studio monitor help

hey, i need a little help here. i'm looking for small, but good quality monitor speakers. im only gonna use 2 monitors for my setup, no subwoofer or nething else, cuz of limited space.

i was originally looking at the KRK V4 monitors, but they're kinda expensive. how are the M-AUDIO BX5's? anyone have experience with these? and how do they compare to the KRK V4's?

i kno the KRK's are like twice the price, so SOMEhow, they must be better. but are the BX5's still sufficient? PEACE

m audio speakers are whack. for that price range Alesis M1 MK2 actives are the best. Thats what I rock for the same reason as you, limited space, dont want the neighbors trippin off a me.

I agree M-Audio is not going to please you. Alesis is a great choice for production. I like them they have full enough range to keep your intrest. Will you evetually mix down your own music? If so go to your local dealer and listen to them for your self. For mixdowns I don't know if they are flat enough to give you a very accurate sound. Come to think of it try Even 20/20 active monitors. Seen them $400.00 and they are great for production and you can get great mixes on them. On Ebay you may get them cheaper. Still go to your local store and listen for your self.

if you plug one of the bass ports on the alesis they work just fine for mixing.

check out the Behringer Truths... one of the few Behringer anythings that are actually very good!

they are modelled on the Mackie HR series and here in australia at the moment are selling for $800... thats about 500-600 USA bucks there.

they are active monitors, balanced (of course) and offer a variety of switching options for room placement.

if you arent an engineer and dont care so much (or are broke) take a look at the active digital Edirols. a bit lighter on the bass and not as "flat" but up to the task and great for being digital

i would avoid behringers like the plague.
a quick search on pro-audio sites and a floodgate of bad stuff about the Behringers comes out. THe freq. response is NOT what they claim it is. the bass is waaaayyyy too dominant in the mix, agggggghhhh, just google it for a review. I only trust SOS (Sound on Sound) as far as magazine reviewers go tho.

If you're looking for a no frills monitoring system that will tell NO lies about what you're hearing, try to find a pair of Yamaha NS-10's. I believe that they have been discontinued by Yamaha (?!) but you can still order the parts. Nearly all work (tracking and mixing) produced in the big studios is done on those little black and white boxes. You can see 'em in the back here:
http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=44380

I would also recommend the Mackie HR824's. The bottom is very good for nearfields and the top is crystal clear. No hype like the Genelecs or KRK's.

I personally would stay away from the Alesis' as well. All Alesis monitors have a "hissssy" top end that will mask your highs. The punchy low end (which is cool) on their monitors is usually what gets people sucked in.

I personally don't care for the Event's. It takes my ears several hours to get used to the sound of them. Some people swear by 'em though.

NS-10's have a very flat sound that is good for mixing. Most studios will have NS-10's to use as a reference as to what a song would sound like at a 'consumer level' in headphones and on a all-in-one 'boombox' type cd player. 90% of there mixing will be done on bigger and better moniters.

For moniters that have great sound and dont cost too, too much, i would go with Tannoy or Alesis, not NS-10's.

Jel-S wrote: Most studios will have NS-10's to use as a reference as to what a song would sound like at a 'consumer level' in headphones and on a all-in-one 'boombox' type cd player. 90% of there mixing will be done on bigger and better moniters.

For moniters that have great sound and dont cost too, too much, i would go with Tannoy or Alesis, not NS-10's.

Not true. In fact, it's the exact opposite. 90% of mixing is done on NS-10's. NS-10's are NOT used as a reference monitor for boombox translation. That's Auratones. NS-10's are very flat, and it's precisely for that reason that they are the true workhorses of major production. The NS-10's don't lie about anything. Nobody mixes for "headphones" either. What's the point of that?

The Tannoy's and Alesis DO NOT have a great sound. Not for critical listening anyway. Especially the Alesis'. Terrible top end on ALL of their monitors. To an untrained ear, the punchy bass response from those brands will suck you in at the store. That's the trick to selling them. They truly are terrible speakers. Well, the Tannoys, some of them anyway, can be decent. You will never in a million years find either one of these monitors at a major facility. The typical monitoring system in NY, LA, and Nashville will be TADs for mains, NS-10's for nearfields, and Auratones for reference.

One thing to remember - you will in time condition your ears to whatever monitors you decide to buy, regardless of how they sound.

freq if alesis monitors are so bad then why did the M1 MK2 actives win all them awards. I aint talking about the awards for the M1 MK1's, I mean the ones they dropped last year, won mad awards for making electronic music.
mad magazines gave them mad awards for it, if you call alesis and talk to the sales manager, (which I did) John Grandanetti will let you know how well they are selling, in fact they are alesis top product, Wired named them speakers of the year, for PC music making.
and he (John) can hip you to the process they use to test them and how he likes to use them, tips to keep the bass response down for tight mixing.
If i aint mistaken sos said that if you plug one of the bass ports, this keeps the bass from OVERPOWERING the high, a problem with it. I use foam plugs and they got a great response. I personally will not buy a monitor unless it is biamped, and alot of the newer ones coming out are copies of the alesis (M audio comes to mind).

I have never heard a hissy sound at all, even when running cray filtering through them.

PS I like the pictuires of snoop, but why did you post them? I thought you wanted to keep who you were a secret?

freq wrote:

Jel-S wrote: Most studios will have NS-10's to use as a reference as to what a song would sound like at a 'consumer level' in headphones and on a all-in-one 'boombox' type cd player. 90% of there mixing will be done on bigger and better moniters.

For moniters that have great sound and dont cost too, too much, i would go with Tannoy or Alesis, not NS-10's.

Not true. In fact, it's the exact opposite. 90% of mixing is done on NS-10's. NS-10's are NOT used as a reference monitor for boombox translation. That's Auratones. NS-10's are very flat, and it's precisely for that reason that they are the true workhorses of major production. The NS-10's don't lie about anything. Nobody mixes for "headphones" either. What's the point of that?


The Tannoy's and Alesis DO NOT have a great sound. Not for critical listening anyway. Especially the Alesis'. Terrible top end on ALL of their monitors. To an untrained ear, the punchy bass response from those brands will suck you in at the store. That's the trick to selling them. They truly are terrible speakers. Well, the Tannoys, some of them anyway, can be decent. You will never in a million years find either one of these monitors at a major facility. The typical monitoring system in NY, LA, and Nashville will be TADs for mains, NS-10's for nearfields, and Auratones for reference.

One thing to remember - you will in time condition your ears to whatever monitors you decide to buy, regardless of how they sound.

I will be attending the Center for Digital Imaging and Sound in the fall in Vancouver, Canada (where im from) and when i took a week long music production course there the engineer and producer told me a lot of things. The engineer had worked with a lot of people (celine dion, bryan adams, nickleback, shaun desmond) so i payed close attention to what he had to say. He said that when mixing and mastering a track you need to switch between your moniters to see how the song will sound on different speakers, including headphones. This is because a hardcore audiophile and a guy with a walkmen on the bus should be able to listen to a cd and it sound just as good no-mater what kind of equipment they listen to it on. He said 90% of the mixing will be done on the main, large moniters (i forget the make they had) and the NS-10's will simply be used as reference moniter. This is because NS-10's have a very flat sound, similar to what someone would be listening to on a basic boombox or headphones. He said yes NS-10's are the industry standard, but they are not the best to use as moniters, just simply as a reference.

And being that my Dad sell top quality stereo systems and speakers, some systems costing up to $100,000, my ears have been trained to tell their way around a good and bad sounding speaker.

Jel-S wrote:I will be attending the Center for Digital Imaging and Sound in the fall in Vancouver, Canada (where im from) and when i took a week long music production course there the engineer and producer told me a lot of things... He said 90% of the mixing will be done on the main, large moniters (i forget the make they had) and the NS-10's will simply be used as reference moniter. He said yes NS-10's are the industry standard, but they are not the best to use as moniters, just simply as a reference.

And being that my Dad sell top quality stereo systems and speakers, some systems costing up to $100,000, my ears have been trained to tell their way around a good and bad sounding speaker.

Uh, I think that you got it mixed up there boss. Your (sarcasticly) seminar instructor told you that 90% of mixing is done on NEARFIELDS and the mains are used mostly for showing off or "bangin" the track (something that you'll learn in school). You'll probably do some low frequency mixing on the mains, too. But, the nearfields will handle the majority of work (something that you'll learn in school) . Those huge speakers sound like mud until you crank them up to damn near the threshold of pain - 120db (something that you'll learn about in school). Optimum listening level is 85db (something that you'll learn about in school), and that is based on the Fletcher-Mundson curve (something that you'll learn about in school). It takes literally thousands of hours with your head stuck in between two speakers for 12 -18 hours at a time before you really start to hear what shiz sounds like (something that you WON'T learn in school). Jel, slow down with the mouth bro. You're not even in school yet.

It truly is "to each his own" in the world of monitors. Particularly for electronic music/home studios. Like I said, you'll get used to whatever you end up using after awhile. Alesis has a TERRIBLE reputation in the upper levels of the game. I myself have not personally heard the new MKII's. Last night, my client told me that he liked the MKII's, and I clowned him for it. Maybe they are good, but everything else that Alesis has ever made, except that glorified VCR known as the ADAT (20 bit only!) and the Masterlink, is a total piece of crap. Damn near everything that you buy (or jacc off kazaa) is recorded and mixed on NS-10's. There's nothing like 'em once you learn how to use them... I also don't care for bi-amped monitors in a nearfield situation, either. Mains, sure. Two amps per speaker seems to be a bit noisy to me for nearfields. To each his own.

p.s. I got nuthin to hide. And my dad can beat up your dad.

NS-10s: dont but any of these. they are discontinued and you wont even be able to get them serviced in years to come. they were only the industry standard because everyone seemed to have them.

personally i hate them. i find they yeild ear fatigue far quicker then te tannoys and mackies in the studio. and unlike many "experts" whove only read about the ns10s, ive used them a lot. people are hanging on to them because they are familiar with them. it is a BAD idea to buy them these days.


Behringer TRUTHS: for their price and quality they are fantastic. try them for yourself. as for a bass dominance... well what kind of music are you writing? chacha? ambient classical polka?

dude forget the mass media reviews... trust your ears and the advice of REAL engineers.

Behringer make pathetic analog mixers, great digital mixers and usable compressors, and the whole "behringer sucks" angle is elitism from richer studios. deal with it.


FREQ is correct that MOST if not ALL monitoring and tracking is done on Nearfields. i erm.. know this as im, erm... a **** engineer who works in the studio as a job (not to mention music degree at two different universities/colleges)

ns10s are a sack of shit. those mid-field large monitors/speakers in a studio are largely unused. no engineer will sit at the SPL you need to pump those all day and expect to remain sane/good of hearing.

large midfields are for impressing clients and the odd "rock out" monitoring session with the clients and the producer. your job as an engineer is heads down working with near-fields.

oh and no-one gives a **** about boomboxes and headphones until the last minute. no studio caters purely for the status quo of shitty sound systems. all we do is make sure our AWESOME mix sounds OK on SHIT speakers.


peace

ps, Jel-S, your daddies little hifi store has nothing to do with studio monitoring.

good luck at music school.


all the best,
An Actual Engineer

D_Samp wrote:NS-10s: dont but any of these. they are discontinued and you wont even be able to get them serviced in years to come. they were only the industry standard because everyone seemed to have them.

personally i hate them. i find they yeild ear fatigue far quicker then te tannoys and mackies in the studio. and unlike many "experts" whove only read about the ns10s, ive used them a lot. people are hanging on to them because they are familiar with them. it is a BAD idea to buy them these days.


dude forget the mass media reviews... trust your ears and the advice of REAL engineers.

Behringer make pathetic analog mixers, great digital mixers and usable compressors, and the whole "behringer sucks" angle is elitism from richer studios. deal with it.

I already stated that NS-10's are discontinued, but Yamaha is still making the cones. Probably the tweeeters, too. Who gets NS-10's serviced? Everybody fixes their own. It's simple. If you work in a studio, you shoulda been doing that. They were/ARE the industry standard not because everybody has them, but because THEY DON'T LIE. Dude, if you're a "fluffing" engineer (whatever that is - I think that you mean 2nd or assistant) you don't even know what ear fatigue is. After you get out into the real world and start engineering for real, you'll get to know ear fatigue. Your will ears get stronger and more tolerant with time, too.

Behringer sucks. Bottom line. Great digital mixers? Usable compressors? YEAH RIGHT!!!!!!!

Many times the "mass media" reviews are written by, as you say, REAL engineers. They normally don't hype products for the sake of keeping an advertiser.

What's with the younger cats these days? They all seem to think that they know it all, without any experience other than school - if they even have that. Mofo's don't wanna stfu and LISTEN anymore. THAT'S HOW YOU LEARN PEOPLE.

I'm the only REAL engineer in here.