i see your point but two badly placed blankets are in no way a decent acoustic treatment, they will only slightly mitigate the hi end of the sound. by the way putting your speakers on the desk is the single most damaging thing you can do to your overall acoustics.
Yeah there are so many things wrong with this video I don't even want to start, but that's the most glaring error other than the fact that his "testing" isn't even remotely blind, not that it could be for something like this. It seems more to me he wanted to justify it to himself for personal preference reasons and that's totally fine, but it comes off as a bit too authoritative in its justifications for what amounts to just a personal preference. Can you get by mixing in headphones and doing a spot check on monitors if you're familiar with what your room sounds like? Certainly. It's it an optimal setup? Absolutely not.
Aside from music I work a full time job as an acoustics consultant and acoustics is not just about reverb. For example your monitors sat on the desk is severely affecting the sound reproduced. Try using a system to isolate the monitors from the desk. Also I think the fundamental principal of this video where 'people sometimes go too crazy with acoustics' is true. Not to mention if you reference using headphones etc... this usually mitigates any errors in mixing/mastering decisions if concerning poor room acoustics. Although I don't see the harm in applying some light treatment, especially when professionally you create videos which involve voice-over recordings. Interesting video none-the-less!
@@bustamante-music Yes, the material of foam, dampens vibrations coming from your monitors. More importantly however is having your monitors high enough off of your desk so that reflections from your desk miss the monitoring position. Having your monitors isolated and maybe off of the desk high enough so that between the tweeter and the main driver is ear-level, you'll see that the sound is clearer, crisper and more balanced. With the monitors on your desk, you'll see that the primary difference is that the low end sounds/feels warmer. You could also tackle this with room controls on the rear of most monitors.
Thanks! You pop into my mind and I had to find your channel to see if you were still creating content and it’s great to know your still doing great things this video was a reminder to me of thinking outside the box (get it?) thanks again great content.
Dude , good for you , i`m not hating, but....mixing music in the acoustics of a basement because you think it`s fine, well, it`s not , maybe for you, if you don`t care, but, i do .
The argument of using headphone for details is silly. Of course you're not going to hear details with small monitors that don't produce much bass placed on a big flat surface that is going to cause tons of comb filtering in a room that is smearing the delays all over the place. For monitors to be useful the room needs to be treated (it doesn't necessarily mean a ton of treatment, it depends in the room and use case) and the monitors need to be time and phase aligned and they need enough output power. It comes down to if you can't hear details on monitors the room and monitors need work. Can you mix and do sound design on headphones? Of course, but you're going to need good references, you'll need time to learn the headphones (just like room/monitors), and you'll need a good secondary monitoring reference setup (car, different headphones, whatever) just like you would for mixing in a room on monitors. And foam panels are not acoustic treatment, the only thing foam panels are good for is wasting money.
Thanks for another great video. I absolutely love how pure and honest your content is - so rare to find online, so inspiring and always helps me get past the the 'I need to buy x hardware/software before I can record x' mental block.
This is the exact reason I use affordable monitors and minimal treatment. All the other engineers and RUclipsrs said that monitors and treatment is the single most important investment in the studio. Validating to see someone else come to the same conclusion.
Nope, YOU'RE wrong. Don't be validated. They just need to tweak their statements - the single most important investment in the studio is accurate monitoring - a flat frequency response and reverb times ALONG WITH proper left and right coupling to accurately judge transients and stereo imaging. I mix on headphones but I don't mix ONLY on headphones. And no, I don't rely on speakers nor my treated room either. I mainly mix on TREATED HEADPHONES WITH ROOM ACOUSTIC SIMULATION. The fact is YOU CANNOT JUDGE ACCURATE TRANSIENT RESPONSE AND STEREO IMAGE WITHOUT THE COUPLING EFFECT OF THE LEFT AND RIGHT. If you're not recording any acoustic instruments or vocals, then yes, go ahead without room treatment.
Very informative and helpful to myself, I will be building a new house with a studio and don't really want to add sound panels etc... Instead I will just keep my massive JBLs pumping for max effect. ✋high five
Some argue that the reason why the experience is less emotional / enjoyable in headphones is because you can't "feel" the sound pressure waves on your body like you can at a big music venue. I'd guess even small monitors (to some minimum) are "felt" as pressure waves.
is that why your voice over has way too much 300-400hz? :D Just kidding. Nice video but i personally prefer my genelec sam system + some acoustic treatment. It sounds exactly like my DT880 combined with sonarworks but with all the benefits of speakers
I agree with this for the most part...... But if we are making music for the club shouldnt we mix on monitors to get closer to the club setting? also, for me, its very hard to mix kick and bass on headphones without proper reproduction of those sub frequencies............ I think, just like out invesments, we need to diversify out mixing settings
I love how he has just a small pair of Adam speakers now. I’ve got the Vanatoo t0’s which are just 4 inch speakers. I wanna add a small REL desktop sub because the speakers don’t translate low end super well but other than that it works wonders! I’d way rather work with a setup like this instead of huge monitors for a bedroom/spare room studio.
Hey, I agree with you 101% been there tested and tried it all - Not sure if I'm used to your calm voice, think I liked it better when you were a little bit spastic - lol - Great video buddy - Cheers! 👍👍👍
For writing and mixing orchestral music for cinema, it is critical to work with decent acoustic treatment to minimise room modes and reverb. Playback will eventually be happening primarily on speakers, in acoustically treated cinemas and production studios, therefore it has to be balanced with it's subtle nuances for playback on those sorts of systems even if eventually it'll be crushed into an MP4 on Netflix, on an iPad, with earbuds. 😉 Great video though!
@@WillyJunior not sure where you got that figure from, but even if you're correct, my point is still completely relevant since that is music being experienced by hundreds of thousands on a weekly basis in those environments I mentioned, so I don't get what your point is.
@@ephjaymusic You're talking about mixing orchestral music for cinema. Your whole comment is about that. So I'm saying that doesn't apply to many people. It also sounded a lot like you just wanted to brag.
@@WillyJunior Well that's your own assumption about my comment isn't it. I was merely remarking that there are in fact plenty of people who write for film and TV, and they do require acoustic treatment. You're beginning to sound like you want to argue about a subject that you're not well informed on.
The single most important investment in the studio is accurate monitoring - a flat frequency response and reverb times ALONG WITH proper left and right coupling to accurately judge transients and stereo imaging. I mix on headphones but I don't mix ONLY on headphones. And no, I don't rely on speakers nor my treated room either. I mainly mix on TREATED HEADPHONES WITH ROOM ACOUSTIC SIMULATION. The fact is YOU CANNOT JUDGE ACCURATE TRANSIENT RESPONSE AND STEREO IMAGE WITHOUT THE COUPLING EFFECT OF THE LEFT AND RIGHT. If you're not recording any acoustic instruments or vocals, then yes, go ahead without room treatment. But don't for one second think bare headphones are going to give you an accurate picture.
not treatment...but monitor placement! because you can't actually treat the bass which is most important part of the room. Regarding headphones - IEM (especially china cheap) is most enjoyable and telling the truth more than any hd650s (the only true source of subbass, at least in compact scale). Also monitors with natural reverb and distance effect can actually change the pitch (perceived thing) of music "data" compared to the headphones. And this is the mystery...
I desperately need to pull my desk away from my wall, kicks and snares sound way longer than they actually are but that's when the headphones come in . Cheeky pair of audio techinca ATH-M50X cost me £150 and do the job and are slightly better than my old pair of sennheiser HD280 pros. There is no need for OTT expensive headphones it's like buying wine , the price doesn't dictate the quality within a specific price range so to speak.
Even though i agree with all you're saying, the problem i would have in only producing with headphones is that if im having another person with me its just natural to use monitors and with an untreated room it just becomes a headache when you start mixing the tracks later
As a woman who has a phd in speech and hearing told me, you don't want a condenser close to your ears for any long periods of time. It is absolutely the worst. So yeah... ditch the headphones.
This is very wierd... Making a acoustic treatment without actually using basstraps. The foam you showed doesn´t actually interfere with the bass at all, and the blankets only fix high frequency problems. So the main issue with actually treating the space, which would require alot of stonewool and such, is never done. The bass hangover in my apartment without acoustic treatment is a joke, it rings out and there is a peak at around 132 hz of like 16 db? Which makes it really problematic to hear what´s going on at all. Not trying to hate on anything, but the video is pretty misleading???
You also don´t have a good frequency response in the hd650 without sonarworks or other correction for the curve. You should try the free trial of the software and see the difference.
Heavily flawed logical thinking and terrible advice. Your choice is your choice, but you're neither a mix engineer or the owner of a truly good, treated space. Maybe leave this advice to people that actually know what they're talking about.
100%. He has no idea about the actual benefits of proper acoustic treatment and why it matters. Some ‘sound blankets’ is what he considers a valid experiment…
People are not taking into account how you probably aren't mixing whole music tracks in your studio and instead mostly do sound designing in which the details matter the most
although i agree with some of your points, your bad monitor placement and using spotify, which has the worst sound quality of all streaming services, tells me that you really don't care about how the music sounds. :(
I've been considering ditching my monitors for a while in my tiny home studio, I can't irritate my wife with the monitors I've got and basically they're just taking up room!
He's more a sound designer (designs sounds/presets for VST plugin companies) than a music producer. As a producer, if you like to work in an untreated room - then give your music to someone with a proper studio for mixing and mastering.
i see your point but two badly placed blankets are in no way a decent acoustic treatment, they will only slightly mitigate the hi end of the sound. by the way putting your speakers on the desk is the single most damaging thing you can do to your overall acoustics.
Yeah there are so many things wrong with this video I don't even want to start, but that's the most glaring error other than the fact that his "testing" isn't even remotely blind, not that it could be for something like this. It seems more to me he wanted to justify it to himself for personal preference reasons and that's totally fine, but it comes off as a bit too authoritative in its justifications for what amounts to just a personal preference. Can you get by mixing in headphones and doing a spot check on monitors if you're familiar with what your room sounds like? Certainly. It's it an optimal setup? Absolutely not.
@@RyanCacophony totally agree.
@@RyanCacophony 👍 well said
Love how his adams are aimed at his hip height 😂
I like this. A lot. Love your new vids, your maturity and expertise is evident. Bless you
Aside from music I work a full time job as an acoustics consultant and acoustics is not just about reverb. For example your monitors sat on the desk is severely affecting the sound reproduced. Try using a system to isolate the monitors from the desk.
Also I think the fundamental principal of this video where 'people sometimes go too crazy with acoustics' is true. Not to mention if you reference using headphones etc... this usually mitigates any errors in mixing/mastering decisions if concerning poor room acoustics.
Although I don't see the harm in applying some light treatment, especially when professionally you create videos which involve voice-over recordings. Interesting video none-the-less!
Is putting your monitors on foam pads any step up from directly on the desk?
@@bustamante-music Yes, the material of foam, dampens vibrations coming from your monitors. More importantly however is having your monitors high enough off of your desk so that reflections from your desk miss the monitoring position.
Having your monitors isolated and maybe off of the desk high enough so that between the tweeter and the main driver is ear-level, you'll see that the sound is clearer, crisper and more balanced. With the monitors on your desk, you'll see that the primary difference is that the low end sounds/feels warmer.
You could also tackle this with room controls on the rear of most monitors.
@@MattVorn Ooh I did not know that! When you say tweeter and main driver do you mean the circular things on the front of the speaker?
@@bustamante-music hahaha, that’s funny.
@@eugenemartone7023 hahaha yeah bud
Thanks! You pop into my mind and I had to find your channel to see if you were still creating content and it’s great to know your still doing great things this video was a reminder to me of thinking outside the box (get it?) thanks again great content.
Dude , good for you , i`m not hating, but....mixing music in the acoustics of a basement because you think it`s fine, well, it`s not , maybe for you, if you don`t care, but, i do .
The argument of using headphone for details is silly. Of course you're not going to hear details with small monitors that don't produce much bass placed on a big flat surface that is going to cause tons of comb filtering in a room that is smearing the delays all over the place. For monitors to be useful the room needs to be treated (it doesn't necessarily mean a ton of treatment, it depends in the room and use case) and the monitors need to be time and phase aligned and they need enough output power. It comes down to if you can't hear details on monitors the room and monitors need work. Can you mix and do sound design on headphones? Of course, but you're going to need good references, you'll need time to learn the headphones (just like room/monitors), and you'll need a good secondary monitoring reference setup (car, different headphones, whatever) just like you would for mixing in a room on monitors. And foam panels are not acoustic treatment, the only thing foam panels are good for is wasting money.
Not only that, think of how overcooked his transients are going to be in his mixes. How out of whack the left and right balances are going to be.
thank you.
Thanks for another great video. I absolutely love how pure and honest your content is - so rare to find online, so inspiring and always helps me get past the the 'I need to buy x hardware/software before I can record x' mental block.
This is the exact reason I use affordable monitors and minimal treatment. All the other engineers and RUclipsrs said that monitors and treatment is the single most important investment in the studio. Validating to see someone else come to the same conclusion.
Nope, YOU'RE wrong. Don't be validated. They just need to tweak their statements - the single most important investment in the studio is accurate monitoring - a flat frequency response and reverb times ALONG WITH proper left and right coupling to accurately judge transients and stereo imaging.
I mix on headphones but I don't mix ONLY on headphones. And no, I don't rely on speakers nor my treated room either. I mainly mix on TREATED HEADPHONES WITH ROOM ACOUSTIC SIMULATION.
The fact is YOU CANNOT JUDGE ACCURATE TRANSIENT RESPONSE AND STEREO IMAGE WITHOUT THE COUPLING EFFECT OF THE LEFT AND RIGHT.
If you're not recording any acoustic instruments or vocals, then yes, go ahead without room treatment.
Wow. Talk about independent thought 🤔. A very intriguing idea.
Very informative and helpful to myself, I will be building a new house with a studio and don't really want to add sound panels etc...
Instead I will just keep my massive JBLs pumping for max effect. ✋high five
Some argue that the reason why the experience is less emotional / enjoyable in headphones is because you can't "feel" the sound pressure waves on your body like you can at a big music venue. I'd guess even small monitors (to some minimum) are "felt" as pressure waves.
is that why your voice over has way too much 300-400hz? :D Just kidding. Nice video but i personally prefer my genelec sam system + some acoustic treatment. It sounds exactly like my DT880 combined with sonarworks but with all the benefits of speakers
god bless you, buddy - great video
I agree with this for the most part...... But if we are making music for the club shouldnt we mix on monitors to get closer to the club setting? also, for me, its very hard to mix kick and bass on headphones without proper reproduction of those sub frequencies............ I think, just like out invesments, we need to diversify out mixing settings
I love how he has just a small pair of Adam speakers now. I’ve got the Vanatoo t0’s which are just 4 inch speakers. I wanna add a small REL desktop sub because the speakers don’t translate low end super well but other than that it works wonders! I’d way rather work with a setup like this instead of huge monitors for a bedroom/spare room studio.
Hey, I agree with you 101% been there tested and tried it all - Not sure if I'm used to your calm voice, think I liked it better when you were a little bit spastic - lol - Great video buddy - Cheers! 👍👍👍
Nice Video. Are the Sennheiser 660s ok for electronic music production? I think ima buy them soon hmm
For writing and mixing orchestral music for cinema, it is critical to work with decent acoustic treatment to minimise room modes and reverb. Playback will eventually be happening primarily on speakers, in acoustically treated cinemas and production studios, therefore it has to be balanced with it's subtle nuances for playback on those sorts of systems even if eventually it'll be crushed into an MP4 on Netflix, on an iPad, with earbuds. 😉
Great video though!
Great, but you're talking about 0.001% of people who produce music.
@@WillyJunior not sure where you got that figure from, but even if you're correct, my point is still completely relevant since that is music being experienced by hundreds of thousands on a weekly basis in those environments I mentioned, so I don't get what your point is.
@@ephjaymusic You're talking about mixing orchestral music for cinema. Your whole comment is about that. So I'm saying that doesn't apply to many people. It also sounded a lot like you just wanted to brag.
@@WillyJunior Well that's your own assumption about my comment isn't it. I was merely remarking that there are in fact plenty of people who write for film and TV, and they do require acoustic treatment. You're beginning to sound like you want to argue about a subject that you're not well informed on.
Your man bun is GLORIOUS
Terrific vid kudos
Good stuff man 👍
The single most important investment in the studio is accurate monitoring - a flat frequency response and reverb times ALONG WITH proper left and right coupling to accurately judge transients and stereo imaging.
I mix on headphones but I don't mix ONLY on headphones. And no, I don't rely on speakers nor my treated room either. I mainly mix on TREATED HEADPHONES WITH ROOM ACOUSTIC SIMULATION.
The fact is YOU CANNOT JUDGE ACCURATE TRANSIENT RESPONSE AND STEREO IMAGE WITHOUT THE COUPLING EFFECT OF THE LEFT AND RIGHT.
If you're not recording any acoustic instruments or vocals, then yes, go ahead without room treatment. But don't for one second think bare headphones are going to give you an accurate picture.
not treatment...but monitor placement! because you can't actually treat the bass which is most important part of the room. Regarding headphones - IEM (especially china cheap) is most enjoyable and telling the truth more than any hd650s (the only true source of subbass, at least in compact scale). Also monitors with natural reverb and distance effect can actually change the pitch (perceived thing) of music "data" compared to the headphones. And this is the mystery...
what budget IEMs would u recommend?
to avoid using acoustic treatment at all, even for recording, you can try RX De-reverb or any other reverb removal tool! no hanging blankets anymore
I desperately need to pull my desk away from my wall, kicks and snares sound way longer than they actually are but that's when the headphones come in . Cheeky pair of audio techinca ATH-M50X cost me £150 and do the job and are slightly better than my old pair of sennheiser HD280 pros.
There is no need for OTT expensive headphones it's like buying wine , the price doesn't dictate the quality within a specific price range so to speak.
Even though i agree with all you're saying, the problem i would have in only producing with headphones is that if im having another person with me its just natural to use monitors and with an untreated room it just becomes a headache when you start mixing the tracks later
Treat your room guys, as much as possible.
As a woman who has a phd in speech and hearing told me, you don't want a condenser close to your ears for any long periods of time. It is absolutely the worst. So yeah... ditch the headphones.
This is very wierd... Making a acoustic treatment without actually using basstraps.
The foam you showed doesn´t actually interfere with the bass at all, and the blankets only fix high frequency problems.
So the main issue with actually treating the space, which would require alot of stonewool and such, is never done.
The bass hangover in my apartment without acoustic treatment is a joke, it rings out and there is a peak at around 132 hz of like 16 db?
Which makes it really problematic to hear what´s going on at all.
Not trying to hate on anything, but the video is pretty misleading???
You also don´t have a good frequency response in the hd650 without sonarworks or other correction for the curve.
You should try the free trial of the software and see the difference.
Heavily flawed logical thinking and terrible advice. Your choice is your choice, but you're neither a mix engineer or the owner of a truly good, treated space. Maybe leave this advice to people that actually know what they're talking about.
100%. He has no idea about the actual benefits of proper acoustic treatment and why it matters. Some ‘sound blankets’ is what he considers a valid experiment…
thank you
Fax fax fax 💯💯💯
Nope. Not even close.
People are not taking into account how you probably aren't mixing whole music tracks in your studio and instead mostly do sound designing in which the details matter the most
Just use reference track 😜
Dolphin sanctuary 🤣
although i agree with some of your points, your bad monitor placement and using spotify, which has the worst sound quality of all streaming services, tells me that you really don't care about how the music sounds. :(
I've been considering ditching my monitors for a while in my tiny home studio, I can't irritate my wife with the monitors I've got and basically they're just taking up room!
Except your headphones aren't all that accurate either, so nice try.
He's more a sound designer (designs sounds/presets for VST plugin companies) than a music producer. As a producer, if you like to work in an untreated room - then give your music to someone with a proper studio for mixing and mastering.
foAm
Morphit + CanOpener
Simply swap between the two and move on 😅
Sorry but this is just nonsense.
Andrews Scheps mixes with cheapo Sony cans. End of debate.
And learned in a treated studio. He learned his headphones, too. You probably don't know what the music you love actually sounds like.