A little help with monitors.

[Bad Attitude]

Alright guys, we have been getting more serious into the mastering/EQ side of production and it has become clear that we need monitor speakers.

Or do we? I mean, we just don't really know too much about the hardware part of production.
Anyway why I'm here is to ask, for us what kind of monitors should we go for.

I mean obviously tell us the best, but ideally which would be best on a budget, one of us is a student and the other not working at the moment lol.

Cheers in advance guys.

[ChadDub]

Get the RP8's with the Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 preamp. All you really NEED, and they're quality.

[symmetricalsounds]

Get the RP8's with the Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 preamp. All you really NEED, and they're quality.

they're totally not all you need and your focusrite scarlett is an audio interface which does have mic preamps but it isn't a preamp itself.

@ OP - you need to work out your budget and then try to demo monitors in your price range, if you're getting serious then you definitely neeed monitors. also start reading up on room acoustics and getting room treatment which will also make a big difference to the sound.

monitors are a personal choice and everyone has different opinions, i actually own the same RP8's that chad has but i wouldn't just say get them that's all you need cos it's bollox. you need to find out what speakers are gonna be best for you and your room.

[atticuh]

you need to find out what speakers are gonna be best for you and your room.

Ahhh, this is the biggest reason why I chose to go with headphones for tracking/monitoring as opposed to traditional monitors. You have to acoustically treat your room as well in order to make the most of them.

Of course with headphones, you run into stereo imaging issues; however, you can always reference your music through your hifi speakers post-mix.

[symmetricalsounds]

need both really, well ideally what you need is a set of barefoot mm27s then some lower end monitors and then some shitty 2.1 computer speakers and then also some good headphones, or even a few pairs of them too. all about being able to reference different speakers. understanding how they relay the sounds you create definitely helps.

[gen_]

you need to find out what speakers are gonna be best for you and your room.

Ahhh, this is the biggest reason why I chose to go with headphones for tracking/monitoring as opposed to traditional monitors. You have to acoustically treat your room as well in order to make the most of them.

Of course with headphones, you run into stereo imaging issues; however, you can always reference your music through your hifi speakers post-mix.

Really, really, really against this personally. If it works for you then great, but I've had far too many problems and lost a lot of money attempting to do this only to have something that sounds shit when I take it to a studio and put it on Gennies.

@OP Headphones are a stopgap, but proximity effect, imaging, and crosstalk means you will never be sure a god mix will sound balanced on everything without spending as much as you would for a superior set of monitors.

Not only that, trust me when I say the day you get monitors you will be turned into a noob again and realise just how much of the music you were missing on whatever else you were using. The difference is that big!

[ChadDub]

Not only that, trust me when I say the day you get monitors you will be turned into a noob again and realise just how much of the music you were missing on whatever else you were using. The difference is that big!

Yeah, this. I thought my stuff was decent, but it turns out my stuff is shit. lol.

[Bad Attitude]

Cheers a bunch guys, gonna look into a set soon as.
Big up!

[gen_]

Not only that, trust me when I say the day you get monitors you will be turned into a noob again and realise just how much of the music you were missing on whatever else you were using. The difference is that big!

Yeah, this. I thought my stuff was decent, but it turns out my stuff is shit. lol.

That's the first step to becoming great. I shill hate most of what i make now, because I know I set very high standards for myself and I realize that half of what I can hear others can't in both a good and bad way.

Like for example, I'll be able to hear the awesomeness of every single instrument in my track but everyone else will just hear the top layer of sound so sometimes I have to remove some awesome bits simply to make sure that that top layer sounds crystal. People say make whatever you like, but you have to remember an the end of the day that in music you are only as good as everyone else says you are. There's plenty of producers out there that think their gods gift to music but can't tell the difference between a clap and a snare.

/nannying on n shit

[MikkiFunk]

Get the RP8's with the Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 preamp. All you really NEED, and they're quality.

Why do so many people on here have their heads stuck of KRK's bass ports? I don't know where the speakers end and these people begin lol.

You should look at your budget for monitors and then look at some monitors in your given price range. Considering the fact that everyone and their nan has the KRK RP series monitors they've become a very 'amateur'/ wannabe model of speaker. The KRK VXT Series are great great speakers but the RP series are the lowest of the low monitors you could get.

One of the key points i would say if you're going to get some good monitors for mixing, is spend the money on a speaker with a larger 7 or 8 inch woofer. A smaller 5 inch woofer won't represent bass too well. E.g. I've mixed on Tannoy Reveal 5A's (5" woofer) and the bass was seriously lacking, not much punch either imo. I tried Tannoy Reveal 8D's (you guessed it, 8" woofer), to see the difference the size would make, and there it was, the low end that was in the mix that I couldn't hear before.

Personally I use Adam A7X's. Very nice speakers. Very clear highs (possibly slightly forward but there is a 'tweeter gain' round the back of them), good mids, and nice tight low end, really good in fact for the size. Got them from http://www.soundslive.co.uk/ for £369 each (they did a price beat on Digital Village by about £60 for each speaker, so that was really good. I've also used Genelec 8040's, which are pretty small, but they are great monitors! About £1300-1400 for the pair though so not cheap.

Just please go and try some monitors out for yourself and see what you think, don't go for the 'all you need is KRKs crap' lol. Monitors are preference, hence why some people mix on Gens, others mix on Yamaha's, another might mix on Fostex or Focal. Maybe take someone or a mate for a second opinion (just make sure they're not biased to KRK's or anything

Like SymetricalSounds said, ideally you want a really high end pair of speakers, some lower end ones, then some 'grot boxes' (shit hi fi speakers or even computer speakers to check a good mix on). Get that when you're rich though, just stick to one pair for now.

Also don't get even think about getting a sub until you have some room treatment.

Good luck

[symmetricalsounds]

innit

like i said i've even got a set of the rp8s, but i'm under no illusion, i'm at the bottom end of the market but the same way i made my shit work for me when i had a £20 set of speakers i'll make it work now.

even a 3 grand set of barefoots can't substitute for a set of trained ears and the mind that's thinking on it. learning how sound is reproduced in different situations, you hear music in different places everyday, tv adverts, in a shop, in the car, listening to how elements are balanced with each other, you can make your off time work for you.

you can either bitch and whine, wish your time away thinking you can't ever get to where you want to be without some posh speakers but it all counts. you spend those first 2-3 years on whatever piece of shit speakers you can afford and just do it. learn all you can, google your ass off, spend time learning your tools even if it goes nowhere it doesn't matter. 3 hours spent playing with a synth getting nothing useable is still time well spent and is going to pay off.

every track you make is made up of millions of little decisions, decide to increase the attack a little on that bass and that affects the tune as a whole. trust in your ears and your taste, let your instincts take over for a while and if it goes wrong no harm done. learn to keep iterated saves of your tracks, tune-A1, tune-A2-changedVox, if you work like that then you don't need to worry you're going to go down a blind alley. you've always got ctrl+z for undo, it's called non-destructive editing for a reason.

[gen_]

As a producer and/or a maker of beats, Rokits are a great starting point for producers that have come from clubs systems and home speakers. They are not the cleanest, nor are they the most civilized, but they have clarity way above most hi-fi systems whilst still kicking a out a good amount of bass and boom and letting you have a decent house party with em.

If you asked me what the best speakers in the world for your studio were I'd tell you Genelec 1032s, but if you have a home studio they will be too sterilized, uninspiring, and accurate for you to get inspired, yet your room will always be to reflective, full of reverb and un-sterililized for them to ever realize their potential.

The more you spend on speakers the better the environment you have to have for them to ever live up to thier name. If someone starts at the bottom, these and the Behringer truths are all I can recommend, and these have a lot more bottom end than behringers so as I am on dsf, I recommended Rokits.

Sure, there is a million other low end speakers out there, but how many of them are actually 6 grand designs with slightly lesser materials?

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Of course there's always this > http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/ to tide you over till you get some monitors. They're actually dam effective for emulating room acoustics and vastly diminishing/removing the issues headphone monitoring brings. One of the best things I've bought actually as i spend about 99% of the time using headphones. With this on the master out buss, once you've spent a while setting it up to suit your individual head size/ear size/room size/speaker distance e.t.c. there really is such a minimal difference between headphone monitoring and speaker monitoring.

[um4mi]

Considering the fact that everyone and their nan has the KRK RP series monitors they've become a very 'amateur'/ wannabe model of speaker

I think it's a bit silly to suggest that because 'everyone and their nan' has a certain set of monitors that they are somehow less desirable/useful. By this logic, the quality which makes them desirable/useful decreases as a function of their distribution. This would have sort of profound philosophical implications.