LiveMusicBlog

Monitoring in a music studio is, quite simply, the most important part of the studio performance up. Your studio can contain the most advanced equipment available, but without accurate monitoring, you will never hear an accurate mix, which is kinda pointless, is not it?!

So,what’s the difference between a nice pair of hi fi speakers and true studio monitors?

Well. hi fi speakers exaggerate the lows, and generally the highs, to establish maximum impact. This may be good to listen to, but it’s seldom accurate. Studio monitors are designed to be incredibly accurate to insure a real reproduction of what’s actually being recorded. They’re also built to much sturdier and exacting standards than hi fi speakers, to cater for the vigourous demands of studio use.

Monitors must be very transparent sounding to enable you to mix parts of the music like vocals, bass and even reverb trails without each part colliding into one and other.

To fully understand the idea of monitoring, you must understand that it is an art. It’s more than just conveniently placing a pair of speakers in the room.

We’re all varying, as are studio monitors, and all of us use the ones with which we’re most comfortable and might optimum judge the mix. I’ve used Yamaha NS10s, Dyn-Audio and Tannoys over the years, but have performance tled with a pair of Alesis M1 active for near-field monitoring and a pair of Alesis Monitor Two’s for midfield monitoring. They are my personal prefer ence and what I am used to. There are more expensive monitors available on the market, but surp growing ly accurate solutions may be achieved with less expensive monitors just by following a few simple rules.

When monitoring, you are listening to the placement of sound, dynamics, eq, reverb trails, echoes and delays etc. Correctly placed monitors allow you to do this. Hi fi speakers, still nice, do not!

A professional, well recorded mix will sound good on anything, and that is the single the majority vital principle to remember. If you use a pair of hi fi speakers to monitor, your mix can well sound excellent to YOU on THOSE speakers, but I guarantee it will not sound excellent to others elsewhere!

Now,the 1st rule is, do not use hi fi speakers to monitor.

Nearfield monitors are intended for mounting close to the listener. The idea is to boost the direct acoustic path betwixt the speaker and the listener by making it shorter, thereby giving less occasion for the reflected sounds to get back in and muddle things up. With nearfield monitoring, the surrounding acoustic environment becomes less of a problem. Still, try to optimise the listening environment whenever possible and be aware of the effect that the size of the listening room might have on low frequency response. Usually, the smaller the room, the stronger the bottom end will be.

The ideal placement of speakers is out in the room, away from side and rear walls, and reflective surfaces prefer tiles, windows or table tops. Unfortunately, and particularly in home studios, this isn’t always possible. So do what’s practical with the environment you have.

The physical spacing betwixt the speakers is  surprisingly vital, approximately 3 feet apart. A nice  set of monitors, if positioned correctly in a sensibly non-reverberant room, will give accurate determinations. There should be equal distance betwixt the listener and either speaker. In other words, the listener and the two speakers are the three corners of a triangle with equal length sides. Both speakers must be turned in accordingly so that from your prime position, you see only the face of both speakers. also, your ears should be level with the tweeters, so, if you are placement of the speakers is higher, perhaps on a shelf or wall mounted on brackets, then the speakers must be tilted down accordingly.

Virtually all studios use monitor speakers in the horizontal position. This session -up will  promote  a strongly focused center image, ideal for the vocalist, for example. And because the image width is narrower, the sounds may be placed with greater precision than when the speakers are placed vertically. additionally, in the horizontal position, there will be much less opportunity of 1st reflections from the studio environment colouring your mix.

Still, that isn’t to say that monitors shouldn’t ever be used in the vertical position. Obviously,  some manufacturers recommend that in ‘perfect’ situations, they ought to be. With vertical placement you hear the mix with the deepest and broad st soundstage possible. But this broad  a dispersion pattern might add strong reflections to the sound you hear, muddying the mix, hence the prefer ence for the horizontal position.

The rules for midfield monitors are the same as with nearfield, except that the three cornered triangle is much bigger, a lot of the time a minimum of six ft.

Now,the second rule is, place the monitors correctly, read the instructions that come with the monitors and attain a better understanding of your listening environment.

When recording for any length of time, you’ll get listening fatigue, So take regular breaks every few hours. It is amazing how divergent ly things can sound when you return refreshed.

There’s additionally an old saying; “If a song sounds amazing at low volume, it’ll sound amazing at any level. But a song that sounds amazing loud won’t necessarily sound amazing at a decrease volume”.

Think likewise of the effect on your hearing over time when never ending ly listening at loud levels!

So,the third rule is, take regular breakes when recording, make your regular listening level a sensible one and listen at louder levels only chance ally, for feel and bass purposes.

There’s of course, a place for the car stereo and hi fi in the process. When I am happy with the mix, I listen on my hi fi and car stereo. If it still sounds good, then I can be confident that it’s a good mix.

So,the fourth rule is, a professional, well recorded mix will sound great on any system. So use your car stereo and hi fi to ‘ final check’ your mix.