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Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 23 2011, 01:05 PM

Hey guys! A little bit of advice I would ask from everyone which has experience with studio monitors - I am building up my studio and I need a pair of good monitors so I would like a good recommendation based on the following aspects:

- what would be more appropriate 5',6' or 8' speakers?
- does the size and form of the mixing room influence the monitor type I should have?
- my budget is about 400-500 euros

What other important aspects should be taken into consideration?

Looking forward to your advice mates! Thank ye!

Posted by: JaxN4 Oct 23 2011, 01:14 PM

Good thread, I am also interested to learn about ppl's exp in this area....Nice one Cosmo :-)

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 23 2011, 10:35 PM

Preferably 3 way with a bass speaker at least 7 inch. Room needs to be properly bass trapped and treated and the worst shape for a room is a perfect cube, next is a multiple of a cube. Speakers should be on good stands at a suitable height, XLR connections with separate bass, mid and tweeter power amps. Good DA conversion as well.

500 Euros, TBH Cosmin your budget is very tight and personally I'd suggest you'd be best pending it on proper room treatment as without that you're guessing.

Posted by: thefireball Oct 24 2011, 01:54 AM

Todd recommended these http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/alesis-monitor-1-mkii-passive-monitors-pair/603201000000000 to me. I am going to save up for them as they are a great start for the price. I don't have a lot of money. My budget is tighter than Cosmin's. Todd has these MK2s. Only thing I don't know is how they hook up to your computer.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 24 2011, 05:27 AM

Alesis MK2 and KRK could be good options for that money... I also think that the room acoustic is veeery important. However if you can check in which frequencies your room have problems you can also add a graphic EQ before your speakers. This is not a professional decision but it works. I have a problem at 112 hz in my mixing room so I attenuate that frequency with an EQ from the Motu virtual console.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 24 2011, 07:38 AM

Thanks for the advice guys!

I made a VERY rough sketch (I shall put on a detailed one with dimensions and everything) so that you experienced guys should let me know on your opinion regarding a proper acoustic treatment judging by the shape of the room itself!

Thank you

Cosmin

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 24 2011, 08:52 AM

Hmm, how bout placing mixing desk and monitors on the northern wall (on the image)? If there is room there, I believe it's a better place for it.

If you're building a studio, treatment is a must. First thing to do is place carpets on the floor, second, to put some heavy drapes on the window. Ceiling could be handled with a diffusor similar to this one:


On the walls, specially around the monitors, these types of absorption tiles can work great:


On the corners, some bass traps and corner absorption components may be needed too:


That will help you tame the sound within the studio. The recording booth however will require better treatment with the wooden frame, so you have an air pocket that further insulates the room (and place the absorption/diffusion material onto it). Until you find all the right material (don't get carried away and spend the money all at once ), you can handle most of these problems with heavy drapes, work with that a bit, and then introduce component by component, at least I would try it like that, and be careful with the cash.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 24 2011, 09:04 AM

Thank you Ivan! I already have 19 pieces (2 m/ 1,5m) of sponge absorption tiles which I received as a gift from some friends who disbanded and took it off from their studio walls. So I think that would suffice even for the interior of the recording room. I would still need the bass traps though. I have made a little list with all I need to buy and hopefully, by the end of this year I'll have everything needed for the basic things. I can record video in this room right now - I got the lights, backdrop and the Nikon D3100 - yeah, I bought that one all the structures are built so, I just need to 'dress' it up

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 24 2011, 09:06 PM

Some great advice Treatment is very important. If you can actually build some bass traps yourself, it will save TONS of money. Foam bass traps will do in a pinch, but as they are foam, their absorption powers can only go so low. If you are handy with wood and tools, you can build real bass traps and really cut down on the standing waves in your mixing room. It's these standing waves that can cause huge headaches when trying to mix in a nearly cube shaped space. I'm making do with foam bass traps while I try to get a carpenter buddy of mine to build me some real traps.

For the money you are talking about spending, you could look at a pair of KRK ROCKIT 8s ($500 U.S. pair street price). 8 inch woofer, dome tweeter, bi-amp design, xlr inputs. These are the upgrade from what I have (KRK 6 paired with a 12 inch subwoofer)

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Rokit8G2/

Posted by: Sinisa Cekic Oct 24 2011, 10:31 PM

This looks a good deal!

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 25 2011, 09:16 AM

I was thinking about KRK monitors to be honest it seems like a good choice!

Posted by: JaxN4 Oct 25 2011, 09:43 AM

Hey guys, great thread.

A quick and hopefully not dumb question . I will be getting a set of mixing speakers, but unlike Cosmin's setup I will record through headphones and then mix with speakers....So if that is the case I won't actually have to do the whole sound proofing to the walls of the room right?

Thanks

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 25 2011, 02:13 PM

Not really mate, but it all comes down on the function of the room. If the room is intended for recording (drums, amplifiers, vocals etc), then it needs to be isolated from external noise and internal sounds should be more or less isolated, so they don't leak outside too much (because the mixing/tracking room is usually near recording room, so for example: you could not track properly the drummer playing loud, if you can hear him banging in the same time from the other room).

If the room is intended for mixing only, then it doesn't really need isolation of that kind, but still the sound must be tamed within the room, which means the sound reflection artifacts should be minimal: flutter echo, standing waves and bass booms in corners present biggest problems is such rooms and should be handled first.

Usually people start by adding small absorbent plates behind the speakers and opposite parts of the room from where the speaker is. This cleans up the sound a bit, reducing the reflections that get in the way. Hard and big flat surfaces should be avoided in rooms where good sound image is needed.

Posted by: JaxN4 Oct 25 2011, 02:31 PM

Ivan you are a True GURU indeed....Thanks!

I will be only mixing the final take in the room i am talking about, wont have and Live recording, ie drummer. Just mastering/mixing the final take. With that in mind you think some sort of insulation on the solid/flat large walls is required?

THX

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 25 2011, 10:11 PM

Thanks my friend, learned all here on GMC and throughout the years

Well, in the post #7, I described these methods, on how to handle these problems, check it out.

Here's an interesting example of treated room. Check out web for more of these, you will get some cool ideas and solutions there.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 25 2011, 10:13 PM

Thanks for the great tips Ivan! I have to read more - any good suggestions on sites providing accurate schemes on different room shapes maybe? thank you man!

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 26 2011, 02:41 AM

Well, you would come out of your audio interface, then to amplification (a home tuner/amp will do in a pinch) then to the speakers. These particular speakers are nice and cheap cause they don't have an amp in them. It's not a high end approach, but it will get you started and beats the pants off of ear buds, or computer speakers in general.

AURALEX KIT CALCULATOR!

Here is a link to the Auralex Kit Calculator. Not the end word by any means, but you put in your variables and it helps you get an idea of what king of sound foam kit you might need.

http://www.auralex.com/ikc/default.asp

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 26 2011, 07:45 AM

Oooh Super! Thanks Todd, let's see what this is all about...

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 26 2011, 10:10 AM

Yes 100%. We build our own bass traps (not pretty becuase my woodwork skills suck but effective). The foam ones just do not work well enough.

One other thing about foam - proper acoustic foam is/ should be treated to be fire resistant. Normal, general purpose foam isn't treated and can cause a major fire risk.

Our main bass traps (we have 4 plus another 4 minor ones) are filled with several layers of rock wool to a thickness of 6 inches - the equivalent foam would be something like 7 foot thick. Ours are also open backed to let some diffusion through the rear, with a slight gap between the walls of the trap and the rock wool. We also have various diffusors and reflectors and a cloud for the ceiling - acoustic foam is ok for these btw as you're dealing with much higher frequencies.

What you need really depends not only on purpose, room shape and size but also on its construction. Ours was custom made at the same time as we built out house. The floor of our studio is a split slab of concrete, that's then covered in isulation, which in turn is covered by a wooden floor. The walls are slightly isolated from the floor, two outer walls, double skin of brick with a third skin of plaster; two inner ones are paster board so that bass passes through with minimal build up. Bass trapping in corners so that the shape of the room is a bit like a boat shape and the room is approx 3.4 times longer than it is wide. High wooden ceiling. We have a lot of electrical points set on separate rings - computer etc on one ring; monitor and dac on another; other ring for rubbish. For mixing you can get away with less bass trapping then we have but you will still need it in the corners. Most of your treatment will probably be reflection and diffussion. You can do a quick 'clap' test which will give you a basic idea of how 'live' the room is and what you're likely to need to do.

Apart from construction material the size and shape of a room is an issue. A perfect cube is the worst possible shape, followed by any whole number multiple of that shape. You get nasty frequency build up with a perfect cube. The room should be longer than it is wide and not a whole number multiple of the width. The room needs to be wide enough to be able to site the speakers so that they can produce stereo and so that that they are far enough from both the rear and side wals to allow for reflections, etc. As a minimum for small speakers you'd need at least 4' between the speakers and 1 foot from each side wall/rear wall - so at least 6 feet wide. You would sit at the apex of an equilateral triangle, each side is 4 feet - so you would be % 3'10'' back, plus the distance from the rear wall for the speakers (1 foot); so your listening position would have to be about 5' from the rear wall. The length should be a little over 3 times that listening distance - ie about 16 feet or so. So for small speakers you'd need a room of at least 6x16.

As the room is for mixing I'd guess that you're likely to sit the speakers either side of the console/mixer and pc screen. TBH that's an awful position due to comb filtering, reflections, etc but it's still probably the favourite one in mix studios. If you have to mount the monitors on the meter bridge put some isolation under them and tilt them slightly down towards you. It's much better though to mount them on proper stands though.

Stands will also help put the speaker at a proper height and stop them moving about. Speaker height for a 2 way requires the tweeterto be at the same height as your ear when you are in your listening position. Most speakers are also designed for a particular orientation, i.e to stand up right with the tweeter above the bass and not be laid on their sides. There are some exceptions to this though but it depends on the speaker.

2 way monitors for mixing nearly always need to be sited quite close to the rear wall since they make use of the wall to artificially enhance their bass response and so you will probably need to put treatment behind them. This also forces you to sit in a position where the stereo field is really quite small; if you move to either side, or forward and back, from the ideal position you will lose stereo. Small rooms with small monitors are very constrained as to where you can sit.




As Ivan says mixing and tracking/recording have different requirements and so in an ideal world require different treatment etc. (Same is also true for mastering - treatment is different to recording and mixing). For mixing using monitors you will still have to do room treatment.

As a minimum for tracking with headphones - use closed back phones. This will help prevent minimise external ambient noise. Also be aware that headphones do not present the stereo image the same as monitors/speakers. So things like reverb and echo and stereo placement can be an issue. For tracking on headphones you really should also use a properly calibrated headphone amp - if you don't then you may run in to problems judging levels and recalling them. Personally I prefer to use monitors/speakers for the majority and to just use headphones occassionally/rarely for checking fine detail.



Cosmin - just looking at your pic of your room:

Shape of room is odd as an L shape. You might want to think about partioning it so that the mix desk sits in a recangular room. Large window behind the desk isn't great. As Ivan says you will need to screen this with heavy curtains. Positioning of it looks like it sits on top of several important reflection nodes - not much you can do though short of bricking up the window. Same is also true of the small window. If you have the monitors on the desk then they would fire down the width and not the length - also not good. Put the desk, or at least the speakers, on the narrow wall so they point down the length. Don't know what the backdrop is but it might have an affect.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 26 2011, 11:29 AM

Two layers of thick curtains (and wrinkled) is a guaranteed and one of the cheapest ways to remove reflections. I suggest making a plan of work, and doing everything DIY. It's a cool project, make some food (I know you can do it! ), and bring your friends over to help - you can finish it in no time!

Posted by: JaxN4 Oct 26 2011, 11:37 AM

Thanks alot mate, appreciate the info

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 26 2011, 12:18 PM

Oh guys Thank you! You know what? What if I'll make a mini series with my new Nikon (with which I'm shooting today by the way ) and post the developing of the studio step by step I just hope I'll have enough money to make it happen fast and not let you wait on the little movies too long

Posted by: JaxN4 Oct 26 2011, 12:22 PM

Great Idea mate...it will be a very usefull and highly watched video, regardless of time frame

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 26 2011, 12:35 PM

That often works but it does depend on the frequencies that are being reflected, material of the curtain and the wall behind. Also helps to line the curtains properly .

Posted by: Sinisa Cekic Oct 26 2011, 03:24 PM

This is a great topic. I found this video, tell me something about this treatment..


And question: If I decide to take Krk or Alesis MKII, whether they are good for bass monitoring or I need subwoofer extra ?

Posted by: thefireball Oct 26 2011, 04:34 PM

I'm not sure I understand differences between passive and active monitors. Which is better? I don't understand how that works with passive. You have to get in amped? But how? I can't find good pics on the web of the differences. What does it mean to have a standard tuner/guitar amp to amplify the passive speakers? I'm confused as you can see. I want to get the MK2 speakers as Todd recommended me for the price. But I want to make the best choice. Passive or active?

Posted by: Michael AC Oct 26 2011, 10:13 PM

tony you have any pictures of your room and traps??

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 26 2011, 11:27 PM

Pictures of the whole process will be nice as well mate (and easier to distribute)!

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 27 2011, 09:48 AM

Passive require amplification, active have a built in amp. Most recording/mixing ones are active, whilst mastering tend to be either.

Big advantage of active is that you don't have to worry about getting a suitable amp for the monitors. Disadvantage is that the amps that are built in very often are not well matched to drive the bass and the tweeter properly. A guitar amp is NOT suitable to drive a monitor.




I'll see what I can do over the next few days . Bass traps aren't pretty though as my woodwork skills are minimal .




Any monitor with less than a 7'' bass speaker really isn't likely to be good enough to produce bass IMHO. The problem with using a sub is that you have to match and position them very accurately or you will introduce additional problems, particularly around phase and timing.

I'd also have to say that this guy's video isn't great even ignoring that he's talking about acoustic treatment and not insulation. Still better than nothing I guess.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 27 2011, 01:33 PM

Guys! I am starting to gather all this info AND here's a first glance on how my studio looks like at this point (I beg you to forgive my lack of skill as a photographer I just started learning)

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/3aa5a

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/dcaa7

I'll take more pictures later and post them!

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 27 2011, 03:10 PM

Some photos of the traps etc Gary - not great quality I'm afraid.

This is a close up of the LHS monitor. It's a 3 way, 8'' bass, 5'' mid and a tweeter. Monitors are ATC SCM Professional and specially designed for mastering. They're active and include 3x2 dedicated Bryston amps, 1 for each speaker cone so each amp and each speaker cone handles a specific frequency range.Amps are 200W bass, 100W mid and 50 High, they put out 120dB SPL continuous at 1 meter. Speakers are flat to @50 Hz and then gently roll of at -3dB/Octave - better than most subs. X-Overs are at 3.5k and 380Hz. Amps are XLR and fed from a calibrated Lavry Black 11 DAC.



This is the studio facing towards the monitors. The bass traps are behind the monitors and are covered in the blue double bed sheets. The traps are literally wooden frames - wood is 1 inch thick and 6 inches wide- with no back or front. These are filled with high density rockwool to a thickness of about 5 inches, which is then held in place by a thin sheet glued and pinned in place and some wooden dowels. The dowels also add some strength to the frames.

Traps are rectanglular about 7' high by 4' wide and placed at an angle in the corner. Our traps are a lot bigger than the ones you can buy commercially and are floor standing. They also trap to a much lower frequency than commerical ones because we use a high density rockwool and pack it in. We have 4 of these - 1 in each corner plus we have some more, smaller more portable bass traps on the sides. There are also standard, commercial reflectors and diffusors but by far and away most of our treatment is bass trapping.

The stereo is 1 1/2 feet behind the rear plane of the monitors. Distance between the monitors is @7' centre to centre. The monitor stands position the speakers so that the tweeter and mid are in line with my ears when I'm seated. Montors are in open, free space @1 1/2 feet from the side and back walls and about 8'' from the inclined plane of the bass traps. Stands are cast iron and filled with lead shot. The monitors btw are increadibly heavy - they weigh about 50kg.



This is the studio facing the monitors taken from where I sit. You can see a reflector a couple of feet above the stereo. Main thing to note here: there is little/nothing directly between me and the monitors. You can just see the corner of my desk and the pc we use for mastering. Desk is about 6 back from the front plane of the speakers and the desk is against the wall so very little of it actually is in front of the RHS monitor and me. You can't see them but on the desk is a pc monitor, the DAC, some outboard and a USB extension that holds all the various I-Lok dongles and other dongle keys that we have. None of this stuff though is in line of sight of the RHS monitor.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 27 2011, 05:49 PM

I've got both of those and they are generally considered entry level "near field" speakers meaning, you keep them pretty close to your head and they don't have much bass. They make a good starter pair though. Anything below 60hz and your guessing in the mix. So yeah, you'd do better with a sub. Once I added a sub to them I was shocked. They are accurate enough to get a decent sounding mix with but they focus on mid bass/trebl. If you get both pair and switch between them, you can see how different speakers in the same price range can sound. The KRK are more flat. The Alesis seem to have more boom and tweet. Balancing between pairs gives me a better sense of how a mix will "travel"

If you can spend up and get the 8 inch woofer version, or the new 3 way KRK, you can probably hold off on the sub for a bit. But eventually you'll probably want one either way. There is a lot happening in that range that most speakers are not great at.



Passive speakers don't have a power amp. (the bit that makes signal louder) and Active speakers do have one or more power amps. That's it

So yea, like I was saying in a previous post, if you get passive speakers you'll need an amp. You can use a home stereo/tuner amp in a pinch and here's a pic of that. It's something you probably have in your house. Do you have a home theatre? Something to watch DVD's on? If it has some speakers, there's probably an amp. Here's a pic.



Generally, ACTIVE are better as the amp is in the speaker, the signal has less distance to travel before it hits the speaker cone. But, it honestly in your case it really won't make much difference. You'll be mixing/recording in a room that will have far more impact on your overal sound than passive/active speakers. Bedrooms are usually semi cubed shaped and one of the worst places you can track/mix. That's why we keep talking about accoustical treatment. But even without any accoustical treatment, a couple of starter speakers still beats the pants off laptop speakers or earbuds which is what most folks start out with, or something similar. You are looking at just getting a pair to start out and get some experience with. So it really just comes down to budget.

Posted by: Sinisa Cekic Oct 27 2011, 09:19 PM

Thanks for the explanation, guys

Posted by: thefireball Oct 27 2011, 10:21 PM

Hmm... not sure if I want to rob anything in the house. And I don't know how that all should work. So I guess I'll just wait a little longer so I can get the active ones.

Posted by: tonymiro Oct 28 2011, 09:22 AM

More or less . Actives tend to be popular as it saves the trouble of having to get a suitable power amp that matches the monitor. However the power amps in a lot of the entry and mid range level active monitors are not very good and in particular lack sufficient power to accurately present the bass end. Pro end actives tend to be tri-amped to do this, so the bass gets its own power amp.The distance that the signal travels isn't really an issue over a reasoanable path length provided you use good cabling.

With a passive you choose what power amp you want and you don't have to replace it if you change the passive monitors at a later stage. There can also be a big advantage in screening - both acoustically and thermally - by separating the power amp out of, and away from, the monitor. Further you can start quite simple with a single stereo power amp and add on at a later day to go bi-amp and then tri-amp mono bloks. There's also a potential thing about build qulity - on entry and mid range kit the power amps in actives often aren't as well put together as an equivalent separate power amp. Nonetheless you do have to try and match the power amp to your monitors which can cause problems- a minor issue here is that most domestic power amps do not have XLR i/o.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 28 2011, 09:57 AM

Awesome information guys, very useful.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 12 2012, 10:57 PM

I wanted to ask about how your studio turned out? This thread has great "BEFORE" pics, maybe some "AFTER" pics? showing the evolution of a project studio in the making?

Todd

Posted by: SirJamsalot Apr 13 2012, 01:02 AM

Awesome info everyone. Tony, you mentioned that untreated foam is a fire hazard. What about those blue curtains?
Also, you said that positioning your monitors to either side of the mixer/pc wasn't a good choice. The picture you have shows speakers on stands - about how far apart from either side of the mixer/pc, from the back wall and your ears would you say is ideal placement?

Thanks bunches!!!!
I'm gonna print this thread out and study it

Chris!

Posted by: Alex Feather Apr 13 2012, 03:05 AM

I would suggest KRK or Yamaha those are very nice monitors and you can get pretty good quality mixes!

Posted by: tonymiro Apr 13 2012, 11:25 AM

Hi Chris,
With foam the risk is that it burns at quite a high temperature and retains heat but also that it can produce poisionous fumes. Curtain material will of course burn but unlike foam it doesn't potentially produce poisonous fumes.

Our speakers are about 1.5 meters away from the rear and side walls. (We've also removed the stereo unit that was between them so there is now nothing between the monitors. It lived there temprarily whilst we repainted out house.)

The 'mastering seat' is about 2 meters back from the monitors and the desk that holds our mastering equipment is to the side of this chair and runs parallel to the side wall and is mainly behind the chair. Most of the equpiment is set so it's to the side of the engineer and slightly behind him/her. We do this so that there is nothing directly in the way of the monitors and the engineer and to reduce comb filtering from odd reflections to a minimum.

The room itself is about 8 meters long - the monitors fire down the length - 8 meters length is about the minimum you need to reproduce stereo accurately. The listening position/mastering chair is about 1/3 from the front wall where the monitors are and 2/3 from the rear wall. That's pretty much an ideal ratio and works for our particular room and monitors but a ratio like this depends on the actual room you have.

Mixing studios tend to have the engineer sitting close to the monitors, which are also usually mounted on the console's meter bridge and set close to the wall. I've seen some mix engineers who end up sitting less than 1 meter away. None of that will produce good enough stereo for accurate mastering but it's done for pragmatic reasons for a mixing studio because of space and the historic need for the engineer to be hands on at a large split or in line console.

It's also worth remembering that the monitors used in most mix studios are smallish 2 way ported designs that are designed to be placed close to a wall as the wall will reflect and so 'help' with perceived bass. Monitors for mastering like ours are much bigger and are 3 way unported. They don't rely on reflections to artificially reprodice bass and are designed to be mounted clear from any wall.

So for a mixing environment using 2 way ported you need to put them close to a back wall. They should fire down the length - not the width - of the room. Try to get them at least 1.5 meters apart and with you mid way between to form an equilateral triangle (so you'd sit just under 1.5 meters away). If you can you should be seated 1/3 in to the room so there should be 2/3s of the length behind you. Many mix studios though just don't have the space to do this.

On a 2 way the tweeter/small speaker should be in line with your ears. Most 2 ways are designed so that the tweeter is above the bass driver i.e. they are not meant to put on their sides.

You'll probably have to put your console/desk in front of the monitors to help with the ergonomics of mixing. The above distances may mean that you can sit the monitors on the bridge. Regardless of where you put them anything in front and below - including the surface of the desk and the console - can produce reflections and comb filtering so try to minimise it. You might find moving the monitors to the edge of the desk/bridge may help reduce this. If you can put hardware in a floor mounted rack and the pc on the floor.

Posted by: SirJamsalot Apr 13 2012, 07:55 PM

Thanks! Great info as always!!!!