I need studio monitors, yo

derkface · Post by **derkface** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:00 am

the speakers i'm using in my "studio" are a joke. i'm not even going to tell you because you will laugh at me. so i need some good flat bitches to play my sounds. instead of researching myself i'll let you all tell me which speakers i should spend my student loan on. the operative word here is value. i'll type it again: value. i'm an impoverished student (literally... impoverished), but they should still be fairly decent. so... what'll it be? also... sorry for the off topic question, be gentle with me.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 8:08 am

whats your budget?

the KRK Rokit RP6's go for $400 a pair (with 6" woofers, powered - 100w per speaker)

or if yer on more of a budget, theres 1 step down with the RP5's (with 5" woofers, powered - 75w per speaker) $300 a pair.

they also make a matched 225w 10" powered subwoofer for $300. The RP-10s

i use tannoys with a Samson amp, but a few friends of mine are using the KRK's and if i had to buy monitors tomorrow - i'd get the RP6's, or RP5's if budget was only $300. I would stay away from the Samsons and Behringers. The price might be right but ya get what ya pay for big time. i found the samsons to be real sharp, and the behringers to have a hole in the mids.

Audiomidi.com sells them

majestic · Post by **majestic** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 8:54 am

Whenever monitors are mentioned, the most common advice is "don't listen to us, listen to your ears", and that's very true. It's very subjective stuff and only you can decide what faithfully reproduces glitchfolkpop. All I'd really suggest is that you go for active nearfields (no need to power 'em with a separate amplifier), and go for at least a 6" woofer.

The other piece of common advice is "spend loads of cash on your monitors". While I think that's also generally true, your student loan probably doesn't extend to a pair of Genelecs, so you need to look seriously at the cheaper offerings from KRK, Event, Alesis, Tannoy, etc.

Don't stress too much about it, whatever you get will be a damn sight better than those "monitors" you're running right now.

Good luck.

derkface · Post by **derkface** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:48 am

thank you AdamJay and majestic for your kind responses thus far. other people: respond or die.

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:26 am

yamaha ns-10's. they're the white-coned speakers you see in the background of almost all control-room shots in any recording mag. if your mix sounds good on those, it'll sound good on anything. discontinued, but $300-600 used on ebay. highly recommended.

k

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:50 am

Go on, tell us what a student loan runs to these days

I know that when I was a student blowing my whole wad at the start of term was derigeur sooooooo....who knows how much ya got???

eisnein · Post by **eisnein** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 4:15 pm

derkface--

mmm yeah, no matter how much genelecs cost unless you have good ears for them i dont think mixes sound all tht great off them. THey are so revealing that things that sound like huge changes on them dont make a difference on normal speakers.

if you are in school, id say get a pair of NS-10's off ebay if you can find/afford them.(in my opinion, they sound so bad that if you can make a mix sound good on them you are set) or some new in the box active monitors at guit center or wherever, check em out first.

being a broke post-college student myself i rely on a nice pair of headphones for mixing and the mixes sound great elsewhere. also no matter wha you buy for monitors, keep your setup so you can run it through a cheap home stereo and check your mix on there. (although i dont recommend computer speakers w/sub)

good luck,

Elijah

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:23 pm

NS10s are OK but ain't telling you much if you're working in the bass dept. unless you got 'em up fairly loud...like someone else said, carve out a few models in your range then go do some listening. Mackie 824s here and loving them but these babies need ROOM, but get them up and they rock the house...and the house next door too!

kent_sandvik · Post by **kent_sandvik** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:44 pm

Well, working with NS10s are not fun... Go with some nice-sounding generic reference monitors in the $400-500 range, and you have more fun doing music. NS10s were good long time ago when most consumer playback monitors were crappy, today the situation is very different. --Kent

eisnein · Post by **eisnein** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 6:08 pm

yeah NS-10's arent great for having fun on or in the bass department, but you will get a more accurate bass for other peoples systems,...

plus it all does depend on what your intended outlet is.....if you want to mix tracks for other people to listen to and have an accurate mix buy something for refrence. otherwise buy what feels good and moves yer lower pelvic regions.

for playback/listening i like event 20/20s but i wouldnt trust my mix on them to transfer well to a home stereo. \\\

and yeah home stereo equipment has changed remarkabley but how many people have fancy ass bose systems? alot of Dj's dont even setup the sub freq 's right!

all in all find what feels best for the least amount of money.

this is starting to become OT so i will just mention LIVE and how great it sounds through my Fisher home stereo speakers powered by my Aiwa power amp.

later

Elijah

eisnein · Post by **eisnein** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 6:18 pm

and yes i know i know--

music is all about having fun, but it is also about translating your creative idea as close to your vision as possible so that other people can enjoy it too. or its masterbatory (which btw is totally cool too)

millionVALVE · Post by **millionVALVE** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:47 pm

Here's an idea: Buy some used NS-10/NS-10M's and add a cheap ($50) subwoofer.

In my studio I use both NS-10M's, and what I consider to be about the best speaker ever made: The Yamaha NS-1000M (3-way, 12", 62 lbs each).

At work (just to keep my ears in practice), I have the aforementioned setup of a pair of 10M's and a cheap Yamaha (consumer grade) sub hooked up to the speaker "A" and speaker "B" outs, respectively, of a stereo receiver.

It's not even very properly crossed over, but it's amazing how good it sounds. I can turn the sub on and off with a push-button, so I can see instantly what the 10's are leaving out in the low registers. And that's all you need that sub for becasue the 10's do everything else so crisply.

THe Yamaha NS-10's are part myth and part reality, but I'd hate to not have mine to mix on. I find that mixes started out on the NS-10's are easier to deal with. When I start trying to juice the bass while mixing on the NS-1000M's (early on), it'll start getting out of hand--too much of a good thing. A crisp mix can have the lows tweaked or reinforced via instrumentation/arrangement later on. (Yes, even on dNb.)

Also, here's an experiment: Go listen to some (any!) Boards of Canada on a pair of NS-10's. It is prooffuckingpositive that NS-10's can be made to sound perfect and sweet. You will find that many well-done pro mixes will sound great, too. Obviously, we are not talking a Kicker system in your trunk here--it's about a sweet, workable mix. It's sort of like a test tone: You wouldn't want to listen to it all day, but it's indispensable when calibrating things!

best-
.nick

kent_sandvik · Post by **kent_sandvik** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 8:45 pm

I have an old stereo system wired in parallel to my computer setup, so I could switch over and listen to the mix on those loudspeakers anytime, but for the day-to-day recording and production, I don't use those at all. This ways if I ever need to listen to the mix on a 'normal' set, I don't need to purchase an NS1O (I do have my NS10s hooked to the TV, but I think even for TV playback those systems are pretty bad).

If I ever do a proper recording, I would ship it to a postproduction house for the final post-processing, they will do a much better job than I with either NS10 or expensive speakers.

I still think the main thing with speakers is to have both a relatively OK flat response, *as well as* sounding OK to good so you have a good time doing music, instead of audio-wise suffering while recording and producing music, that's not fun. That's why I prefer decent to good reference monitors. But each ear is different, so you need to go with what you think is good for you.

orage · Post by **orage** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 8:57 pm

Tannoy's Reveal Active are great speakers for a pretty decent price (<$600).

I have two pairs myself.

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:55 pm

orage wrote:Tannoy's Reveal Active are great speakers for a pretty decent price (<$600).

I have two pairs myself.

I'll second that. Been using mine for 9 months now and they're very good for the price, a bit light on the bottom end because they roll off at around 65hz, most consumer speakers don't go that far down anyway so it doesn't really matter that much. You can use a spectrum anyliser to see if you hve problems down there if it's a concern.