Menu
Category Navigation
Once upon a time I had money burning a hole in my pocket. I had less faith in my monitors than I do for a guy with a suit on in Washington. I HAD to make a big change and I was afraid that maybe my monitors at the time were too cheap. I HAD to know if a $4k monitoring setup was going to be a life-changer. I made the plunge.
I've had my Focal Sole 6 BE pair with Focal Sub 6 since the fall of '09. My very first mix without “learning” the monitors came out better than the previous mix (which was actually the 3rd revision) on my Mackie HR824s. I had about eight years to “learn” those. In Mackie's defense (I think) it's my view my pair of HR824s are broken.
My mixes aren't perfect on the $4k Focals. Why the hell not?
I know a BIG reason why.To follow up Paul999s's The Studio Monitor Conspiracy blog where he mentioned that he's had just as good of luck mixing on hi-fi speakers, I thought I'd add a point that no one seems to have made in that 110+ comment blog.
Do we expect too much from our studio monitors?
Even in theory, studio monitors can only do so much. Let me explain my frustration that I solved last week. When I sit down and mix, I generally end up breaking more rules than I would have liked. I certainly don't start out adding 20dB of top end to hihats and 18dB of low end to kick drums. (That's pretty damn extreme even for me.) However, in the course of a mix sometimes wild things happens when I'm trying to all instruments to sit right. When the band demands big drums, big guitars, big vocals, etc you never know what may go down. In order to squeeze all that junk into one suitcase, there's a point where you start doing belly flops. This isn't ideal, but I think anyone pushing to make better and better mixes is gonna end up pushing some rules and know full well that they are just about out of real estate. Therer's almost always one region or another where I'm like, “Hmmm, I'm not sure if I'm gonna get away with that one.” I think just about any great recording has this characteristic, although they seem to somehow get away with it.
It finally occurred to me the other day that it's not a monitors job to tell you when me when I've went too far. Never in a description for Yamaha, KRK, Mackie, JBL, or Barefoot does it say, “You'll never mix bass heavy again” or “You'll never mix too bright again”. The only thing they all generally claim is that their frequency response is more or less flat.
By definition, a flat monitor CAN'T tell you when you are too bright....not compared to a bright speaker or a bright set of headphones. It CAN'T tell you when you have too much 60Hz. Not compared with a system with too much 60Hz.
The Unstrokable
I was raised broke. Our house was always hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I chose the former. It built my tolerances up a bit. I'd get to junior high school and some dumb girl would complain to the teacher that she was “hot”. (Trust me, she was referring to her strokability.) I'd scrunch up my eyebrows like only a baffled mafia gangster could do with a cigar in his mouth because I couldn't figure out how The Unstrokable had arrived at this wild conclusion. It was as if it at 69 degrees all hell broke loose. That's when she started to complain.
I think a lot of us adhere to the view that those “hidden details” are suddenly exposed by our monitors will mean that if the mixes sound great on the monitors, they'll sound great in the kid's car with 8 10” subwoofers. The implication is the monitors are a “low tolerance” device and they will complain faster than “standard speakers”. I can say with certainty that this is the exact OPPOSITE of what monitors do. Flat frequency response means you hear the most neutral of positions and, therefore, they won't show sibilance like the car with MB Quart tweeters. They won't show 1k problems like the alarm clock. They won't show 3k problems like running the mix through a guitar amp.
I'm not sure if I'm the only whacko on the planet who somehow shifted his monitors to be a Magic Line Crossing alert, but I'm positive this was how I viewed my monitors for some time, if only subconsciously.
If you are expecting your monitors to be the first to complain about this or that, you are out of luck. The only bright side is that a monitor (in theory) shouldn't forget to tell you about a frequency that maybe a non-flat monitor may.
Why I Can't Learn Monitors
I've decided that I have no ability to learn monitors. Why? I lose perspective in about 10 seconds.
I was going through my reference material. I listened to Stone Temple Pilot's Meatplow several times. It doesn't sound boxy, but they've got more 400Hz or 500Hz than I know how to squeeze in without sounding boxy. The top end is “nice”. It isn't a “deep bass” recording compared to hip hop and a lot of other rock stuff, but it's a worthy reference track. I dig the production.
Then I tossed in Aerosmith's “Eat The Rich”. (Also made in 1994) Eat The Rich is WAY brighter and the low end is WAY deeper. Eat The Rich is relatively harsh after listening to Meatplow four times in a row. If we flip flop and I had started out listening to Eat The Rich I'd say that Meatplow is dull and has no meat in the bottom.
So which one is “right”?
All of these perceptions were done on that one pair of monitors. The truth is both recordings are tip top productions (with tip top budgets) and you can't do a whole lot better in rock land.
The 10 Hour Mix
If you haven't mixed for 10 hours (due to a slave-driving band) and then listened the next day just to say in an Eddie Murphy voice, “It wasn't me” than you probably haven't been doing this very long. I heard a marathon mix I had done about a month ago. I'm not sure how that guy who mixed it had 20dB too much of 5k on there, but he did. Me, the much smarter and more talented person who listened to the mix the next morning, noticed this right off the bat and was entirely embarrassed.
Conclusion
It's not my fault for buying the $4k monitors. I was misled. I was under the impression that they'd come with bucket seats, a sunroof, a never-mix-too-bassy again guarantee, and maybe a testicular cancer prohibiter. I didn't know they were just speakers. Granted, they are very well-designed and pleasing speakers to listen to and their numbers look good in ETF in my highly treated room, but they are just speakers.
None of us would expect a speaker to overcome human greed or human laziness. So why is it we expect it to solve an equally perplexing human pyschology problem like “maintaining perspective”? Could you imagine the marketing jargon? “The First Studio Monitor To End Racism – Simply plug in and crank it up and you'll see flawed assumptions you've engrained for decades magically melt away.”
Bullshit. It's just a damn speaker.
Reference your mixes every 5 minutes. The 5-Minute Reference Idea Solved.
Brandon
* According to the Ron Power's biography of Mark Twain, Frederick Douglas was against women having the right to vote.
Latests Articles
Latest Blogs
Lastest Forum Threads
vBulletin Message