I never said or implied that it would improve my mixes, but now you mention it, it probably would. I don't see how getting those speakers could possibly be any worse than the setup I have now, ie, some low-mid heavy PC speakers and my headphones. It just means I'll have some some slightly better speakers and my headphones. You're also assuming I'm going to mix entirely on one thing, which I'm not. I'd use the speakers and the headphones together for an immediate and somewhat accurate representation of my mixes and then test them on as many other things as possible.

My speakers are the weak link in my mixing setup, how could replacing them with something more suited to the task possibly be a bad thing?

Because you'll end up replacing them six months later when you realize how crappy they are and then lose probably half of what you paid for because nobody wants them.


Sorry for trying to save you money in the long term.

If you want to go a bit cheaper than what you've already listed, SBT, check out M-Audio AV 40's. They're pretty good, and can be pretty cheap (I think I picked mine up for about 80 quid, some are kicking around for 90/100 after a brief googling)

They're not exactly the most fantastic speakers out there but they're head and shoulders above anything in that price range (and even a bit above).

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18520245]Because you'll end up replacing them six months later when you realize how crappy they are and then lose probably half of what you paid for because nobody wants them.


Sorry for trying to save you money in the long term.[/QUOTE]

I've got by on much worse for much longer. I think I'll be fine.

[quote=Sad But True;18520326]I've got by on much worse for much longer. I think I'll be fine.[/quote]
[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9NFD7xcbBk[/URL]
If you call this getting by then be my guest.




**in before eyeliner**

Yeah, by definition getting by is just enough, and that is. Sorry we can't all be fucking masters at it. Get your head out of your ass.

Every little helps. Mixing on average speakers is better than mixing on crappy speakers.

Theres something to be said about using crappy speakers to your advantage though. Sounds crazy I know. But i know a few engineers that will do this, mix on yamaha NS10's (which sound like shit) but their selling point was if it sounds good on these it will sound good on most everything else.

Ideally you should have a few different listening mediums when mixing. At least monitors and headphones, a smaller set of crappy computer speakers is a good thing to use as well. I've sometimes even used ear buds. I try and think of what other people will be listening to the music on. Most people don't have studio quality speakers.

[quote=dave mustaine #2;18521252]Theres something to be said about using crappy speakers to your advantage though. Sounds crazy I know. But i know a few engineers that will do this, mix on yamaha NS10's (which sound like shit) but their selling point was if it sounds good on these it will sound good on most everything else.[/quote]


And that something is "be very careful about it."

Part of the allure of the NS10s (as I understand it) was that they "happened" to translate pretty well to lots of other systems.

There is such a thing as a crappy-sounding speaker that also doesn't translate well. I would guess that most crappy-sounding speakers fall into that category, actually.

So you do need to vet your playback system quite a bit and make a decision in context of this if you're gonna shoot for this aspect of "crappy" speakers.

I'm still a huge proponent of "listen first, then buy." Particularly if you can compare lots of different options at the same time. Monitoring is pretty heavily influenced by personal preferences. Even at the lower-tiered stuff there's pretty big variability in sound.

[quote=Sad But True;18520845]Yeah, by definition getting by is just enough, and that is. Sorry we can't all be fucking masters at it. Get your head out of your ass.[/quote]
:lol: Sorry did you forget you were on the internet?


Lol it's not about being a master, it's about thinking you're getting by when in reality your product isn't showing that. A little reality check is fucking healthy no matter what level you're at.

Dude I'm just trying to do you a favour. I went through exactly what you're going through. I bought some Alesis M520 USB's and sold the like 3-6 months later because you couldn't mix shit on them. Save some money, get some better speakers, honestly, do you not have time to save some extra dough and save yourself some money in the future instead of being short sighted and stubborn? I'll be the first one to tell you "I told you so" when you do sell them.




And yes Mo' beat me to it kind of.

The NS10's are good for mixing and balancing because the expose the mid range a fuck of a lot better than speakers in it's class. They expose all this yucky shit in the mid range that you might miss on 'better' sounding speakers. And once you learn them, you can mix like the wind, apparently...


But that said you either need a sub or Larger speakers to check you bass on.

[url]http://soundcloud.com/convectuoso/abc12345[/url]


Try this on for size.

I only recorded drums. Everything else was recorded and played by the client (1 guy) on an Mbox 2 pro.

And feedback appreciated.

**unmastered, soundcloud just makes it looks like I've smashed it, but it's not mastered yet at all**

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18521341], do you not have time to save some extra dough and save yourself some money in the future instead


[/QUOTE]


No, I don't. Hence why I posted it now, and with the funds that I have available now.

[QUOTE=Moseph;18519514]That wasn't what I was getting at. I was saying that if you're top concern is quality, you're probably passing on the duet and getting 1-2 channels of top-notch specialty stuff instead. If your top concern is getting something that doesn't cost a whole lot, you're probably also passing on the duet and grabbing something with a smaller price tag.

That's literally it: I just don't get who they're really selling to (other than Convectuoso, apparently).






I'm not talking about any particular ones, actually: I'm just playing the odds. The amount of BlackFace ADATs/Mackie 1604s/Shure SM58's that got sold in the last 20 years is a pretty large number. In amassing my own gear collection, I came across some other home recordists who let me hear some stuff they did, and much of it sounded quite good. I reckon there are more than a few dozen folks within 2 hours driving distance of me that have gotten similar results over the years.

If you want a good idea about "more with less" pick up both of the TapeOp compilation books. The fact of the matter is that just because you haven't heard it doesn't mean it doesn't sound good. The inverse of that is also true.




You're drawing conclusions that aren't there. I don't recall ever encouraging anybody to buy "shitty" gear (though your threshold for "shitty" is significantly higher than mine). I do recall saying get what you're comfortable getting because it won't matter too much if you're new. Also that I'm not getting the marketing for Apogee's home recording interfaces. Beyond that, I'm pretty sure you're finding nonexistent subtext.[/QUOTE]

arguing with you is like arguing with a computer, you've no ability to infer

[quote=Xomblies;18523633]arguing with you is like arguing with a computer, you've no ability to infer[/quote]

I suspect that's largely because of the text-only medium the argument is happening across.

Appropriately enough, I'm also not sure if you really mean "imply" instead of "infer", seeing as how the context is about the things [I]I've[/I] posted. If you are talking about inference, then by all means, elaborate.

[QUOTE=Moseph;18523638]I suspect that's largely because of the text-only medium the argument is happening across.

Appropriately enough, I'm also not sure if you really mean "imply" instead of "infer", seeing as how the context is about the things [I]I've[/I] posted. If you are talking about inference, then by all means, elaborate.[/QUOTE]

you're doin it right now son

[QUOTE=Sad But True;18521393]No, I don't. Hence why I posted it now, and with the funds that I have available now.[/QUOTE]

just mix at low volumes, the reason i'm always ranting about treated rooms is more a problem with reflection, less volume means less reflection... TBH You could really familiarize yourself with just about any pair of monitors. And if you want to get some kind of dead environment to mix in at louder volumes, you could try building yourself a fort of packing blankets and mic stands...

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18523707]just mix at low volumes, the reason i'm always ranting about treated rooms is more a problem with reflection, less volume means less reflection... TBH You could really familiarize yourself with just about any pair of monitors. And if you want to get some kind of dead environment to mix in at louder volumes, you could try building yourself a fort of packing blankets and mic stands...[/QUOTE]

This is actually untrue. The room has the same influence proportional to the listening level at any volume. Most of the interactions within a room (reflections) are nearly (if not quite) linear systems, meaning that increasing or decreasing the listening level will increase or decrease the level of room sound by some proportionality constant relating to the materials within the room and its size. The only way that you will lessen the effect of the room is to either use highly absorptive materials in the walls (treatment) or to make the room bigger (to take advantage of the inverse square law between reflections). I'm not just bullshitting here, I do research in real-time computer acoustics simulation.

Also, beware of mixing at loud volumes because the ear hears differently at different SPLs. See: Fletcher–Munson curves. You should mix at an average listening level (I mix at about 75-80 dB SPL) in order to keep this from affecting your mix too much. Typically, you will perceive 2-5 kHz as being louder at high SPLs relative to other frequencies.

[QUOTE=ares;18523725]This is actually untrue. The room has the same influence proportional to the listening level at any volume. Most of the interactions within a room (reflections) are nearly (if not quite) linear systems, meaning that increasing or decreasing the listening level will increase or decrease the level of room sound by some proportionality constant relating to the materials within the room and its size. The only way that you will lessen the effect of the room is to either use highly absorptive materials in the walls (treatment) or to make the room bigger (to take advantage of the inverse square law between reflections). I'm not just bullshitting here, I do research in real-time computer acoustics simulation.

Also, beware of mixing at loud volumes because the ear hears differently at different SPLs. See: Fletcher–Munson curves. You should mix at an average listening level (I mix at about 75-80 dB SPL) in order to keep this from affecting your mix too much. Typically, you will perceive 2-5 kHz as being louder at high SPLs relative to other frequencies.[/QUOTE]

smaller sine waves don't travel as far son, mixing quiet (unless you're mixing in a bathroom the size of a closet) actually does make a difference. You can simulate acoustics on a computer all you want, but i'll speak from experience:
[url]http://soundcloud.com/alphawolf-1[/url]

screw your science i'll go with personal biases

[QUOTE=JoshIsNumber3;18524194]screw your science i'll go with what atually works[/QUOTE]

Fixd*

[QUOTE=Xomblies;18524183]smaller sine waves don't travel as far son, mixing quiet (unless you're mixing in a bathroom the size of a closet) actually does make a difference. You can simulate acoustics on a computer all you want, but i'll speak from experience:
[url]http://soundcloud.com/alphawolf-1[/url][/QUOTE]

Each reflection of sound within a room can be modeled using the equation:

S' = A*S

where S is the input sound, A is a frequency response representing the attenuation caused by energy loss during reflection, and S' is the output sound. This is a LINEAR system (in most cases), so if we make everything twice as loud:

S'' = A*(2*S) = 2*A*S = 2*S'

we get double the output volume. The sound that you hear in a room is caused by millions of these interactions summed together. The other major factor in modeling room acoustics is the distance attenuation that sound experiences as it travels through air:

S' = 1/(1+D^2)*S

This is still a linear system and will behave accordingly if you increase the input volume. However, you can lessen the effects of room acoustics by increasing the size of the room: increasing the average D in the previous equation will net a lower ratio of room to direct sound. It will also push room modes to lower frequencies. A room that is bigger than around 55 feet in all directions will have all room modes below 20Hz.

Oh, and if we're going to play that game, this is a mix I did last night in my untreated room:
[URL]http://www.expireband.com/progeny.mp3[/URL]

but you are saying the system is linear, so increasing room size would have the same effect as turning it down, less output means your "linear" attenuation curve falls sooner right? i think you're also overlooking the fact that we're not talking about a completely empty room here which is probably what you've been simulating. In the real world, most people in an "untreated" room often have other objects in the room: Slick reclining chairs, couches, other band members, fleshlights, pets, mountains of cocaine gear racks, even the rig/ desk the mixer is using not to mention there are a lot of factors in building a room that come into play like what type of dryall, is there wallpaper, what about glass windows? are there curtains? what about crown molding? how tall is the room?, is it vaulted? so while i'm sure your impulse response simulations of completely empty rooms with walls made of math are accurate, You can usually trust your ears more than you can some bullshit some nerd pulled off of google

i'm pretty sure all acoustic treatment techs stopped using the flether munson principle some time ago, there are more up to date sound pressure theories...

also your mix sounds really isolated, use more gates on your close mics and automate them so when the drummer does a roll it's disabled etc, ESPECIALLY on the toms. More room mics/ overheads would glue your drums together and make them sound more natural. Guitars sound really crushed and Fake. Your entire mix kinda sounds crushed as well but not in a good way, your release is set to crackhead speed making it sound jittery, if you have the ssl comp plugin, try setting your release to auto instead of turning the release time all the way down.

i think posting your music along with any advice on these threads is a good idea, it'll allow the reader to determine whether or not the person giving it knows what their doing rather than just what they're talking about.

[quote=Xomblies;18524912]but you are saying the system is linear, so increasing room size would have the same effect as turning it down, less output means your "linear" attenuation curve falls sooner right? i think you're also overlooking the fact that we're not talking about a completely empty room here which is probably what you've been simulating. In the real world, most people in an "untreated" room often have other objects in the room: Slick reclining chairs, couches, other band members, fleshlights, pets, mountains of cocaine gear racks, even the rig/ desk the mixer is using not to mention there are a lot of factors in building a room that come into play like what type of dryall, is there wallpaper, what about glass windows? are there curtains? what about crown molding? how tall is the room?, is it vaulted? so while i'm sure your impulse response simulations of completely empty rooms with walls made of math are accurate, You can usually trust your ears more than you can some bullshit some nerd pulled off of google

i'm pretty sure all acoustic treatment techs stopped using the flether munson principle some time ago, there are more up to date sound pressure theories...

also your mix sounds really isolated, use more gates on your close mics and automate them so when the drummer does a roll it's disabled etc, ESPECIALLY on the toms. More room mics/ overheads would glue your drums together and make them sound more natural. Guitars sound really crushed and Fake. Your entire mix kinda sounds crushed as well but not in a good way, your release is set to crackhead speed making it sound jittery, if you have the ssl comp plugin, try setting your release to auto instead of turning the release time all the way down.

i think posting your music along with any advice on these threads is a good idea, it'll allow the reader to determine whether or not the person giving it knows what their doing rather than just what they're talking about.[/quote]
[URL]http://soundcloud.com/convectuoso/abc12345[/URL]

Do me, do me!

I'm now buying some Alesis M1 MkII actives for £150, is this awesome y/y?


Also, what do you guys do insofar as mastering is concerned? Do you just use a mastering plugin or is there more to it than that?

Ozone is a good place to start, but you'll probably want to do more tweaks to your master than a single plugin can provide.
Good multiband compressors/ maximisers are very useful, and you'll want to run through a matching eq, a global reverb, etc.

[quote=Moss;18526003]Ozone is a good place to start, but you'll probably want to do more tweaks to your master than a single plugin can provide.
Good multiband compressors/ maximisers are very useful, and you'll want to run through a matching eq, [B]a global reverb[/B], etc.[/quote]
Ew.

Unless it's like an acoustic and a vocal that have for some reason been mixed with no or very little reverb. I can't imagine why the fuck anyone in their sane/sober mind would want to put reverb over the whole mix? I don't care if Ozone has one, it's fucking stupid.

Two of my friends have the MKII's. They're "okay". But their mixes both always seems to have this weird tone to them that I can only put down to either their mixing abilities or their speakers.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18526110]Ew.

Unless it's like an acoustic and a vocal that have for some reason been mixed with no or very little reverb. I can't imagine why the fuck anyone in their sane/sober mind would want to put reverb over the whole mix? I don't care if Ozone has one, it's fucking stupid.
[/QUOTE]

Cohesiveness for different tracks recorded from different sources. Especially in a world where a lot of guitars, bass etc. go in from a line source, you need a global reverb to bring the mix together.

[quote=Moss;18526143]Cohesiveness for different tracks recorded from different sources. Especially in a world where a lot of guitars, bass etc. go in from a line source, you need a global reverb to bring the mix together.[/quote]
All that should've been done in the mix?

And reverb on a bass? Maybe 1/100 mixes ever need reverb on a bass.


Fixing it in the master is the worst idea anyone could ever entertain.

Fair douze, diff'rent strokes and all that. :-)

[quote=Xomblies;18523706]you're doin it right now son[/quote]

Yeah, you're definitely going to need to elaborate. I can't infer anything about my own statements: I made them, I know what I meant to say. Any subtext there I don't know about is on you.

Also, looks like some big happenings while I stepped away. This is gonna be long, since I'm late to the party...

[quote=Xomblies;18524183][B]smaller[/B] sine waves don't travel as far son, mixing quiet (unless you're mixing in a bathroom the size of a closet) actually does make a difference. You can simulate acoustics on a computer all you want, but i'll speak from experience[/quote]

"Smaller", by itself, doesn't mean anything in particular with respect to acoustics. Based on context, I'm assuming you're talking about "less energy." And yes, the distinction (and precision) is important here.

[quote=ares;18523725]This is actually untrue. The room has the same influence proportional to the listening level at any volume. Most of the interactions within a room (reflections) are nearly (if not quite) linear systems, meaning that increasing or decreasing the listening level will increase or decrease the level of room sound by some proportionality constant relating to the materials within the room and its size.[/quote]

Hold up, what about the Sabine Equation (as referenced in my copy of Kinsler*)? That's not a linear description. I was always under the impression that the "relatively" linear behavior was because most descriptions knocked out the higher-order behaviors on purpose to give a general idea of what the room would do (i.e., the non-linear stuff is actually important).


*[I]Fundamentals of Acoustics, 4th Edition[/I]. Kinsler, et al. Wiley: 2004. My understanding is that this is the standard intro survey text (in one form or another), and that this has been the case for roughly 50 years or so.

[quote=ares;18523725]Also, beware of mixing at loud volumes because the ear hears differently at different SPLs. See: Fletcher–Munson curves. You should mix at an average listening level (I mix at about 75-80 dB SPL) in order to keep this from affecting your mix too much. Typically, you will perceive 2-5 kHz as being louder at high SPLs relative to other frequencies.[/quote]


Another big one is the dramatic change in the perception of bass frequency. I've always considered this change to be even more important, since most people will have a perceived boost at 2-5 kHz across the volume ranges (though the exact nature does change with volume).


[quote=ares;18524283]Each reflection of sound within a room can be modeled using the equation:
...

[/quote]

Again, I'm wondering how relevant the non-linearities are in this instance. I've always thought of this behavior in the linear realm as well, but was under the impression that it became more vital in the higher frequencies.


[quote=Xomblies;18524912]i think you're also overlooking the fact that we're not talking about a completely empty room here which is probably what you've been simulating. In the real world, most people in an "untreated" room often have other objects in the room...not to mention there are a lot of factors in building a room that come into play like what type of dryall, is there wallpaper, what about glass windows? are there curtains? what about crown molding? how tall is the room?, is it vaulted? so while i'm sure your impulse response simulations of completely empty rooms with walls made of math are accurate, You can usually trust your ears more than you can some bullshit some nerd pulled off of google.[/quote]

I'd be inclined to give him a little more credit than that. That's all stuff that gets considered in the first week of reverberation calculation. I was worrying about that stuff in my Acoustics class and we only talked about it for about 3 class days (as would be expected in a general overview of acoustic phenomenon).

And the idea that you can [I]learn[/I] the physical behavior of sound using nothing more than Google and no particular understanding of calculus and differential equations is pretty ludicrous. Even the [I]easy[/I] version of acoustics hits on multivariate calculus and lots of phasor trigonometry.

[quote=Xomblies;18524912]i'm pretty sure all acoustic treatment techs stopped using the flether munson principle some time ago, there are more up to date sound pressure theories...[/quote]

Which one would you consider the "gold standard?" Part of the reason why there are lots of equal-loudness contours is because the measurements are pretty much always calculated directly from experimental results: the sampling pool has a big influence on the data in that regard. Nonetheless, his point was largely about how perception changes with volume, and [I]all[/I] equal-loudness contours will show that particular relationship in roughly the same way.

[quote=Xomblies;18524912]allow the reader to determine whether or not the person giving it knows what their doing rather than just what they're talking about.[/quote]

Speaking of which, did you ever get an answer on the -24 dB standard for digital audio? I'd still like to look into that if possible.


[quote=Convectuoso;18526110]I can't imagine why the fuck anyone in their sane/sober mind would want to put reverb over the whole mix?[/quote]

Off the top of my head: very common on jazz records, very common on orchestral/symphonic/brass recordings, can be used to "sweeten" an album recorded in a dead acoustic space, often done with live recordings, often done to maintain cohesion through edits, can be used as a short-term special effect, and is very standard when you want to put the performance in a single virtual space. Keep in mind that "reverb" doesn't always just mean "artificial reverb."