Impossible to make a song sound right without monitors

It's Impossible to make a song sound right without monitors. correct?

If in that case, why is everything else much more important than buying monitors? Samplers, synths, midi controllers, ect. It's all useless in the end when the song is made because it wouldn't sound right.

Good monitors and/or good headphones, it's your choice. If you believe what you are saying about a song not being able to be done properly without monitors you are sadly mistaken. You CAN do a song just with good headphones and no monitors.

yea prefuse 73 has mastered and mixed his stuff using the dinky ipod headphones

Lampdog wrote:Good monitors and/or good headphones, it's your choice. If you believe what you are saying about a song not being able to be done properly without monitors you are sadly mistaken. You CAN do a song just with good headphones and no monitors.

I've heard different. Are you positively sure about this? Cause I do not have the money for monitors and headphones would do well in my apartment.

It's a good policy, when mastering a song, to try out the finished mix in all kinds of places. Monitors, boom box, bathroom, 'phones, whatever.
There's even a chance it could get played in mono, so you can even try that.. (Out-of-phase sounds in stereo can cancel out and disappear in mono playback!)

I don't have monitors at all. I've mastered almost all of my music with my sony mdvr700's. Sometimes I use my pioneer stereo speakers (they are NIIICEEE) to mixdown and I STILL get good quality. Don't always believe what you hear from peoples, just take it in, remember it, try it for yourself then filter out all the bull you've heard. Then go back and drop that knowledge on someone else so they will know also .

the main difference is in bass response, headphones will never truely inform you what the bass will sound like over a big system in a club, that chest-thumping boom will never be apparent in headphones, but thats not to say that once you learn how your headphones respond you can't use them exclusively. also like steroid said, test your mix in as many different places as possible, a car, a club, etc. so you can learn what you headphones reveal and what they don't. always listen to your mix in mono (in headphones or otherwise) to check that the bass doesn't cancel itself out when played in stereo.

i would recommend Seinheiser HD25 Headphones (not to be confused with the HD25sp which are different) if they are your main monitoring system. nothing even comes close to HD25 for monitoring purposes.....

.p

I live in a flat so I rarely use my moitors except to check the odd mixdown.

Instead I bought a pair of AKG K240 DF headphones which are simply outstanding for clarity and accurate frequency representation.

They are designed to produce a very flat frequency responce specifically for monitoring purposes and accomplish that very well.

On the downside, the 600ohm impedence means you'll need a decent headphone amp to really push them, although any mixing desk worth its salt should be up to the task.

Also, the bass feels a little underpowered compared to my monitors [Alesis M1-mk2] but once you become accustomed to them they really are outstanding.

Spud.

I think you never know what your missing until you hear something better. In my house I have Sony Studio Headphones, and for monitors I use my surround system with some big Aiwa Speakers, they sound very descent and you could do a descent mix. I was very happy with my room seup, until I heard the MPC through Tannoy Reveals in my band's studio, Now there was a huge diference, altough we don't have a Subwoofer in the studio I would rather Mix with the tannoys than with my sourround system or any headphones. It sounds so much crispier and defined.

My 2 cents

a surround-sound system will never give you a good monitor, the signal is processed and thrown around to 5 different speakers and will not be true to the signal comming out of a stereo pair of decent monitors. a subwoofer can be dangerous to your mix balance because it will be very easy to fool you into thinking there is too much or not enuf bass response based on the way the sub is wired in and crossed-over.

dsuh - check these links....they might explain a bit more.....
http://www.vex.net/~pcook/RecAudioPro/t ... html#Q10.4
http://www.vex.net/~pcook/RecAudioPro/t ... html#Q10.5

Save up the money, and buy yourself some monitors.

well i will say it is not impossible to do a great mix in headphones, it is really a matter of getting use to the particular weaknesses of your headphones. this is done by comparing a mix you know well in your headphones and other speakers. and it does take time.

having said that, the laws of physics limit the way a headphones can reproduce sounds, especially lower frequencies. so even the most accurate headphones will fail to reproduce this very well. but as long as you know this you can work around it. working with a good set of monitors will save you time. and will not introduce ear fatique nearly as fast as headphones which can affect your mix. headphones are harder on your ears in general....

Well for starters you dont make the final music soley on monitors. You make the music on your MPC1K, then produce the vocals and final mixdown in a professional studio anyway... All you need to worry about is pitch and volume levels on your instruments during the musical production or pre-production stages.(This advice is only if you plan to have a commercial release, if not just stick with the same headphones or speakers)

actually, i use monitors while im makin the beat, but when im recording it into my computer i use headphones.

I had some high end JBL's that I used as monitors, and used my MDR-700's. I was making ALL kinds of SHIT! Really, it wasn't until I got real studio monitors that I realized how much junk was in my songs/samples/loops. I was totally sleepin', I got the real shit and it made my production take a step forward. If you live in a apartment (I do) then just let your neighbors know what you're about and be respectful to them. All my neighbors have heard my shit through the walls and ceiling, they are reasonable with me because I am reasonable with them.

Anyway, I had top of the line home speakers and they paled in comparision to my M Audio SP-5b's. $190 on Ebay.

I woke up.

No insult, but until you get monitors you're sleepin'
You will REALLY hear a depth to the music that you might not be hearing...It's in there.