Roland DS-7's Love them - they can be easily taken apart for replacement of Tweeter or Bass should they get damaged. Useful Feature not available in all Monitors I've had. Appreciate your Content, thanks.
Focal Shape 65’s. Was going to buy atoms in store but they said to try the Shapes before deciding. The midrange balance was on pair with the barefoots i couldn’t afford. Had KRK Rokit 5s and Yamaha HS8s but got full treatment from GIK before stepping up to prosumer level
I'm using a pair of Krk Rokit 8s G2 being using them since around 2011 my first set of monitors were limited edition red krk Rokit 5s,I just bought some acoustic sound proofing for my wall
I would argue to place the monitors AS CLOSE to the front wall (the wall behind the speakers) as possibe! Unless you can get them like 2m out...which not many can!? Keeping the front face of the speakers less then 40-50cm from the front wall WILL produce a bass boost BUT that can be compensated for with either a bass dip switch on the speakers or some other low shelf eq...like with Sonarworks. BUT if you place the speakers between say 50-200cm you're gonna get cancelled frequencies in very critical areas that never can be fixed with EQ - every dB you then try to put back, the physics of the placement will reduce! Ex. if you put the speaker 85cm from the front wall you will get a cancellation at 100Hz, and if you put your speakers 170cm from the front wall you get a dip at 50Hz. And these dips can, like I said earlier, never be fixed with corrective EQ. And to fix them with room acoustics and treatment isn't easy - that sort of low freq requires BIG and deep absorbers that probably won't fit most home studios anyway. So, place the monitors as close to the front wall as possible (if you've got a rear bass port a rule of thumb is to leave a gap between the speaker and the wall as big as the port is wide...usally 5-10cm) and try not to have the same distance to the side walls as the distance between the speakers and the floor and also as symetrical as possible. THEN use something like Sonarworks to get that extra 10-15% of "flatness" to your listening. Hope you'll get a great sound! And most important - that you'll write/mix and/or produce music that you like! =)
Honestly. Unless you're going to be a sound engineer, a pair of iloud speakers or Tannoy 502 reveals will be fine. If you're a bedroom artist and you're trying to make an album you just need a somewhat accurate image of your mix. I use Sennheiser hd25 headphones, for $150, you get a really decent neutral sound. That's all you really need. Iloud has a pair of speakers that are designed to give you an acoustic treatment without the need of the actual treatment. It won't be perfect, but for $400, you're getting a bargain you won't get anywhere else for the price. So yeah, if you're just making demos, or doing house parties, don't worry about being the next Noisia or Hams Zimmer. Just get a basic pair of neutral sounding monitors or headphones and know the basics of mixing and mastering and if you can send your songs to someone you know who is a beast at mixing and mastering, or you send it to a pro Studio and they make a deal with you, then it's only your job to make the songs and not worry about the technical shit. However, if you are a full blown sound junky and want to turn your bedroom into Abby road studios, then by all means, get a good genelec set and scare the shit out of your cat.
One trick is to make the room as uneven as possible. Parallell surfaces creates standing waves which will cause level differences in certain frequencies at different positions. This is especially noticeable in the low spectrum. Try leaning your body/moving your head slowly backwards and forwards when listening to a mix. There can be a significant difference in the bass response at points a couple of decimeters (a foot) apart. Usually there are more problems in smaller rooms. Problems can be lessened by arranging your furniture and the stuff on your shelves as uneven as possible, breaking the parallell surfaces. You can reduce the (high frequency) reverb amount by hanging duvets and blankets, preferably at a distance away from the walls. I've made a temporary inner roof using a synthetic fabric that keeps table cloths from sliding. Hanging it on flag lines attached to small screw hooks. It takes about 15 minutes to mount, once the hooks are mounted and even less time to dismount. My main point is that there are lots of low budget alternatives to the ready made "professional" ones. Trust your ears more than the sales pitches. Sound On Sound has a lot of d i y solutions and other (free) articles on the subject on their website. ✌✌
Sooo... I tried mixing through 'speakers' for years before buying a set of 'monitors'. I'm a slow learner, but I do learn. I did a ton of research before shopping. I went with a set of low-end near fields, that cost only a couple hundred bucks for the pair. 5" two-ways, I made sure they were front-ported, and put them on stands in what felt like their 'proper' place and angle. I then A-B'd with my previously used speakers for a while, and remixed a couple projects before having the idea of adding my 12" 2-way FRFR modelers speakers into the fray.(I know, some peeps would say this was insane, BUT you'd be surprised how well this worked, and is the main reason I am so aware of just how much 'lows' you're slinging here my friend! lol) Balancing their volumes were key. Linking them together kept the volumes balanced, with a dedicated mixer as the monitor-matrix. Low end is now more accurately represented and mixes are sounding better that ever.(Checked on other sources) I did end up keep one of the two sets of speakers I was using because of their top end imaging.(2" souround pillars) There was a lot of luck/voodoo involved in my case, and I still have a long way to go with my room, but now that I'm used to how this setup acts, things can move along without my feeling that my monitoring system is leading me astray. All this said, if you have the scratch to blow on a really good set, you can eliminate any of this voodoo BS.😄 Happy recording all!✨ ps... Great 'clap test' there!
IMO the most important thing besides absorbtion and dealing with room modes is diffusion. A QRD diffusor behind your listening position can make a huge difference. A "dead" room can be very exhausting after a few hours of listening. I always go with genelec, because to my ears they are a good balance between analytic and musical listening. I remember a guy who built big studios back in the 90s who said that he always tries to get around 300ms reverb time in the control room, what to me sounded too far away from "dead". He took me to a big studio and we listened to Billy Jean from Michael Jackson. I was blown away :)
I use Sonarworks with 3 inch very cheap monitors and untreated room and the difference is huge. In your case, because you have expensive monitors and treated room, the difference is subtle. Right now, I am planning on make some panels to help to improve my room, maybe moving my desk, and buying new monitors, however, my budget is still very tight... :(
You mentioned the ns10s, I think they were originally designed as home audio bookshelf speakers, just became popular in studios as they sound horrible and if you manage to mix your stuff which sounds kind of acceptable on them than it will sound good on almost anything.
Genelec 8330a for studio - super tight/punchy, and Tannoy 607s for hifi..got my Tannoys 25 years ago and they still sound great..love them. Most of the time, need to use headphones - until I can get a fully sound proofed room.
Getting a mic like the umik from mini dsp, some absorbers (couches...), Sub(s) and going crazy with trying all the placement options seems to work really well.
Oh ! Something noticeable in terms of frequencies .. the man has a real beautiful deep voice.. even with a low end cut still sounds great and pleasant.
Size of the monitor isn't only about extended frequency response, because if you play very low frequencies with a stereo system, it'll cause uneven frequency response at the listening position, one would be better off with a mono subwoofer that's as far away as the speakers are. But more important is the size of the "listening triangle", larger the triangle, larger the speakers need to be because of the impedance matching tot he air in the room. If you have small speakers with small cone area, they can't move all the air from the speaker all the way to the listener without the waves mixing with other air in the room, and the frequency response at the listening position suffers. So you need bigger speakers, not more volume to get the impedance matching between the speaker and the air to be better. They don't use speaker arrays in live situations for fun, it's all to create a huge "virtual speaker" that can push all that air between the array and the audience that can be tens, if not hundreds of meters. It's not for volume.
Thanks for this vid! I am filming a video about monitors today, and you gave me lots of inspiration! Love the way you create your videos and make them super interesting. 🙌
Great video. My only feedback is that I think the speakers away from the wall tip is more situational. Sometimes it is better to have it a couple inches from the wall to get the combing at a better frequency - and ideally you would flush mount /soffit mount them - although that takes some effort.
Mr. R.....not only do your glasses match your flannel....they also match your pillows, couch, and wall art...phenomenal..l! Your current studio setup appears to me that your monitors are just a bit too high. ( tweeters at ear level? ) And you thought no one was watching? Great video. Happy holidays!
No disrespect to Sonarworks, I am sure it is good. My device of choice was a behringer deq2496. It costs about the same and you got a bunch of usable tools. It got an auto-eq for your room treatment it equalizes bumps and pits in your frequency response and you can actually hear it very well. But you got also nice meters, realtime spectrum analyzer and a hole other stuff as well. I personally use the compressor in it when watching a movie with far too much dynamic range. Or the EQ to narrow down the sound to simulate a different set of speakers.
I think reference mics are a useful tool to just have. They are fairly cheap as far as mics go and sonarworks offer the mic itself which is about half the price if you bought it with the software. You could then without the software run pink noise out the speakers and flatten it using a graphic eq. However, I doubt this method is as accurate as the software but good if on a budget
Please do not do this. I tried this when it first came out. Sonarworks Sound ID takes very special care to not only preserve but also correct the phase discrepancies between your monitors. Using a free systemwide EQ will 100% ruin your phase. And if you’re willing to pay for a linear phase systemwide EQ, then just buy Sound ID😂 Edit: I know phase is often thrown around in the audio space and often unnecessarily, where phasing is not always an actual issue. But in this case it absolutely is, specifically because the biggest difference you’ll hear would be from low-end adjustments, which are the most susceptible to phase issues.
I have it, and my room is treated, and It still made a difference, I thought my room was dead, no reflections, then I calibrated my monitors with Soundid reference and I was wrong, about subtlety that's what mixing is all about, if you can hear the frequency accurately, you'll mix better, so just that little bit in your room is worth it
Idk about the room size thing. Fair enough, if your room is tiny, yeah don't use 8 inch monitors. But any moderately sized room, as long as it's treated and your mixing at a low to reasonable volume (50-60db peak) You're surely gonna get better monitoring on 8inch speakers... I haven't measured this, so maybe i'm bias, but surely that's the case...
Studio speakers are accurate and flat frequency response. The main reason why you want a studio monitor? They are tougher than the audiophile speakers. Studio mixing is long before the mastering stage. You have serious peaking and harsh dynamics. That's when limiting comes into play on a studio monitor. Try auditioning a raw kick drum on audiophile speakers. You can damage them because they're engineered for RMS and not peaking. The peaking spikes on a mastered mix are controlled with the limiting the mastering engineer chooses to use. In the raw studio world? You're working with peaking signals. Neither studio monitors nor audiophile speakers are more accurate than the other. A seasoned studio engineer can take an audiophile speaker and tune it to his control room. It doesn't really matter what the audiophile speakers are coloring. They can be manipulated by room calibration. If most audiophiles room calibrated their $30k speakers? Calibrate to flat frequency response? They'd throw them out after they EQ out the color they create. As for the soundstage your speakers supposedly make in your listening room 1? or whatever one you said? Thats definitely manipulation that didn't exist when played back on the same speaker that was used to Master the material. Many confuse 3d soundstage with hearing in 3 dimensional. It's not. What engineers and studio speaker manufacturers refer to as a 3d soundstage? It's a visual and not something you hear. You can spot panning and acoustic depth in the mix. So what you are referring to? in your speaker room with some sort of sound stage behind the speaker? You're not hearing that. You're visualizing that sound stage. I hate to break your bubble. But that's what flat reference studio speakers do also. They give you a visual 3D perspective.
Nice video, and are getting new guest on the show all the time, Science Cameron and FaceHat man! Make sure you cater food for filming, so everyone is happy :)
I EQ my car speakers to sound good with every song of every genre. Honestly as long as youre getting all the frequency response range filled in and eq it to sound good on referance tracks you should be fine. I think studio monitors dont matter as much as having full frequency coverage. Thats just my oppinion though
Thank you, I work in a home studio and I’m considering buying a 5inch monitor. But you have a point, perhaps a good mixing headphones is to be considered.
Yes and no. Headphones lack the effects of "airspace." Using both is best. Or, side note, u can mix on anything as long as you understand how they sound in relation to everything else. 😝
Yamaha NS-10's were being sold in stereo stores when I was putting together my first home system back in the late 1970's..they sucked and didn't deserve a second listen, the winner of this speaker hunt was the Avid 103's which I enjoyed for years.
Large speakers don't need large rooms. Had a 15inch sub in a 2x3meter room and it was the cleanest and lowest bass i have ever heard indoors. Also if that would be true how would you have bass while using headphones?
Hi I m getting a nice deal with dynaudio air 20 digital monitors like 15 years old or so..I heard the drivers or simething else doestclast long n becomes useless esp since this model is discontinued..should I have it checked by the repair guy and if all good ..buy it?
Hey man, I mix with my nips all the time. I put my monitors upside down and right next to each other... touching is best. Dead center on the desk. So I have to rest my chin on them to see my monitor and hug them to touch my midi controllers. I raise my chair up as high as it goes and just lean those nips directly into the tweeters. My mixes are dogshit but that's how I like em. 🤣
I get why it's good to have specialist Monitor speakers for true sound but I have a 1986 Technics amplifier with Speakers and they sound good. There is no fancy modern sound changes going on. Is that not good enough for hearing true sound? If I play other people's music it sounds good so If My music sounds similar then it's fine right?
In the end the real key is just knowing your monitors inside and out I'd say. Having crazy expensive monitors doesn't do you any good if you don't have a solid understanding of how they actually sound and how things should translate.
Interestingly, the A7Vs also have a peak at about 120 Hz, which is noticeable even without measurements. I had to use the Voicemeeter equalizer to virtually eliminate the 120 Hz resonance frequency. The S2Vs seem to have the same problem. Using a subwoofer brings another set of problems, and Adam Audio has not yet released a new subwoofer for its A Series.
Your triangle seems so wide. When you push mono button on output, does sound image centered or still perceived as wide? Maybe it's Adam's miracle but huge hole between near fields can destroy any mix AFAIK at least
Presonus Eris 5s but the bottom end of the mix requires a degree of guesswork and repeated checks on other speakers. A side note on headphones is that they are not stereo, and I'll always go with speakers over headphones. Dan Worrall has a video about the subject and he explains it far better than a borderline idiot like me could
Interesting that the effect of your room calibration was hard to hear. I have IK Multimedia ARC2 (similar to what you used) and the difference is night and day. I actually hate the calibrated sound, as it makes songs sound much less exciting. As you said, it's probably because your room is well treated, and mine isn't. TIP: Don't forget to turn off the correction plugin before rendering your mix!!
As soon as I heard that you are on a hole bunch of watchlists, it made the decision to subscribe very easy. :). I'm thinking of getting the Adam S3V when I finally pull the trigger to upgrade. The other option I'm considering is the Focal Trio 6be.
How are you liking the reference profiles for cars and such? It would be nice to not have to listen to the mix somewhere else or throw together a rough EQ curve in Ableton to preview these things.
So far so good. I think the profiles are a bit exaggerated at times, but I think that's mostly just to provide the most extreme example of each translation case. Do keep in mind though that these profiles are also calibrated using your room profile, so it's not quite the same as just drawing in an EQ curve.
contrary to popular belief, In most small room situations, having the speakers as close to the front wall as possible will help with SBIR. If you want to space them from the front wall properly, it needs to be AT LEAST 6 ft....
if you move the speakers away from the wall, that wall HAS to be treated to the max to stop any reflections. Best position is right up against the wall, and then use EQ to straighten out that 3dB bump you get, or INSIDE the wall, where you don't get any bumps...
You mentioned you had a pair of Yamaha HS8's before. Did you find they were too big for your room? I have a pair of HS8's in a small bedroom as well and have never been sure if they were the right thing for me. Did you try downsizing to a comparable budget monitor like HS7 or something else to compare? Did the smaller speaker sound better? Also that camel quote is hilarious
i would appreciate your thoughts on this ->"why are so many things so important among audiophiles, while beeing completly ignored by professional studio pros" its crazy. the guys making the music don't care about so much stuff the listeners seem to need.
and not ONE time i herd audiophiles or studio porfessionals talk about going to the ENT to check if your ears are not blocked from years of using q-tips. haha
So, Cameron are you going back to the Tannoy Gold 7's or to something else? Those ADAM S2V's are super expensive...but if it helps you make perceivably better music / tracks / sounds, they might be worth the upgrade at some point... I wonder if you go back to the Gold 7's, can you post a A/B with Sonarworks Ref 4 showing how different they are to the S2V's? I had a freak-out moment when I installed my Gold 7s on IsoAcoustic stands and had them positioned correctly compared to my Klipsch setup I had before. Wondering if the difference is really that huge yet again from Gold 7's to the S2V's. :)
Hard to say, I get to keep them for a bit longer so I'm trying to get as much out of them as I can haha. Comparing the two I definitely prefer the sound of the S2Vs but I'd say that's obvious given that they are MUCH higher end speakers. The Tannoys aren't bad by any means, but the sound of the S2Vs is very night and day in terms of detail and especially in the mids/highs. Lows aren't as exciting, but do seem more accurate as mentioned in the video. I may try and do another video testing the reference software at some point, I did want to try something with monitors against the wall as well. We'll see what happens, doesn't sound like a very entertaining video though haha.
Keiran (four tet) mixes and masters on his computer speakers, often in his kitchen. knowing that made me feel like my HS5s and untreated room is no excuse for not making good music. that being said i wish i could afford both better monitors and room treatment.
tested reference aswell in my room (fully treated, Neumanns KH310) its as you mentioned ok for not much treated rooms, but i had the impressions that the phase is gonna messed up as soon as i moved my head a bit inside the sweetspot
Dammit Cameron I literally JUST bought myself a pair of KRK 8” G4’s YESTERDAY as a Christmas treat and I wish I could’ve watched this vid the day before! Prolly should return them and go with something cheaper to start out.. fantastic video though man!
@@Nerevaar I’ve watched a lot of videos on them and I imagine they’re fantastic, I just feel like I’m not nearly skilled enough with music producing that they’re necessary or that I’d use them correctly. 😅
You want to push your speakers beyond what they should do. On sound ID play with the "limit controls" and extend both the high and low ends of your speakers. will turn your s2v into more of a sv3 performance. And if you cant stand what Studio ID is doing... well then try the eq controls to make them more to your liking.
My room is basically unfixable, all glass and tile and hard surfaces. Guess I'll get a pair of cheap monitors for arranging and stick to mixing on cans.
Speaker size scaling with room size is a myth. You SHOULD buy the largest speakers you can afford. People use a bad, old argument about standing waves to justify this position. Larger speakers have the physical capability to reproduce frequencies lower on the audible spectrum, if you have a small room and your five inch speakers produce standing waves at a particular volume at 100 hz, larger speakers at the same volume won't create more intense standing waves at 100 hz. Not only that but you'll get less audible distortation at that same frequency using larger speakers at the same volume. Narrowing the audible frequencies your speakers can reproduce doesn't reduce the effect of standing waves at a particular frequency. Bigger is better.
There was so much accurate and important information in it. Yet, I will take away the wonderful ears != nipples. It nails what you can often see on beginner desks (mine included, before I switched to studio headphones). I think I will print a t-shirt with it. Thanks, Science Cameron!
You can't mix what you can't hear. Larger woofers can push air more easily at lower frequencies. The idea of getting smaller speakers for a smaller room is completely senseless.
What studio monitors are you rocking? 🤔
Check out Sonarworks and support YaBoi: bit.ly/3sdgd9I
Roland DS-7's
Love them - they can be easily taken apart for replacement of Tweeter or Bass should they get damaged. Useful Feature not available in all Monitors I've had.
Appreciate your Content, thanks.
Focal Shape 65’s. Was going to buy atoms in store but they said to try the Shapes before deciding. The midrange balance was on pair with the barefoots i couldn’t afford.
Had KRK Rokit 5s and Yamaha HS8s but got full treatment from GIK before stepping up to prosumer level
I'm using a pair of Krk Rokit 8s G2 being using them since around 2011 my first set of monitors were limited edition red krk Rokit 5s,I just bought some acoustic sound proofing for my wall
Fluid Audio FPX7s with Fluid F8s sub
Event TR8s. Just got my room painted and plotting where everything should go during the holiday break. Great tips to keep in mind. 👍
I would argue to place the monitors AS CLOSE to the front wall (the wall behind the speakers) as possibe! Unless you can get them like 2m out...which not many can!? Keeping the front face of the speakers less then 40-50cm from the front wall WILL produce a bass boost BUT that can be compensated for with either a bass dip switch on the speakers or some other low shelf eq...like with Sonarworks. BUT if you place the speakers between say 50-200cm you're gonna get cancelled frequencies in very critical areas that never can be fixed with EQ - every dB you then try to put back, the physics of the placement will reduce!
Ex. if you put the speaker 85cm from the front wall you will get a cancellation at 100Hz, and if you put your speakers 170cm from the front wall you get a dip at 50Hz. And these dips can, like I said earlier, never be fixed with corrective EQ. And to fix them with room acoustics and treatment isn't easy - that sort of low freq requires BIG and deep absorbers that probably won't fit most home studios anyway.
So, place the monitors as close to the front wall as possible (if you've got a rear bass port a rule of thumb is to leave a gap between the speaker and the wall as big as the port is wide...usally 5-10cm) and try not to have the same distance to the side walls as the distance between the speakers and the floor and also as symetrical as possible. THEN use something like Sonarworks to get that extra 10-15% of "flatness" to your listening.
Hope you'll get a great sound! And most important - that you'll write/mix and/or produce music that you like! =)
"They were missing the volume knobs and I just couldn't turn it down..." 🤣👍
😂😂😂😂
Honestly. Unless you're going to be a sound engineer, a pair of iloud speakers or Tannoy 502 reveals will be fine. If you're a bedroom artist and you're trying to make an album you just need a somewhat accurate image of your mix. I use Sennheiser hd25 headphones, for $150, you get a really decent neutral sound. That's all you really need. Iloud has a pair of speakers that are designed to give you an acoustic treatment without the need of the actual treatment. It won't be perfect, but for $400, you're getting a bargain you won't get anywhere else for the price. So yeah, if you're just making demos, or doing house parties, don't worry about being the next Noisia or Hams Zimmer. Just get a basic pair of neutral sounding monitors or headphones and know the basics of mixing and mastering and if you can send your songs to someone you know who is a beast at mixing and mastering, or you send it to a pro Studio and they make a deal with you, then it's only your job to make the songs and not worry about the technical shit. However, if you are a full blown sound junky and want to turn your bedroom into Abby road studios, then by all means, get a good genelec set and scare the shit out of your cat.
I use Bose QC35 2, not studio headphones at all but my mixes sound fine when I play them on other speakers or on someone else's monitors.
One trick is to make the room as uneven as possible.
Parallell surfaces creates standing waves which will cause
level differences in certain frequencies at different positions.
This is especially noticeable in the low spectrum.
Try leaning your body/moving your head slowly
backwards and forwards when listening to a mix.
There can be a significant difference in the bass response
at points a couple of decimeters (a foot) apart.
Usually there are more problems in smaller rooms.
Problems can be lessened by arranging your furniture
and the stuff on your shelves as uneven as possible, breaking the parallell surfaces.
You can reduce the (high frequency) reverb amount by
hanging duvets and blankets, preferably at a distance away from the walls.
I've made a temporary inner roof using a synthetic fabric
that keeps table cloths from sliding.
Hanging it on flag lines attached to small screw hooks.
It takes about 15 minutes to mount, once the hooks are mounted
and even less time to dismount.
My main point is that there are lots of low budget alternatives
to the ready made "professional" ones.
Trust your ears more than the sales pitches.
Sound On Sound has a lot of d i y solutions and
other (free) articles on the subject on their website.
✌✌
Sooo... I tried mixing through 'speakers' for years before buying a set of 'monitors'. I'm a slow learner, but I do learn. I did a ton of research before shopping. I went with a set of low-end near fields, that cost only a couple hundred bucks for the pair. 5" two-ways, I made sure they were front-ported, and put them on stands in what felt like their 'proper' place and angle. I then A-B'd with my previously used speakers for a while, and remixed a couple projects before having the idea of adding my 12" 2-way FRFR modelers speakers into the fray.(I know, some peeps would say this was insane, BUT you'd be surprised how well this worked, and is the main reason I am so aware of just how much 'lows' you're slinging here my friend! lol) Balancing their volumes were key. Linking them together kept the volumes balanced, with a dedicated mixer as the monitor-matrix. Low end is now more accurately represented and mixes are sounding better that ever.(Checked on other sources) I did end up keep one of the two sets of speakers I was using because of their top end imaging.(2" souround pillars)
There was a lot of luck/voodoo involved in my case, and I still have a long way to go with my room, but now that I'm used to how this setup acts, things can move along without my feeling that my monitoring system is leading me astray. All this said, if you have the scratch to blow on a really good set, you can eliminate any of this voodoo BS.😄
Happy recording all!✨
ps... Great 'clap test' there!
IMO the most important thing besides absorbtion and dealing with room modes is diffusion. A QRD diffusor behind your listening position can make a huge difference. A "dead" room can be very exhausting after a few hours of listening. I always go with genelec, because to my ears they are a good balance between analytic and musical listening. I remember a guy who built big studios back in the 90s who said that he always tries to get around 300ms reverb time in the control room, what to me sounded too far away from "dead". He took me to a big studio and we listened to Billy Jean from Michael Jackson. I was blown away :)
Fantastic video! Appreciate the in-depth analysis of everything that goes into properly monitoring in a studio setting. Cheers!
Ayyyyyyyy glad you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for sending over the S2Vs for some science-ing.
I use Sonarworks with 3 inch very cheap monitors and untreated room and the difference is huge. In your case, because you have expensive monitors and treated room, the difference is subtle. Right now, I am planning on make some panels to help to improve my room, maybe moving my desk, and buying new monitors, however, my budget is still very tight... :(
I use it too for 4.5 presonus and it amazing difference. Same for headphones too!
YOUR VOCAL MIDRANGE TIMBRE SOUNDS AMAZING !
You mentioned the ns10s, I think they were originally designed as home audio bookshelf speakers, just became popular in studios as they sound horrible and if you manage to mix your stuff which sounds kind of acceptable on them than it will sound good on almost anything.
Genelec 8330a for studio - super tight/punchy, and Tannoy 607s for hifi..got my Tannoys 25 years ago and they still sound great..love them. Most of the time, need to use headphones - until I can get a fully sound proofed room.
Getting a mic like the umik from mini dsp, some absorbers (couches...), Sub(s) and going crazy with trying all the placement options seems to work really well.
Oh ! Something noticeable in terms of frequencies .. the man has a real beautiful deep voice.. even with a low end cut still sounds great and pleasant.
I have a set of Adam Audios and AX7s and omg I did not know what I was NOT hearing until I got those. They are indeed accurate.
Size of the monitor isn't only about extended frequency response, because if you play very low frequencies with a stereo system, it'll cause uneven frequency response at the listening position, one would be better off with a mono subwoofer that's as far away as the speakers are.
But more important is the size of the "listening triangle", larger the triangle, larger the speakers need to be because of the impedance matching tot he air in the room.
If you have small speakers with small cone area, they can't move all the air from the speaker all the way to the listener without the waves mixing with other air in the room, and the frequency response at the listening position suffers. So you need bigger speakers, not more volume to get the impedance matching between the speaker and the air to be better.
They don't use speaker arrays in live situations for fun, it's all to create a huge "virtual speaker" that can push all that air between the array and the audience that can be tens, if not hundreds of meters.
It's not for volume.
totttta
Thanks for this vid! I am filming a video about monitors today, and you gave me lots of inspiration! Love the way you create your videos and make them super interesting. 🙌
Great video. My only feedback is that I think the speakers away from the wall tip is more situational. Sometimes it is better to have it a couple inches from the wall to get the combing at a better frequency - and ideally you would flush mount /soffit mount them - although that takes some effort.
Nipple mixing may not promote mix accuracy, but it feels so good!!
Mr. R.....not only do your glasses match your flannel....they also match your pillows, couch, and wall art...phenomenal..l! Your current studio setup appears to me that your monitors are just a bit too high. ( tweeters at ear level? ) And you thought no one was watching? Great video. Happy holidays!
No disrespect to Sonarworks, I am sure it is good. My device of choice was a behringer deq2496. It costs about the same and you got a bunch of usable tools. It got an auto-eq for your room treatment it equalizes bumps and pits in your frequency response and you can actually hear it very well. But you got also nice meters, realtime spectrum analyzer and a hole other stuff as well. I personally use the compressor in it when watching a movie with far too much dynamic range. Or the EQ to narrow down the sound to simulate a different set of speakers.
Most underrated artist alive i swear
It was crazy funny and informative, stayed till the end, thanks!
I think reference mics are a useful tool to just have. They are fairly cheap as far as mics go and sonarworks offer the mic itself which is about half the price if you bought it with the software. You could then without the software run pink noise out the speakers and flatten it using a graphic eq. However, I doubt this method is as accurate as the software but good if on a budget
Please do not do this. I tried this when it first came out. Sonarworks Sound ID takes very special care to not only preserve but also correct the phase discrepancies between your monitors. Using a free systemwide EQ will 100% ruin your phase. And if you’re willing to pay for a linear phase systemwide EQ, then just buy Sound ID😂
Edit: I know phase is often thrown around in the audio space and often unnecessarily, where phasing is not always an actual issue. But in this case it absolutely is, specifically because the biggest difference you’ll hear would be from low-end adjustments, which are the most susceptible to phase issues.
@@avationmusic surely phase isnt an issue if you're careful with your monitor and mic placement.
@@avationmusicsurely this depends on the type of eq you use
Thank you so much for the entire "ears ≠ nipples" segment. Both my partner and I thought it was hilarious.
I have it, and my room is treated, and It still made a difference, I thought my room was dead, no reflections, then I calibrated my monitors with Soundid reference and I was wrong, about subtlety that's what mixing is all about, if you can hear the frequency accurately, you'll mix better, so just that little bit in your room is worth it
WOAHHH BUTTERY. That is a good fricking mic 😩
Trip to Adam Audio offices? Yes please!
Idk about the room size thing.
Fair enough, if your room is tiny, yeah don't use 8 inch monitors.
But any moderately sized room, as long as it's treated and your mixing at a low to reasonable volume (50-60db peak)
You're surely gonna get better monitoring on 8inch speakers... I haven't measured this, so maybe i'm bias, but surely that's the case...
Perfect timing, just about to uprade my old hs5
I am running the HS7 by Yamaha. also the S3000 PRo series Edifiers. They are awesome.. Thanks for the vid!
What are your thoughts on sealed monitors as opposed to ported monitors? Thanks.
Studio speakers are accurate and flat frequency response. The main reason why you want a studio monitor? They are tougher than the audiophile speakers. Studio mixing is long before the mastering stage. You have serious peaking and harsh dynamics. That's when limiting comes into play on a studio monitor. Try auditioning a raw kick drum on audiophile speakers. You can damage them because they're engineered for RMS and not peaking. The peaking spikes on a mastered mix are controlled with the limiting the mastering engineer chooses to use. In the raw studio world? You're working with peaking signals. Neither studio monitors nor audiophile speakers are more accurate than the other. A seasoned studio engineer can take an audiophile speaker and tune it to his control room. It doesn't really matter what the audiophile speakers are coloring. They can be manipulated by room calibration. If most audiophiles room calibrated their $30k speakers? Calibrate to flat frequency response? They'd throw them out after they EQ out the color they create. As for the soundstage your speakers supposedly make in your listening room 1? or whatever one you said? Thats definitely manipulation that didn't exist when played back on the same speaker that was used to Master the material. Many confuse 3d soundstage with hearing in 3 dimensional. It's not. What engineers and studio speaker manufacturers refer to as a 3d soundstage? It's a visual and not something you hear. You can spot panning and acoustic depth in the mix. So what you are referring to? in your speaker room with some sort of sound stage behind the speaker? You're not hearing that. You're visualizing that sound stage. I hate to break your bubble. But that's what flat reference studio speakers do also. They give you a visual 3D perspective.
Dood! I love your work here, and with Cherry Audio. Top notch information. What else are you publishing?
Nice video, and are getting new guest on the show all the time, Science Cameron and FaceHat man! Make sure you cater food for filming, so everyone is happy :)
Omg I want to see more science Cameron. YES PLEASE. Love this characters
Been using NS1000M since 80s, got three pairs of them. Also now for my desktop its HS7 with HS8S sub.
I EQ my car speakers to sound good with every song of every genre. Honestly as long as youre getting all the frequency response range filled in and eq it to sound good on referance tracks you should be fine. I think studio monitors dont matter as much as having full frequency coverage. Thats just my oppinion though
Thanks for another sublime video. +1 on the road trip.
So helpful! Thanks.
Thank you, I work in a home studio and I’m considering buying a 5inch monitor. But you have a point, perhaps a good mixing headphones is to be considered.
Yes and no. Headphones lack the effects of "airspace." Using both is best. Or, side note, u can mix on anything as long as you understand how they sound in relation to everything else. 😝
I like sonar works for me it really opened up the mix
Yamaha NS-10's were being sold in stereo stores when I was putting together my first home system back in the late 1970's..they sucked and didn't deserve a second listen, the winner of this speaker hunt was the Avid 103's which I enjoyed for years.
Large speakers don't need large rooms. Had a 15inch sub in a 2x3meter room and it was the cleanest and lowest bass i have ever heard indoors. Also if that would be true how would you have bass while using headphones?
Hi I m getting a nice deal with dynaudio air 20 digital monitors like 15 years old or so..I heard the drivers or simething else doestclast long n becomes useless esp since this model is discontinued..should I have it checked by the repair guy and if all good ..buy it?
Hey man, I mix with my nips all the time. I put my monitors upside down and right next to each other... touching is best. Dead center on the desk. So I have to rest my chin on them to see my monitor and hug them to touch my midi controllers. I raise my chair up as high as it goes and just lean those nips directly into the tweeters. My mixes are dogshit but that's how I like em. 🤣
I get why it's good to have specialist Monitor speakers for true sound but I have a 1986 Technics amplifier with Speakers and they sound good. There is no fancy modern sound changes going on. Is that not good enough for hearing true sound? If I play other people's music it sounds good so If My music sounds similar then it's fine right?
I'd go with that.. I'm still using the 70's Wharfedale Denton XP.. hahaha. Good old metal and Wood and zero plastic + a 10 year old Marantz amp.
In the end the real key is just knowing your monitors inside and out I'd say. Having crazy expensive monitors doesn't do you any good if you don't have a solid understanding of how they actually sound and how things should translate.
Thank you so much for this guide , this I'm sure can help me choose better what monitors I will buy in the future :)
Liked and sub'd as soon as you dropped the Titanic gag - perfectly delivered, as dry as a desert
Interestingly, the A7Vs also have a peak at about 120 Hz, which is noticeable even without measurements. I had to use the Voicemeeter equalizer to virtually eliminate the 120 Hz resonance frequency. The S2Vs seem to have the same problem. Using a subwoofer brings another set of problems, and Adam Audio has not yet released a new subwoofer for its A Series.
Love the skits in this.
Good intelligent appraisal ...
What a surprise 😜
Your triangle seems so wide. When you push mono button on output, does sound image centered or still perceived as wide? Maybe it's Adam's miracle but huge hole between near fields can destroy any mix AFAIK at least
I was thinking the same thing. That stereo soundspace seems very very wide.
Everything is about 6ft apart or so. It's maybe a bit wide looking with the lenses used though to film the video, but it's not anything extreme.
What would be good place to buy acoustic panels in Europe?
@VenusTheory Can you share the link with your DIY acoustic panels?
Presonus Eris 5s but the bottom end of the mix requires a degree of guesswork and repeated checks on other speakers. A side note on headphones is that they are not stereo, and I'll always go with speakers over headphones. Dan Worrall has a video about the subject and he explains it far better than a borderline idiot like me could
Interesting that the effect of your room calibration was hard to hear. I have IK Multimedia ARC2 (similar to what you used) and the difference is night and day. I actually hate the calibrated sound, as it makes songs sound much less exciting. As you said, it's probably because your room is well treated, and mine isn't.
TIP: Don't forget to turn off the correction plugin before rendering your mix!!
if your daw doesn't have separate monitoring FX section, that's automatically bypassed when rendering, get a better daw :)
As soon as I heard that you are on a hole bunch of watchlists, it made the decision to subscribe very easy. :). I'm thinking of getting the Adam S3V when I finally pull the trigger to upgrade. The other option I'm considering is the Focal Trio 6be.
What audio panels do you recommend?
How are you liking the reference profiles for cars and such? It would be nice to not have to listen to the mix somewhere else or throw together a rough EQ curve in Ableton to preview these things.
So far so good. I think the profiles are a bit exaggerated at times, but I think that's mostly just to provide the most extreme example of each translation case. Do keep in mind though that these profiles are also calibrated using your room profile, so it's not quite the same as just drawing in an EQ curve.
@@VenusTheory Good to know. I think I'll move this thing up in my future purchases list, thanks!
Are studio monitor always better vs bookshelf active speakers?
How does that sonarworks room mic sound for other sources? Like a vocal or guitar?
Not sure, might have to try it out!
Hmm. Guess I can hold off on studio monitors for a while, since I already have commercial speakers I like at my desk, tilted just right.
contrary to popular belief, In most small room situations, having the speakers as close to the front wall as possible will help with SBIR. If you want to space them from the front wall properly, it needs to be AT LEAST 6 ft....
if you move the speakers away from the wall, that wall HAS to be treated to the max to stop any reflections. Best position is right up against the wall, and then use EQ to straighten out that 3dB bump you get, or INSIDE the wall, where you don't get any bumps...
So true, after moving my speakers closer to the front wall, my room bass issues immediately improved! Sonarworks then smooths the excess bass.
Gonna build my pair
I spit out my coffee from the nipple mixing bit 😂😂😂
HS8s have the most flat sound I have ever heard. The sound stage is perfect.
You would adjust monitors if change out the gear suppling them ! 3 way Focal Monitors or the 20k jbls 😮😅😊
You mentioned you had a pair of Yamaha HS8's before. Did you find they were too big for your room? I have a pair of HS8's in a small bedroom as well and have never been sure if they were the right thing for me. Did you try downsizing to a comparable budget monitor like HS7 or something else to compare? Did the smaller speaker sound better?
Also that camel quote is hilarious
A friend just sold me a pair of event, 20/30s for 380 bucks and that is why I’m here in class today to figure out how to put these in my room 😂
i would appreciate your thoughts on this ->"why are so many things so important among audiophiles, while beeing completly ignored by professional studio pros" its crazy. the guys making the music don't care about so much stuff the listeners seem to need.
and not ONE time i herd audiophiles or studio porfessionals talk about going to the ENT to check if your ears are not blocked from years of using q-tips. haha
Thanks 🎶💥
awesome Tips! review on the Tannoy Gold 7 please
Whitch tannoys did you compare?. nevermind..tannoy 7 gold...
My goodness those puns in the intro
MY JBL LSR4328p Sound super Good
So, Cameron are you going back to the Tannoy Gold 7's or to something else? Those ADAM S2V's are super expensive...but if it helps you make perceivably better music / tracks / sounds, they might be worth the upgrade at some point... I wonder if you go back to the Gold 7's, can you post a A/B with Sonarworks Ref 4 showing how different they are to the S2V's? I had a freak-out moment when I installed my Gold 7s on IsoAcoustic stands and had them positioned correctly compared to my Klipsch setup I had before. Wondering if the difference is really that huge yet again from Gold 7's to the S2V's. :)
Hard to say, I get to keep them for a bit longer so I'm trying to get as much out of them as I can haha. Comparing the two I definitely prefer the sound of the S2Vs but I'd say that's obvious given that they are MUCH higher end speakers.
The Tannoys aren't bad by any means, but the sound of the S2Vs is very night and day in terms of detail and especially in the mids/highs. Lows aren't as exciting, but do seem more accurate as mentioned in the video.
I may try and do another video testing the reference software at some point, I did want to try something with monitors against the wall as well. We'll see what happens, doesn't sound like a very entertaining video though haha.
Great voice.
You said bringing a mini van to a drag race like that’s a bad thing 😆
Keiran (four tet) mixes and masters on his computer speakers, often in his kitchen.
knowing that made me feel like my HS5s and untreated room is no excuse for not making good music.
that being said i wish i could afford both better monitors and room treatment.
tested reference aswell in my room (fully treated, Neumanns KH310) its as you mentioned ok for not much treated rooms, but i had the impressions that the phase is gonna messed up as soon as i moved my head a bit inside the sweetspot
Boosted treble!
I'm glad you didn't suggest using the cheap and ugly foam panels.
How this monitors works at pc games?
"Nobody likes to mix with their nipples" - Venus Theory
Dammit Cameron I literally JUST bought myself a pair of KRK 8” G4’s YESTERDAY as a Christmas treat and I wish I could’ve watched this vid the day before! Prolly should return them and go with something cheaper to start out.. fantastic video though man!
Honestly the KRK 5" are great been using them for a couple of years now (rokit 4)
@@Nerevaar I’ve watched a lot of videos on them and I imagine they’re fantastic, I just feel like I’m not nearly skilled enough with music producing that they’re necessary or that I’d use them correctly. 😅
It's crazy how NOBODY talks about the best solution for home studio which are UNPORTED monitors.
shove toilet paper in the ports lol
You want to push your speakers beyond what they should do. On sound ID play with the "limit controls" and extend both the high and low ends of your speakers. will turn your s2v into more of a sv3 performance. And if you cant stand what Studio ID is doing... well then try the eq controls to make them more to your liking.
Rockin
But Sonarworks is not compatible yet with the Apple Silicon M1 Chip.
My room is basically unfixable, all glass and tile and hard surfaces. Guess I'll get a pair of cheap monitors for arranging and stick to mixing on cans.
Speaker size scaling with room size is a myth. You SHOULD buy the largest speakers you can afford. People use a bad, old argument about standing waves to justify this position. Larger speakers have the physical capability to reproduce frequencies lower on the audible spectrum, if you have a small room and your five inch speakers produce standing waves at a particular volume at 100 hz, larger speakers at the same volume won't create more intense standing waves at 100 hz. Not only that but you'll get less audible distortation at that same frequency using larger speakers at the same volume. Narrowing the audible frequencies your speakers can reproduce doesn't reduce the effect of standing waves at a particular frequency. Bigger is better.
Damn, I just bought a pair 2 weeks ago.
Just yolo it and get some KRKs, everyone needs to experience then at some point!
A rite of passage haha.
There was so much accurate and important information in it. Yet, I will take away the wonderful ears != nipples. It nails what you can often see on beginner desks (mine included, before I switched to studio headphones). I think I will print a t-shirt with it. Thanks, Science Cameron!
You can't mix what you can't hear.
Larger woofers can push air more easily at lower frequencies. The idea of getting smaller speakers for a smaller room is completely senseless.
You have that boost at 100hz because of your desk. It’s a common problem.
“Remember. Mixing with your nipples is dumb.” Thank you Science Cameron.
Thanks for letting me know, that nipple mixing is a pointless endeavor. No wonder my mixes sounded terrible xD
I need a good set of monitors.