What kind of Studio Monitor (if any) do you use

I use an old pair of JBL 4311 studio monitors, not sure of newer products, most I have heard seem to muddy the bass and kick drums sounds.???
I too use JBL -- a couple of very old L40 from the early 1970's. 10" woofer and 1" dome tweeter. VERY smooth low end. What you say about other speakers in comparison is very true. It's also a hindrence since almost eveything sounds good on the JBLs. That, ironcally, makes them a bit hard to mix on.

I use RS Mini7 and some home made close very small speakers to second guess mixes for the most part, then go back to the JBLs for tweeking and everything else. The JBLs are my babies.


I also have a pair of L55, which are very similar to the L40. The L55 lacks a tweeter balance control had a white coned woofer (virtually identical to the studio models) and a different tweeter than the L40. The boxes are almost identical - same internal size (total volume) - same speaker placement - interchangable components.

The woofers in the L40s fell apart a few years ago (foam around the edge crumbled from age) so I put the woofers from the L55 in them. They sounded exactly the same to my old ears. That's what I use today.

To replace the speakers in the L55 I used some cheap RS woofers. They sound boxy, but work for home theater. :)

Hey,

I recently finished a CD project. We were using a set of borrowed Event 20/20Bas monitors. Very nice for sure. Powerful transparent low-end, and crystaline high end, but it struck me as harsh. I wasn’t sure if it was the environment or what, but we did a side-by-side comparison of the Events with a pair of Alesis Monitor 1 MkII Actives. I switched to the Alesis monitors. Not as threatening a bottom-end, but the mids and highs were much smoother, and I just found them to be less fatiguing and matched my ears better. Mixes when taken to different listening environments required far less tweaking when using the Alesis monitors.

I had actually ordered the passives to drive with a Stewart PA-50B amp, but the vendor picked the wrong box and sent me the actives…picture me opening the box and seeing the manual (with a picture of a dual ported monitor on the front…I’m thinking “Oh they must use the same manual for the actives and passives.”) and then pulling out one of the units and staring at it, wondering if they had changed the passives to a vented enclosure…didn’t think there was a MkIII…no…that’s a power connection on the back and a combo connector…SWEET!!! Couldn’t in good conscience be deceptive so I called the vendor and told them what happened. We worked a deal to save them shipping the actives back and the passives out. Brand new at about 300 bones. On a budget I’m very pleased with them.

Thinking about the recent stereo/panning topic, and that for listeners in a a pub, or in a car, one speaker is arguably what most will hear, what do you do?

And do you expect your listeners to be playing your stuff on hi-fi equipment, or do you expect your music to be fighting over the chat and general noise of a pub?

I am interested, and would love to hear your opinions on this.

Ali,

Some interesting thoughts there.......

Point noted about the pub, but I'm not convinced about the car. Generally speaking, most cars are a good listening environment. The acoustics are usually well suited to music, and usually on a decent system people can hear something from all speakers.

The last serious mixing project (ie not demos etc) I did was a professionally recorded contemporary worship album (ie church stuff but with guitars and drums - acoustic rock if you like). It was mastered by a professional mastering house and I was pleased that really the mixes didn't need much treatment... just polish. We aimed, I guess, for typical listening environments (car, hi fi). Unlikely to get played in a pub!

I think we become personally involved with our mixes and we want the whole world to hear the subtle effect on the BVs, or that tiny guitar twiddle in the second verse, but the majority of the time the listening public miss the point or only hear "the whole". Most people don't sit still in front of two hi -fi speakers and just listen... the music is just there while they do other things.

Practically speaking, if it's an important part (eg vox), don't pan all one way (unless you are the Beatles). I also think that the mind is good at filling in the bits that are missing on a song that you already know. So as you wander into the kitchen and can only hear one speaker, I think the subconcious will "hear" the twiddley bits coming from the other speaker even if the sound doesn't reach the ears.



Mark

EDIT: I should just add, that I have not been following the "Panning" thread.
Thinking about the recent stereo/panning topic, and that for listeners in a a pub, or in a car, one speaker is arguably what most will hear, what do you do?

Do the best mix you can that still sounds good when summed to mono.