Page 33 - DemoZone Magazine Issue 003

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A1-2 audio Blog Zone Magazine Article no 2.
Hi folks and thanks for joining us at Zone Magazines tech corner, over the coming issues I'm going to be discussing a number of subjects which should hopefully aid and help you understand what’s required to get your system up and running and your mixes sounding more professional. This month’s subject is monitoring and room acoustics.
What is monitoring and why is it so important in helping us create mixes that translate to different systems(car stereos, headphones, radio, Pa speakers, Pc Speakers and so forth) The concept is basically to create a finished product that can be played on different systems and have a similar sound to some degree, smaller speakers won't represent the lower end of the spectrum as well as your Hi fi speakers but we still need to be able to get a mix to translate non the less.
If there only existed one monitor in the world, this would be great. But unfortunately the reality is quite different, every speaker or monitor sounds different and there lies part of the problem. If you've ever gone to your local Hi fi or pro audio dealer you will have noticed the endless number of speakers available to you as a punter, they all differ in size, shape and the materials they're made from. Thus providing you with a billion different sonic experiences, and I'm not exaggerating, they all truly sound monumentally different.
So imagine if you will, you've spent the last 3 weeks and 4 days mixing your latest banger and you’re ready to play it to the world at some impromptu party you've been invited to, your track starts and the sheer look of horror as you realise it sounds like it was recorded in a shoe box for a penny, but how can this be? It sounded absolutely stunners on your system. As the track progresses your audience is diminishing, one down, 3 down. The room has emptied and you standing with you head in your hands thinking WTF!!! Your about to learn the first of many important lessons about "monitoring and room acoustics".
Now let’s go back to your less then acoustically perfect bedroom and look at a couple of things. What did you use to mix your track on? (Computer monitors, ear buds that came with your smart phone or a Hi fi you inherited from your granny when she died RIP Granny) She was a lovely lady but in fairness knew nothing about Hi fi's. What shape is your room? What size is your room, how high are the ceilings? How reflective are the surfaces (walls, glass, wardrobe doors are all solid surfaces that sound bounces off) You are now in the middle of what’s known as magic room syndrome. Whilst you were listening to your latest banger at a similar level to an aeroplane taking off, all you could hear was your out and out amazingness and unfortunately not the sound of your room. The louder you play something in an untreated room, the more amazing you will think you sound, bring it right down to almost a whisper. Now play the same track. It doesn't sound that great does it?
What you hear in your room is an inter action between the room and the monitors, this becomes even more prominent the louder you play it. So my number 1 tip is to always monitor at a level that gets the drivers moving enough on you reference monitors (But I don't have reference monitors, nor do I know what they do) you hopefully soon will. It's not a competition to see if you can get the driver to protrude over the edge of the cabinet. If something can excite you at low level, when you decide to give it some welly you'll be properly entertained.
The next thing I'm going to talk about is spending money, money for monitors, stands and a small amount of acoustic treatment. At this point expect some less than enthusiastic comments from whom ever you’re in a relationship with, your spending how much on reference monitors!! WTF is acoustic treatment and why do you need stands for your monitors, what’s all this foamy stuff on the mirrors. This is before we even talk about upgrading grans computer you inherited with Windows 3.1, hard decisions will have to be made. But I can honestly tell you reference monitors sound way better than yakety yak!!
Reference monitors what do they do?
Basically anything you create a mix on has to have a greater frequency response then your average punters Hifi speaker, accuracy is the main factor with monitoring. Every monitor sounds different and this is where you’re going to have to make some decisions, they all have different frequency responses e.g. 20hz to 20khz is the lower and upper end of human hearing, as we get older pending on how much of a bashing we've given our ears(headphones pumping at 140db) we start to lose the upper end so from 20khz (extreme high-end where the shimmer or air on an EQ is located) back. When you first start to audition reference monitors, you'll notice some have extended lows, some have very forward mids, whilst others will have sharp sounding highs and that’s before we get into stereo imaging. My advice to anyone purchasing monitoring for the first time is to take a bunch of your favourite tracks and head on down to your local pro audio dealer, play the tracks you know best and have heard on multiple systems to see which monitors translate (give's a good idea of how the mix sounds in all the different regions bass, mids and highs, depth( just like a photo sound is dimensional) The list of companies manufacturing reference monitors is endless, let me give you a couple of names to get you started Adams, Beheringer,
Genelec, Krk Systems, M -Audio, Yamaha. They make monitors for pretty much every budget, some of my favourites would be Adams Ax7's, Krk Systems Vxt 8's and Yamahas Hs 8's being the most affordable out of the bunch I've mentioned, but again it’s all subjective so my advice is go listen and make up your own mind.
Why do I need acoustic treatments?
The crooks of it is your probably mixing your newest banger in your bedroom, unless your employing a mix engineer in that case you don't need to worry about the rest of this article. Within your Studio, vocal recording, mix, mastering suite or bedroom as it’s normally known exists a multitude of problems as I mentioned earlier in the article, reflective surfaces are amongst the biggest offenders in the area. Anything that’s hard sound will reflect off, rear walls, mirrors, windows you name they all interfere with the sound in your room, oh and corners (bass build up happens in corners) The louder you play your music the more you will hear the sound of the room and not the sound of the monitors. If it's possible and within your budget there are a number of easy solutions to correct some of this stuff, room correction kits made by a number of companies including Auralex, Prima Acosutics, Universal Acosutics, Vicoustic, off course all this stuff is budget dependent but you can achieve and greatly improve the sound of your room with minimal cost. It really depends how serious you are about producing mixes that translate and work well on other systems.
These treatments like everything else come in eery size and shape imaginable, absorbtion, bass traps, diffusors, scatter block, again go check them out online and start to become familiar with the concepts and ideas behind them. They will greatly improve the sound of your room and help you make better decisions about your mixes. There are a couple of alternatives available to you if you don't fancy covering your room in purple or burgundy foamy stuff, Ik Multimedia make a system call Arc which essentially scans your room taking measurements finding problematic frequencies, which it then adjusts through the supplied dSP based processor and outputs the corrections into your monitors. The other system which uses a similar method is Krk Systems Ergo, again worth checking out as an alternative to the foamy stuff.
Words By Declan Mc Comiskey Pic By Keith McGovern www.a12audio.com
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