hi fi systems will all have different curves.And your music will be played from hi fi to mono AM radio to ipod. Flat monitors let you hear what is there. Certain monitors emphasize certain cycles to the point that a really good mastering engineer could probably tell you what monitors you mixed them on. Well so was the case with the infamous yamahas that everyone used to mix on.

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Here's an example.

Suppose you have some hi-fi system with a subwoofer. This system sounds effing good, and the bass has a nice, tight rumble.

So you decide to mix your track using these. As you go through the mixdown, you adjust all the highs and lows so that it all sounds pretty even. On this system, you get it just right so the bass doesn't sound too overpowering, but it still gives a nice rumble like you hear in the pro tracks.

Now you're all finished with the mixdown, and you render the track to audio. Sweet! You're so excited, you're gonna call a buddy and tell him what you just made. So you get online and send him a copy of it. He gets back to you after listening to it and tells you it sounds like crap and there's no bass whatsoever.

How could this happen? You just heard it on your system and it sounded perfect. After all those hours of getting it just right...

So of course out of curiosity, you ask your buddy what kinda speakers he listened to them on. He says he just listened to them on his brand spankin new pair of Mackie HR824s, which have a pretty flat response compared to yours.

You don't believe him. You take your track and listen on your iPod earbuds. Sure enough, the bass is really underpowered. In fact, so are the highs. The mids seem pretty well-pronounced in comparison, but everything else seems washed out.

So you decide to research a little more on your hi-fi system and you stumble upon the frequency response chart. You can't make out too much what it means, but you notice there are some boosts in the low end and in the high end. For comparison you Google your buddy's HR824 frequency response and compare it to your chart. His doesn't have those boosts. In fact, his monitors feature an almost flat response.

So since he's obviously into mixing and producing too (why else would he have those Mackies?), you call him up and he offers to fix the levels for you. After a couple days he gets back to you with the results. They're not perfect, he says, but he did what he could with what you had. He guaranteed, however, that they would translate well.

You listen to the "re-mix" on your hi-fi system. You're not too impressed off the bat, because the bass sounds weaker on there. Then again...you remember you could always boost the bass on your system's receiver if you wanted to.

To be sure, you double check on the iPods. It sounds almost exactly like what you expected it to on there. After that, you try it out on your old crappy computer speakers, on your car stereo, etc. Again, considering the variety of systems, it sounds pretty decent.

I think you get the idea. Of course, this is one example and I'm not suggesting all hi-fi systems have this kind of bias in their circuitry, but generally they tend to do so. I'm also not suggesting that Mackie HR824s are absolutely superior and will get you a perfect mix, they were just what I thought of first.

Like any rule of thumb, or guideline, or general suggestion, take it with a grain of salt. Do enough research to avoid this scenario, but also to find what works best for you and your music.

Cheers

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this is about 90% of the issues you hear on Soundcloud and alike, room and monitoring make the difference.

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Esoteric sound for the discerning ear

Interesting, and good points.

I'm asking because right now I have a pair of the old Behringer Truth B2031A's and when I get the mix sounding good with these, it sounds like crap on other systems...my home audio system with JBL's, my car audio system with Infinity's etc.
It starts with overwhelming bass, so I go back and cut the bass, then it sounds weak and 'tinny'.

So I've been reading about all the different monitors out there and I really feel like I'm going around in circles.
I've even considered buying a used pair of Yamaha NS10's simply due to their reputation.

Maybe it's just my ears.

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Dig up the frequency response charts (Bode plots) for these systems if you can. It's a nice, factual depiction of what your ears will hear. If anything, they'll provide an extra point to tack on to your pros/cons list.

The bass is overwhelming because you lack proper bass response on your Behringers. Since you don't have much bass there, you overcompensate in your mix by boosting those levels until your ears think it sounds OK on that system. Unfortunately, since you overcompensated, this doesn't translate well to other systems with better bass (especially those with subwoofers).

So obviously, before buying something else, you want to make sure it's going to have a decent bass response. Keep in mind, even if you buy an amazing new pair of monitors, there are still other factors that will affect the bass response (now we're getting into room treatment and the like), so in the end it still won't be perfect - only improved.

This is why I personally use both - I mainly do sound design and basic mixing on headphones, and I check my mix on a pair of decent monitors (Mackie MR5s). I'm used to the shortcomings of this method, and I've mostly learned how to compensate, but this is just what works for me.

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Last edited by cl0ckw3rk on Oct-13-2011 at 15:09

lets now get carried away. Flat response does not exist in the real world. How far you go from a flat response to something with some rather accentuated regions will matter if you don't know your monitors and your room is not treated making certain nulls more pronounced.

If you know your speakers which are not flat, you can make the translation. Flat speakers are nice and handy when say an engineer that is used to flat speakers but not yours can come in and still work. But if it is just your home studio, a completely flat response isn't that important. As long as you know how music should sound on your speakers, ie listen to alot of music on your speakers, then your mixes will translate. The only problem is that you will be stuck with that translation and if you change monitors to something flat, you will have to spend some time getting adjusted.

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old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney lets now get carried away. Flat response does not exist in the real world. How far you go from a flat response to something with some rather accentuated regions will matter if you don't know your monitors and your room is not treated making certain nulls more pronounced. If you know your speakers which are not flat, you can make the translation. Flat speakers are nice and handy when say an engineer that is used to flat speakers but not yours can come in and still work. But if it is just your home studio, a completely flat response isn't that important. As long as you know how music should sound on your speakers, ie listen to alot of music on your speakers, then your mixes will translate. The only problem is that you will be stuck with that translation and if you change monitors to something flat, you will have to spend some time getting adjusted.

Good point. I have a feeling that's the reason the NS-10s were so popular. They were what a lot of mastering studios used and people knew the sound. It's not so much that they were great speakers, but they were predictable to people that knew them.

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quote:

Originally posted by cl0ckw3rk The bass is overwhelming because you lack proper bass response on your Behringers. Since you don't have much bass there, you overcompensate in your mix by boosting those levels until your ears think it sounds OK on that system. Unfortunately, since you overcompensated, this doesn't translate well to other systems with better bass (especially those with subwoofers). So obviously, before buying something else, you want to make sure it's going to have a decent bass response. Keep in mind, even if you buy an amazing new pair of monitors, there are still other factors that will affect the bass response (now we're getting into room treatment and the like), so in the end it still won't be perfect - only improved.

I'd like to add that one of the simplest things to do is move the monitors away from the wall and out of corners. That's a good place to start with bass that doesn't travel well, and cheaper than investing in sound treatment right off the bat. That can come after the speaker placement is correct and there's correct room symmetry, etc.

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quote:

Originally posted by Sukhavati Good point. I have a feeling that's the reason the NS-10s were so popular. They were what a lot of mastering studios used and people knew the sound. It's not so much that they were great speakers, but they were predictable to people that knew them.

mastering studios didn't really use them. Was mostly mix engineers.

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"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Sukhavati Good point. I have a feeling that's the reason the NS-10s were so popular. They were what a lot of mastering studios used and people knew the sound. It's not so much that they were great speakers, but they were predictable to people that knew them.

Predictability was a factor but the main thing was they sounded so fucking lifeless, that if you could get a mix sounding nice on them, the moment you took it to another system it would sound great. They are really not very nice to listen to - just dull and boring. It also became a "thing" that you expected to see in studios so people just bought them as they were expected. Kinda how protools is expected - there are better converters/interfaces but 75% of clients think you're an amateur if you don't have PTHD in the studio.

when i first started producing i used to think flat response monitors were unneccessary, especially since i was driving out Reason and other DAWs with an old RCA biamp stereo system.
then i bought the Mackie M5s and they sounded good but they lacked power n would fade in and out from the protective heat circuit. so then i brought those back and started to care less about flat response monitors again.
it wasnt until i bought the new KRK Pro Rockit 6 Near Field Studio Monitors (limited edition blue boys) that i realized you just need to get the correct studio montiors and not just any.
anyways, they are definately a crucial part of producing, mostly in the mixing n mastering process. youll hear the difference because how they sound on your monitors is how they should translate to all other sound systems.

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