Old 12-20-2012, 09:15 AM   #1
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default studio monitors - how many and why

Any general or specific advice about monitors in a studio?

How many sets, where why for what for whom?

And how to control signals to them (switchbox?)?
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 01:17 PM   #2
brainwreck
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,859
Default

I think that a single pair is fine, but I would not be without good headphones and other playback systems for hearing how mixes translate in the wild (laptop speakers, home stereo, car stereo, etc). Ultimately, a good mix sounds so across the spectrum of playback systems. Adding more monitors is only adding another playback system, once your primary monitoring needs are met. Fwiw, I have owned 3 pairs of monitors at one time, mostly for comparison, and I saw no real benefit in keeping them all around. I kept what I perceived to be the most useful pair. Nearly everyone who I know will listen on earbuds, home stereo, or car stereo, so those are very useful listening environments.

As for headphones, when I'm really trying to mix something to my best (not often), the details in the headphones are really helpful over what monitors provide, but stereo image and dynamics are much better left to the monitors.
brainwreck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 01:22 PM   #3
Cosmic
Human being with feelings
 
Cosmic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Online
Posts: 4,896
Default

I have one pair monitors.They're for the grunt work.And at a flick of a knob I can pipe the sound into a couple of domestic systems and cheapo cans..and thats where I fine tune.
__________________
it aint worth a bop,if it dont got that pop
Cosmic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 01:30 PM   #4
brainwreck
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,859
Default

One argument against multiple sets of monitors: they take up a lot of space, and it's difficult enough getting a single pair well placed, much less 2 or 3 pairs.

On monitor placement, the 38% rule that I read from Ethan Whiner was very helpful for depth, image, and frequency response. I don't take everything that he says as gospel, but that tip helped a lot. If you can play around with your room config, give it a try and see what you think.
brainwreck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 03:04 PM   #5
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default

thanks fer the good info, yall.

One reason I asked is that my basement studio is big, and divided into a control room (w/ computer stuff, furniture, etc). and then a performance room (with nothing but instruments and stands and cables, etc.) Between them is an open doorway (about 7' x 7'). So what I am thinking is the monitors I have NOW, in use for a person sitting at the computer, is going to be useful in one room, but that will not give monitor-quality feedback to the musicians in the performance room. So I probably need a pair in there (in addition to whatever personal monitor stuff musicians think they need).

But having two sets is going to cause problems of phase/interference between them. So then I need some kind of switch at the control desk. I just went to the audio specialist store and they have big-time-stage-worthy switches that would cost me HUNDREDs. Are there any Radio-Shack-type alternatives? I asked Radio Shack and they guy said, "build your own".

thanks again.
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 03:11 PM   #6
j79
Human being with feelings
 
j79's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Göteborg
Posts: 1,322
Default

Id say it depends a lot on the room, in the sense that if you are in a "bad" room (most of us are to some extent) its just going to be another pair of monitors in the same bad room.

I am by no means saying that its not useful though...just that the room is sometimes a bigger factor than the monitors are
j79 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 03:32 PM   #7
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by j79 View Post
Id say it depends a lot on the room ... just that the room is sometimes a bigger factor than the monitors are
Right. And the issues are ...?

Can the right people HEAR the right speakers, in stereo, given the relative placement?

My two-room space is about 40 feet long, and I am thinking that one set won't serve that whole space.
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 03:40 PM   #8
j79
Human being with feelings
 
j79's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Göteborg
Posts: 1,322
Default

Well...i kinda read through the thread too quickly i guess. I thought the second set was for checking your mixes.

What you are talking about makes sense
j79 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 04:01 PM   #9
semiquaver
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,923
Default

not sure what you need speakers in the studio for - can't the players monitor in their headphones?

in the control room you'll be monitoring the open mics right? so you'll have to have the speakers in the studio off. So yes you'll need to be able to shut sound off to the studio speakers from the control room.

If you want to pipe some sound into the studio to use for cues or to remic or something you might just want to run those speakers from a separate hardware output on your interface and do all the switching/routing in REAPER - just like you will want to do with the monitor mixes for headphones.

Speaker switches are expensive because they have to switch speaker level signal without shorting the amp output. If you use active monitors (better for a lot of reasons) you don't need this kind of switch. you can just use routing on a mixing board or like I said within REAPER.
semiquaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 04:02 PM   #10
zappsunzorn
Human being with feelings
 
zappsunzorn's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Virginia Beach VA
Posts: 2,274
Default

You also have the large "impress the producer/artist" monitor systems in many commercial studios.
zappsunzorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 04:47 PM   #11
brainwreck
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,859
Default

msore, are you gearing up to put together a project studio? I'm a little locked into my home playing around/recording/mixing mentality, hence the above response. I assume that you will be recording live bands? Any way, what semiquaver said about switching - if you switch, you'll probably want to do it in the box or at the small signal side. Might as well make use of those multi-outs. And headphones have become the norm for musician monitoring. If you plan to get into mastering, you might throw down a big chunk on a high quality monitoring system in addition to your nearfields for mixing. John Sayers' forum has a lot of good info and people with questions and answers about project studios.
brainwreck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 06:01 PM   #12
ngarjuna
Human being with feelings
 
ngarjuna's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Miami
Posts: 2,298
Default

I prefer:
a good pair of nearfields that does the lion's share of mixing work

a good pair of midfields (with real bass extension) for the lion's share of mastering work and mix checking (mostly for checking the low end and how it plays with the rest of the frequencies on speakers that can actually reproduce those sounds)

a decent pair of headphones (something with good detail) for checking (pops, clicks, noise, etc.)

a cheap pair of speakers for more checking (something not too large and certainly not too good to emulate an "average" setup)

For switching I love the features of a good monitor controller. But... I used to use a Presonus Central Station on my home rig and always thought it was close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades. When the meter section died I pulled it out of line to have a look and the difference in sound was startling; needless to say it never made it back into my monitoring chain. Right now I'm just using hardware sends from my DAC to send to various systems though I'm contemplating the Kush Audio unit based on reviews.

In less than ideal (almost all real life) situations I make do with a wide variety of setups as needed.
__________________
cheers,
@ngarjuna
Gist
ngarjuna is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 06:49 PM   #13
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default

Thanks, ngarjuna.

One question you did not address is whether musicians (apart from mixing station) need monitors in the performance space. That is - in addition to the headphones needed to assist one-part recording, like for singers.

Or maybe they can just step over into the control area to check on how the arrangment is developing.

I am new at this. I don't know what musicians will expect or need.

For switching, I just got one of these:

http://www.russound.com/product_detail.php?i=1763

Two inputs, four sets of speaker outputs. Press a button. And my Presonus preamp has 3 sets of outputs. I am set.
__________________
My religion is all or none.

Last edited by msore; 12-20-2012 at 07:01 PM.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 06:54 PM   #14
semiquaver
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,923
Default

I've worked in a lot of pro studios and folks always come back to the control room to check things out. I've never seen speakers in the studio used for anything other than talkback for large groups.
semiquaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 06:59 PM   #15
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default do what?

Thanks BW, Zapp, semiQ and j79. My ideas are more informed now. What a great forum.

What am I going to do with this great open basement and all the cool toys?

Going to record ethnic music (Bosnian, Native American, Persian, jazz, blues and singer-songwriters). Company will be called Eth Muz. So I will be hosting individuals and small combos with mostly acoustic instruments.

Also going to produce radio shows and audio kids stories.

Now I need a good MIDI keyboard - semi-weighted, more than 50 keys, without all the controller paraphernalia.


Love it when the last kid moves out!
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 07:18 PM   #16
brainwreck
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,859
Default

Hmmmm....if dad were building a studio in the basement, I would be trying to figure out how to stay. Recording the ethnic stuff sounds like a lot of fun.
brainwreck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 07:38 PM   #17
ngarjuna
Human being with feelings
 
ngarjuna's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Miami
Posts: 2,298
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by msore View Post
Thanks, ngarjuna.

One question you did not address is whether musicians (apart from mixing station) need monitors in the performance space. That is - in addition to the headphones needed to assist one-part recording, like for singers.
The leakage can be hard to control and create problems later on. I know there are times and places when this kind of monitoring worked great but it's not for me, I want good cans that won't leak too much. But you could add that to my list, I'd want at least a few sets of headphones for tracking (sometimes I do like recording live although that also comes with potential pitfalls; but sometimes the value of the live performance trumps engineering concerns).
__________________
cheers,
@ngarjuna
Gist
ngarjuna is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 09:40 PM   #18
brainwreck
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20,859
Default

msore, you could always borrow/rent a second pair of monitors, and give it a try. I have read about doing this before, but I never tried it. Who knows? It might work well.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan0...monitoring.asp
Quote:
Monitoring With Speakers

There are some performers who just can't get on with headphones, in which case there is a dodge using loudspeakers that can be made to work adequately. The basic principle is that the singer's mic is set up exactly midway between two loudspeakers, each of which carries a mono mix of the monitoring signal, but with one of the speakers deliberately wired out of phase — you can do this by simply swapping over the two wires connecting one of the amplifier's outputs to one of the speakers, as illustrated in Figure 2.

If you monitor the output from the mic with the backing track playing, you should be able to further fine-tune its position so as to get a reasonable amount of cancellation, but, because of room reflections and the fact that no room is absolutely symmetrical in acoustic terms, the degree of cancellation will never be perfect. Nevertheless, this technique has been used many times and generally keeps the level of spill down to manageable proportions. Small passive hi-fi speakers or monitors are best for this application.

Effective monitoring need not be complicated or expensive, but it is deserving of attention, as it can significantly affect the quality of a performance. A good pair of enclosed headphones that can work at reasonably high SPLs (sound pressure levels) without distortion is essential, and a multi-output headphone distribution amplifier is also essential if two or more performers need to record at the same time.

It is also important to take account of latency in computer-based systems, as some singers and players find that even small amounts of latency are very distracting. Zero-latency monitoring is usually very easy to arrange, and is made even easier if you have one of those mic preamps that include zero-latency monitoring facilities and a built-in headphone amp as standard.

The final word must be this: listen to the performer when they tell you what they need to hear in their phones, as only they know what they are comfortable with. Ask them if the monitoring is OK, just in case they're too polite to mention that it isn't, and also make sure they have the right amount of reverb in the cans to keep them happy. When you're after a good performance, putting the performer at ease is more than half the battle, so it's worth going the extra mile if you want the best recorded results.
You should be able to give that one a try in your current setup. You could use a plugin or otherwise to flip the phase to one of the outputs.
brainwreck is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 09:59 PM   #19
tls11823
Human being with feelings
 
tls11823's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Harrisburg, PA USA
Posts: 1,481
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by msore View Post
Going to record ethnic music (Bosnian, Native American, Persian, jazz, blues and singer-songwriters). Company will be called Eth Muz. So I will be hosting individuals and small combos with mostly acoustic instruments.

Also going to produce radio shows and audio kids stories.
Hey, that sounds like fun! And you'll probably learn a lot and meet some interesting people. Good luck and enjoy!
__________________
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
--Charles Kingsley... or maybe Albert Einstein... definitely somebody wiser than myself--
tls11823 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2012, 11:01 PM   #20
Nip
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Sweden
Posts: 1,541
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by msore View Post
thanks fer the good info, yall.

One reason I asked is that my basement studio is big, and divided into a control room (w/ computer stuff, furniture, etc). and then a performance room (with nothing but instruments and stands and cables, etc.) Between them is an open doorway (about 7' x 7'). So what I am thinking is the monitors I have NOW, in use for a person sitting at the computer, is going to be useful in one room, but that will not give monitor-quality feedback to the musicians in the performance room. So I probably need a pair in there (in addition to whatever personal monitor stuff musicians think they need).

But having two sets is going to cause problems of phase/interference between them. So then I need some kind of switch at the control desk. I just went to the audio specialist store and they have big-time-stage-worthy switches that would cost me HUNDREDs. Are there any Radio-Shack-type alternatives? I asked Radio Shack and they guy said, "build your own".

thanks again.
I think you are overdoing it - to make mixing quality listening in performance room.

Are the musicians mixing/producing?

Let them sit by the mixer at computer.

I found a simple manual speaker switch, that also have resistor load that guarantee minimum load when running two or more in parallell. About $60 coping 50W continuous load.

But if having active monitors you can use simple low level signal switches, even with remote. The active monitors also have room tuning switches and stuff.

Or a simple multi headphone out could be routed to these active monitors as well. Wouldn't cost a fortune.
__________________
-- Windows 11 Pro, i7-12700F 2.1GHz 32G, RME Digiface USB Audient ASP800 Lexicon MX200, Reaper 4.78 --
Nip is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012, 01:30 AM   #21
ivansc
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
Default

As a bass player, in the latter years of my time working in "proper" studios, I spent most of my time plugged into the desk, sitting in the control room and listening to the same monitors the engineer used.

For the ethnic stuff, assuming it is unplugged, not an option of course.

But I am with the guy who asked why they could not just come into the control room and have a listen.
ivansc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012, 06:26 AM   #22
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default thnks Ivan

Quote:
Originally Posted by ivansc View Post
But I am with the guy who asked why they could not just come into the control room and have a listen.
Right. Thanks.

But when you were playing in the studio, were you headphoned and playing direct-in? Not? Listening to your bass amp and other players?

Now I am thinking about the other problem most basement studios must have. The furnace!
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012, 07:17 AM   #23
semiquaver
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,923
Default

msore you really shouldn't track with a bass cab if you can help it! you can remic the direct track afterwards if you're really into the sound...
semiquaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012, 08:05 AM   #24
tspring
Human being with feelings
 
tspring's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Eastern shore of Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,484
Default

Lets break the discussion into parts.

Your listening:
When you are finalizing/mastering it can be helpful to have a second set of monitors in the control room for perspective, but it is not absolutely necessary. We have a pair NS-10s for this purpose. Still need to do head phone check, sum to monaural, car stereo check anyway.

Musicians listening:
If they are listening to a playback (not tracking), you are probably at a point in the recording process where you are discussing the overall sound or th sound of his/her part with the musician. Most likely you will want the musicians in the control room at that time, as you don't really want to discuss over the talk back system. Also acoustics in your mixing room and the recording room are different, you want the listener to be near the sweet spot if if you want them to assess their sound or mix, and so on. All better done in the control room.

If the musicians are listening to playback while tracking, it is possible for them to monitor the mix from monitor speakers, but is problematic because of bleed, phase cancellation, standing waves, etc. I suspect that you will almost always want your musicians to monitor with headphones. This means that you will need a headphone distribution amp in your tracking room, with a zero latency (or near)feed from your mic preamps or DAW to the headphone amps. The hardware we use allows a different mix to be sent to each headphone, but we never use this feature.

With regard to your furnace, I will bet that you are going to have to sacrifice some of your space to wall it off, but even that might not solve HVAC noise problems.

T
tspring is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-21-2012, 11:00 AM   #25
msore
Human being with feelings
 
msore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Rafael
Posts: 11,594
Default

tspring. Danke mucho. Very clear and practical advice.

Yes, needs occur in phases - early is not the same as later in the process.
__________________
My religion is all or none.
msore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2013, 06:56 PM   #26
Big Label Sound
Banned
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7
Default

Recording and Mastering studios use different sizes to emulate different situations. You could NEVER emulate a dance club situation with a pair of 6" monitors and no sub. You have no bass under 100hz.

A sub bass speaker is a must for a home studio if you are mixing or mastering music. You have to be able to hear the low end of the bass (volume and thickness).
Big Label Sound is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 07:15 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.