Hi guys!
Over the last little while I've been recording my band's first EP on my Firepod and all has been going very well!
We've finished tracking and I'm finally at the point now where I can start mixing to get this thing out. Our release date is November 4th so I've got a good two weeks or so to get this thing mixed, and while not ideal to be under such a time crunch, it's all we've got. Frankly, I'm glad to have a full two weeks to mix because I expected much less!
Now, tonight I run into a hitch. I don't have a whole lot of money so my monitoring situation has been quaint, to say the least. I did most of the tracking through headphones (decent quality ones, at least! not crappy iPod earbuds haha). I know this isn't the ideal situation, but again, it's all I've got so it had to do.
The problem I ran into tonight lies in the fact that the computer speakers (4.1) that I'd been using to do rough mixes and stuff and had intended on using to mix are now dead! Due to my complete idiocy, an open bottle of water got spilled into the receiver (I'm fairly sure it's a receiver. it acts as an amp, as far as I can tell) and now the speakers are left unusable. I'm not too choked up about losing the speakers, they were pretty old and weren't very expensive and I've been meaning to buy new ones anyway.
Now, the problem I'm left with is, these are the speakers I've been listening to music on for the last 4 years and I know the ins and outs of them, so I figured they'd be perfect to mix on. Now that these are gone, I'm left with two weeks to finish a 4-song EP and nothing but a few pairs of decent headphones (one set that boosts lows way too much, one set that boosts highs way too much).
Also, I have a fairly expensive home theater system set up for my TV. I figured maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing to use (maybe just run the two front speakers) because the system would also be intended for music to be listened to on them. This might be a completely silly and the other members of my band completely think so too, so maybe I'm out to lunch but I'm kind of grasping at straws here. I think I'd be facing the same pitfalls as using computer speakers, and I might even be better off? Is this a dumb thought?
I'd look into just biting the bullet and buying some studio monitors but a) money is already tight and b) the room I'm in is crap, so I imagine they wouldn't do too much well?
I've heard good things about the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 studio headphones, and they're within my price range but I doubt that I'd find them in town and I don't have the time to wait for them to ship :\
I could just go out and buy another decent set of computer speakers for the job.
The last option would be -- and I don't know how plausible this is -- to find a way to rig my old stereo speakers to plug into my PC/Firepod somehow and use those as monitors temporarily. This would probably require buying an amp because the soundcard doesn't have the power to run the bigger speakers, which would basically leave me in the same place as the home theater stereo system
Oof, I'm at a loss for what to do. In summation, here are my options:
a) headphones
b) home theater speakers + A/V receiver (+ added bonus of mixing on a 61" widescreen tv?
)
c) buying studio monitors (room is crap, money is scarce, so this isn't much of an option unfortunately :\)
d) buying studio headphone monitors (affordable, but probably wouldn't be able to find them in the limited time I have)
e) buying another set of decent computer speakers
f) finding a way to rig speakers from a CD player/stereo thing to run through my PC (would probably require an amp which would leave me at the same place as using home theater system)
Time is of the absolute essence, and I know none of this is ideal but with what I'm working with, what do you guys think I should do? Right now I'm an inch away from lugging my PC upstairs and plugging it into the home theater system and rolling with it. At the very least I could do a mix or two and see how they translate to other stereos, but I think that this might be my best bet, facing the same pitfalls as any other less-than-ideal monitor situation?
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated, though! Thanks!