offer similar services as well. When I mentioned the Dolby Lab guys in truth their process is a physical one. It's a real-time, come out to the room personally, white noise, microphone driven analysis of the sonics of the room. They have no stake in selling anything afterwards. They make no suggestions as to what material might work to correct their findings. Once the room is physically analyzed they use a dual 31 band eq to address anomalies they have found. They use earplugs and blast white noise at 85dB. The process takes about 45 minutes or so to analyze and another 30 minutes to apply the eq curve. I've seen a room recently where the room was 4dB louder on the right side than the left even though the output at the speakers were identical. The room created that bump. Strange because my meters where reflecting a 4dB drop on the right side. I mixed that way having to assume that it was the room and not the electronics creating that bump.

So the idea is you would complete your mix with the eq on the mains (in this case with a readable 4dB right side drop) effectively then mixing to a flat room, albeit an electronically flat room as opposed to a manually treated and tuned room. When the mix is finished (before lay-back or final bounce) the eq is then shut off again as to not "print" the eq that only addresses anomalies present in the room itself.

[MikeBmusic]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Regarding acoustic panels, IMO just get professionally premade ones, and I suggest ATS:



http://www.atsacoustics.com/cat--ATS...nels--100.html

Wall mounting
http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--ac...are--IK12.html

Ceiling mounting
http://www.atsacoustics.com/cloud-in...-hardware.html

also read FAQ
http://www.atsacoustics.com/page--Ac...FAQs--faq.html

The premade ATS panels are a good value, although they use the Roxul AFB rather than the -60 insulation, so their absorption is not quite on par with OC703. 4 panels from them woudl have cost me, total, about the same as the 6 I was able to build with Roxul-60 from them, and other components (and cloth) local.

[gtonesine]

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

1x4 frame

Insulation laid in - you can see there really not any 'loose fibers' with this stuff, unlike 'fluffy fiberglass.

Burlap covering it all.

Here you can see 3 of the traps in place - 2 on my 'front' wall, and one to the side. I've got 3 more behind me, plus corner superchunks plus ceiling cloud traps. Have to take a new picture now with my new JBL monitors in place!

your panels look good, 1x4 with rock wool and burlap. Rock wool is better than fiberglas that's for sure.
I would have no problems building panels, I have worked as a carpenter and cabinet maker and done architectural work. I just always research materials before I build anything, if I have time .
thanks mike

[gtonesine]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Yes but if I might add here (and yes I know this will piss a lot of people off).

The long, long, long standing wives tale that one should choose a studio monitor that is accurate, flat response (or even less fatiguing) seems to fool a lot of people. A studio monitor can only be as accurate (or not) as the room that they sit in. You quite possible could have an enormously accurate speaker (based on the manufacturer's spec's which were measured in a flat environment) turn into a monster of sonic tom-foolery in a room that's not flat (which is of course virtually every home studio on the planet). You simply can not "buy" a pair of monitors and then assume they're giving you a flat response. It's a virtual impossibility unless you're confident you're in a flat response room to begin with. The industry tried to sugar coat this problem by referring to monitor as "near-field" which was to give the impression that "in the near field" anomalies don't show up. That of course is a silly and comical reference.

Secondarily (and not directed at this post specifically but as a broad brush stroke) you really can't effectively "treat a room" with anything (rockwool wool/auralex/egg cartons/foam/bass traps/clouds ect without first knowing what the actual problems are. Throwing up rockboard/rockwool very well could help with acoustic anomalies but is fairly worthless endeavor unless you first identify what those anomalies are. I suppose you could do it and "hope" you've guessed right but every room is a snowflake, no two are even remotely a sonic match.

I dunno about other areas of the country but here in Los Angeles, Dolby Labs offers a fairly cheap "room tuning" service. Right now Waves is offering a dual 31 band EQ for $99.00. That EQ and a Dolby Labs tuning session will give you and your room a VERY real picture of what exactly the problems are in your specific studio, it will further give you an immediate solution (the Waves EQ) and then a much clearer path to take if you want to address your rooms with treatment instead of an eq.

Any other path is an absolute and complete guessing game.



Again this is inaccurate (pardon the pun) unless you're absolutely confident your room is utterly flat. Pristine, totally flat response monitors in a whacked room equals a whacked response...period.

Joseph,

I can understand exactly what you are talking about , find out what the problems are and then mitigate them. I did send an email to Dolby Labs to get a quote . I tried to find the waves 31 band EQ and no success there either, I am a total audio novice so I assume I am looking for software plug in and not a hardware graphic equalizer . I did have one other question, naive no doubt but , If I had a 10 foot by 12 foot room with 8 foot ceiling height and covered the walls,windows , doors, completely with acoustic panels , the corners with bass traps , the ceiling with clouds and the floor with carpet , would this room have a more of less flat response ?
thanks

[gtonesine]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Free Online Room Acoustics Analysis

http://www.atsacoustics.com/page--Fr...ysis--ora.html

ran the acoustic analysis, for a room I have
thanks for url

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by gtonesine

I assume I am looking for software plug in and not a hardware graphic equalizer

Either. The Waves 31 Band I spoke of is a plug-in. There are a bunch of great dual (stereo) 31 band hardware eq's on the market as well. They're however and by and large, not quite as affordable as software.

Originally Posted by gtonesine

I did have one other question, naive no doubt but , If I had a 10 foot by 12 foot room with 8 foot ceiling height and covered the walls,windows , doors, completely with acoustic panels , the corners with bass traps , the ceiling with clouds and the floor with carpet , would this room have a more of less flat response ?
thanks

A educated guess would be absolutely not But that said, rooms are a strange combination of a billion components which often belie logic. I'm betting if Dolby (or anyone else who might be good at that sort of thing) came and analyzed your room, your jaw would drop at just how wonky it really is. Further, understand that making a room "dead" (which is what it appears you're doing) doesn't have anything to do with it being flat. It's also worth noting that in reality very, very few room are actually flat. It is however (at least for a mixing environment) a worthy goal.

The Dolby solution is a bit of an electronic "end around" to a pristine, acoustically tuned room. But understand a "Russ Berger" acoustically tuned room can easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back in my Digidesign days I was lucky enough to be in a couple of million dollar (literally) rooms and even when you think your're prepared for it, it's still an eye opening sonic experience.

[TenHairlessCats]

Dynaudio BM5A's are very nice, and a used set can usually be acquired for around $600. As for room acoustics, if you're in a basement/got solid walls, put up some mat, and you keep the monitors at least a couple feet away from the walls, you should be alright.

[gtonesine]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Either. The Waves 31 Band I spoke of is a plug-in. There are a bunch of great dual (stereo) 31 band hardware eq's on the market as well. They're however and by and large, not quite as affordable as software.



A educated guess would be absolutely not But that said, rooms are a strange combination of a billion components which often belie logic. I'm betting if Dolby (or anyone else who might be good at that sort of thing) came and analyzed your room, your jaw would drop at just how wonky it really is. Further, understand that making a room "dead" (which is what it appears you're doing) doesn't have anything to do with it being flat. It's also worth noting that in reality very, very few room are actually flat. It is however (at least for a mixing environment) a worthy goal.

The Dolby solution is a bit of an electronic "end around" to a pristine, acoustically tuned room. But understand a "Russ Berger" acoustically tuned room can easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back in my Digidesign days I was lucky enough to be in a couple of million dollar (literally) rooms and even when you think your're prepared for it, it's still an eye opening sonic experience.

You have steered me back to the basics, signals and measurement and what is flat response , and that a haphazard use of acoustic panels is not the way to approach room treatment. Your responses have been very helpful.

[rick-slo]

Your best bet is an acoustically treated room that essentially deadens the room. Then you can recording in different parts of the room and with different mike positions more freely. In a live room frequency responses of the room vary quite a lot from place to place (even by inches) within the room. Since I treated my room I rarely have to mess around with equalization more than perhaps a high pass filter or on a harsh note here and there.

[MikeBmusic]

Originally Posted by gtonesine

You have steered me back to the basics, signals and measurement and what is flat response , and that a haphazard use of acoustic panels is not the way to approach room treatment. Your responses have been very helpful.

Yeah, haphazard is NOT the way to do it! Corner bass traps, traps on side walls at points of first reflection and a ceiling cloud over the listening area are the basic starting points.
If you have monitors with rear bass ports, then there should be traps behind them (it would seem to defeat the purpose of the ports, but it ends up balancing the sound).

You're not going to get complete 'flat response' in any average-sized room that was not designed from the start with acoustics in mind but you can tame flutter echo and bass wave build-up with simple trapping.

[louparte]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

I have a pair of Rokit 6s. They work just fine. Never had any reliability issues with them. But, the Rokit series have a bass port, which really isn't the best way to go with a monitor for acoustic. If I had it to do again I would probably get the Yamaha speakers or some other brand without bass ports.

Todd

A really good producer/engineer recommended KrK's to me when I was in the market. Couldn't find 'em where I live.

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Yes but if I might add here (and yes I know this will piss a lot of people off).

The long, long, long standing wives tale that one should choose a studio monitor that is accurate, flat response (or even less fatiguing) seems to fool a lot of people. A studio monitor can only be as accurate (or not) as the room that they sit in. You quite possible could have an enormously accurate speaker (based on the manufacturer's spec's which were measured in a flat environment) turn into a monster of sonic tom-foolery in a room that's not flat (which is of course virtually every home studio on the planet). You simply can not "buy" a pair of monitors and then assume they're giving you a flat response. It's a virtual impossibility unless you're confident you're in a flat response room to begin with. The industry tried to sugar coat this problem by referring to monitor as "near-field" which was to give the impression that "in the near field" anomalies don't show up. That of course is a silly and comical reference.

Secondarily (and not directed at this post specifically but as a broad brush stroke) you really can't effectively "treat a room" with anything (rockwool wool/auralex/egg cartons/foam/bass traps/clouds ect without first knowing what the actual problems are. Throwing up rockboard/rockwool very well could help with acoustic anomalies but is fairly worthless endeavor unless you first identify what those anomalies are. I suppose you could do it and "hope" you've guessed right but every room is a snowflake, no two are even remotely a sonic match.

I dunno about other areas of the country but here in Los Angeles, Dolby Labs offers a fairly cheap "room tuning" service. Right now Waves is offering a dual 31 band EQ for $99.00. That EQ and a Dolby Labs tuning session will give you and your room a VERY real picture of what exactly the problems are in your specific studio, it will further give you an immediate solution (the Waves EQ) and then a much clearer path to take if you want to address your rooms with treatment instead of an eq.

Any other path is an absolute and complete guessing game.

Again this is inaccurate (pardon the pun) unless you're absolutely confident your room is utterly flat. Pristine, totally flat response monitors in a whacked room equals a whacked response...period.

I have always been skeptical about monitor-mania. "Accurate" according to what? Is there a measurement for accuracy? Or is it subjective?

I bought into the mania anyway. I use MAudio M1mkII. I also use good headphones too.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Several *excellent* posts snipped.

A few points of mitigation:

1) Many (most?) folks here are only mixing a few tracks, such as stereo acoustic guitar (no vocals), singer/songwriter blends, or a small ensemble. That is not as demanding as mixing, say, 50 tracks, from a variety of sources many of which generate fundamental frequencies below or above this.

2) A treated room (with bass traps, etc.) is better than an untreated room, for recording, mixing and/or mastering.

3) Anomalies within a room vary depending on the location.

4) Although it makes sense to record, mix and/or master is the best room possible, the room in which the listener hears the result, and the equipment used for that hearing, are quite important, and in some cases are more important than the room(s) in which production occured and the equipment used for that production.

[Luria]

Originally Posted by gtonesine

working with laptop speakers or earbuds and would like to get studio monitors
to connect to my laptop:

if you are a bedroom Recordist, then the one thing you dont want is any Monitor whose woofer is over 5".
People who have home studios typically have bare walls and that is a big issue.
So, if you go with "larger is better", then you are only going to end up with mixes that are not going to translate.
So, go with the smallest best sounding monitor you can afford.
Focal CMS 40s would be my choice if i were going to record in a bedroom sized space that has typical bare bedroom walls.
or, you might try the Adam F5s.
Both of these monitors sound excellent, and the F5 perhaps is slightly more articulate due to the folded Ribbon Tweeter.
Neither are cheap, but as sound is the main thing, then each part of your recording and playback sound "chain" needs to be as good/accurate as possible.