Accurate speakers for mastering - A good or bad thing ?

[ikea boy]

when creating patches for synths (vst or hardware) I use my trusty Sony MDA 7506's
also mixing I also use an ancient pair of Radio Shack Minimus 7 probably from the early 80's. Craig Anderton had mentioned them at some point (I felt so validated). also mixed on a $130 .00 Logitec 3-way system for computers (late 90's). I took one of my CD's into one of the MEGA-BOXES OF MUSIC CHAIN STORES and listened to several pairs of 'spencive $$$$.$$ "Professional Monitors".
the sales person told me of just how great my mixes sounded on those babies and when was I thinking of taking a pair home.
bouncing from Cd to mini disc is another of the steps sometimes employed, and of coarse some body elses generic car stereo system.

I got to the point that 1.) I trusted my "monitors , 2.) remembered that my ears are certainly not golden and that no amount money can change tin into gold.

the good part or good thing is I no longer torture myself about is my gear good enough,I now focus on what is is that I have to say

[Rakie]

One thing about headphones is they lack bass, and if they have some cheesy Bass boost, then it's just worse.

My mixing headphones are Beyerdynamic DT 770 "Pro" headphones. They're stellar, but they're still headphones. My very first mix when I was in school, and only had maybe a month experience in Pro Tools, i used only these headphones. The mix sounded stellar, even one of my teachers told me It was one of the better mixes he'd heard in this course... Then he told me "How does it sound ____" threw it on the dynaudio monitors on his DAW in the class, Sounded decent. Then we threw it on the Alesis cheapo monitors... Not pretty.

It was really boomy on the low end, and it sounded too dry. I learned that day these headphones are super clear, and that like all headphones, even these lack low end, and putting enough in the headset to really thump made it REALLY bumpy / woofy on regular speakers, or cheap monitors.

It's all about getting to know your speakers.


Here are my headphones: Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO | Sweetwater.com

[bradzoot]

This thread has raised a question(In moy Head).
When peoples on here are listening to stuff on bash etc, are they mostly listening on studio monitors or 'Ordinary' Hi FI speakers, pc speakers and the like.
I usually listen on Wharfedale diamonds, or, if no-one else is home (In the street LOL) I crank my vintage Sonys' ( 12' with mid range and tweeter)
Just curious.

[Rakie]

I try and Listen through my mac on my Mbox 2 with my Beyerdynamic DT 770's because I'm familiar with them.

I also listen through my iMac's headphone port going from 1/8" mini-jack to my 5.1 home theater receiver, listen on 2.1 Stereo with my Axiom home theater speakers

[JonIce]

I think it's also worth mentioning that you have to learn on your mixing room too. What part of the sound-spectrum is being exaggerated and what part's seem lower because of your room. It's a combination of knowing your monitors plus knowing HOW they sound in your room. So it's important to maybe rent a machine which tells you which frequencies are higher/lower than normal (by playing pink noise and showing you the results on a screen). If you do that you can take proper action (sound diffusers and bass traps f.ex.) or just learn that your bass/mid/highs are being exaggerated and maybe EQ your output signal to "force" the room into sounding right.

So to sum it up: Know your monitors AND how they sound in your mixing room!

[Rakie]

Very true, I assume people would understand that point JonIce, it kinda seems obvious (no offense intended) however what may be obvious to some isn't to everybody. I didn't think to bring up the room because I ASSUMED it was already understood. I think everybody kinda did. But the room is also extremely important as JonIce pointed out.

I kinda think spending a ton of money on nice studio monitors is a waste if the room isn't treated... They go hand in hand.

May be a miss-quote from Brandon. But I like the general idea of it.

"Spending $3,000 on sound reinforcement for your room is a notion some people couldn't ever understand. But some people see that as a nice start"

Not 100% word for word, but you get the gist of it's meaning.

[JonIce]

Originally Posted by Rakie

Very true, I assume people would understand that point JonIce, it kinda seems obvious (no offense intended) however what may be obvious to some isn't to everybody.

Yeah, good point! It is kinda obvious but I just wanted to point it out if anyone reading through this good discussion didn't have the knowledge to figure it out for themselves. I know a few people who don't seem to care about how their room sounds and that's a real shame... but with time and patience maybe anyone can learn to adjust to bad sounding rooms.

...I would like to see someone like that try to mix in a good room after years of bad room mixing and make it sound like crap on purpose. Now that would be good TV!

[Rakie]

To sum up my opinion with JonIce's point.

I'll first say, some of the best Mastering houses in the US use incredibly detailed monitors, that are very, very flat as well as a room that is as flat as possible.

As pointed out by brandon pointed out, whats most important is another engineers set of ears. Maybe it needs nothing, maybe it needs a .5dBu boost in the 200hz range. Who knows ?

All I can tell you is a room for Mastering is set up way differently then a room for Mixing. Mixing rooms usually aren't as flat and pristine as a Mastering studio. So there will be some frequencies that need tiny cuts or boosts, even from some of the best engineers around.

So in essence... A very detailed speaker, with a very detailed ear, with lots of experience, in a very, very good, flat room... That's what id want if I were to pursue mastering.

[dangercityskyline]

hmmm.
from what i understand about mastering you would want to have more than one set of monitors, starting with the obvious high-dollar super-accurate pair. from there though you would want a pair of speakers that are not "accurate" but "good" (think Yamaha NS-10s: they weren't "good" speakers, but they were "accurate"), as most commercial home and car speaker systems use some sort of EQ to pump up certain frequencies to make the music more appealing.
finally, you'd want a not-so-hot pair of what probably amount to nothing more than average computer speakers. at this point you probably think i'm crazy, but hear me out: the purpose of having these last two pairs of speakers is to hear what your mastered mix will sound like on a diverse set of speakers, to simulate what most people will probably listen to it on.

[Rakie]

That depends on the individual Mastering Engineer (Several sets of speakers)

Doug Sax is one of the best around, he just uses one pair of speakers in his mastering room.

Here is a SHORT list of his credits:
The Who, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Earth, Wind and Fire, Anita Baker, The Rolling Stones, Al Jarreau, Bette Midler, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Willie Nelson, Peter Frampton, Natalie Cole, Ray Charles, Bonnie Rait, Lyle Lovett, Rod Stewart, and Jellyfish.

Here is a pic of his Mastering Studio: