Microphone Heaven.
Speaker Choice
A decent set of speakers can completely change
the way
many people listen to music. This is also true of the
speakers engineers use for monitoring, as well as
mixing. Every set sounds a little different. As much
as we would like them to be absolutely accurate and
have a perfectly flat frequency reproduction, this
just isn’t possible. If you’re miking a guitar amp,
the speaker that you’re miking isn’t even reproducing
the guitar sound perfectly.
While it isn’t possible to have a perfect set of
speakers, it is desirable to have a set that’s
accurate enough to help you make good decisions. You
don’t want to base your microphone placement on the
sound coming from a cheap set of computer speakers.
You may place the mic in a certain way using inferior
speakers as a reference point, only to find out later
that it didn’t quite achieve the sound you were hoping
for.
This seems to be a source of great stress among those
recording at home. They often find that they don’t
know how a particular track will sound when finished.
They have problems placing the mics using their
speakers as a reference. Sometimes, they’ll finish
mixing a whole track only to find that it doesn’t
sound the same in their normal cd player.
While you can spend a lot of money on reference
monitors (and many top-notch studios do) you don’t
have to break the bank to get a useful set of
speakers. Many of the old hi-fi speakers can work
very well for monitoring. The trick is to find a set
that sounds decent and doesn’t color the sound too
much. Smaller bookshelf speakers can do a great job
of this, if you get the right pair. Make sure that if
you use these un-powered speakers you have a power
amp. A small power amp that can be purchased at a
music store, with 50-75 watts per side should work
just fine. Both Alesis and Samson make some decent,
inexpensive ones. You can also use an old hi-fi
receiver for this purpose, but often this can color
the sound too much.
In addition to hi-fi speakers, you can also use a set
of powered speakers that are designed for studio
monitoring. The idea behind these is that the power
amps built in are more closely matched to the
speakers. These speakers can have all kinds of price
ranges and advertised specs. Some of them sound good
and work great, while others seem far worse than an
old set of un-powered speakers. You just have to find
the right set of speakers for you. Most of them in
the $300+ range at least have decent voice separation,
making it easy to hear individual tracks of your
recording.
Whichever set of speakers you end up with, it is
important to know what they sound like. Because you
will never find a perfect set of speakers (especially
without taking out a 2nd mortgage on your house), you
need to be used to how things sound on the speakers
you use. Before using the speakers for any serious
recording, audition all of your favorite music through
them (preferably in cd format, not mp3). As you
listen to other engineers’ results, you will start to
hear how things are supposed to sound through your
speakers. This gives you a good reference to use when
mixing through your speakers.
Also, you may want more than one set of speakers, just
to get an idea of how things will sound through
different systems. You might want a small set of
bookshelf speakers, and a set of powered monitors.
Maybe you’ll want an old hi-fi set of floor-standing
speakers, and a smaller set of bookshelf monitors.
Whichever speaker setup you end up with, it’s not a
bad idea to have a bad sounding set of speakers around
just for occasional reference. Most studios will keep
a small boombox, or a set of car speakers around just
to hear what it may sound like through the end
listener’s own setup.
There are many possible speaker setups, and you can’t
have them all. The best you can do is to use a few
sets of speakers that give you an idea of how things
will sound like on a variety of systems. Of course,
you want at least one set to give you an accurate idea
of how things really sound (or as close as you can get
to this). While you can’t expect unmixed tracks to
sound like a finished product, you can get an idea of
how the instruments should sound. As long as you
listen to enough recorded material through the
speakers you use, you will have a good chance of
knowing how things should sound.
