The Importance of Studio Monitors
Hello everyone, hopefully you are all holding up in these odd times of Covid-19. I am finding that a lot of people I know are using this time to expand on their hobbies which I think is great. Often times, myself very much included in this focus too much on work and not enough time on our families or ourselves.
Anyways, I was going back and forth with a good friend of mine yesterday. He was asking how I was able to get my bass drum sound on the YouTube teaser video I put up a few weeks ago. His question was “how much compression did I use?” My answer was not very sexy, because I find if you need a lot of compression you did something wrong. So quickly he let me know when he is mixing in headphones it sounds fine but when he listens on his phone it doesn’t sound the same. Basically his bass has all gone away and it was “clicky.”
My focus with him became mixing in headphones.
A typical Frequency Response curve, notice the significant bump on the left, those will be low and low miss (bass).*
His problem is that he gets it to sound good in his head phones when he is working on a track but when it listens to another device the sound changes, for him particularly in the low end.
Headphones, car stereo speakers and home audio systems are tuned. They typically extenuate particular frequencies and cut out others. The objective is to get the music to sound pleasant, they are not designed to be accurate.
So if you look online for frequency response to your favorite brand, you will typically notice they are boosted in the lows, low mids and they decrease higher frequencies. Again, they want the listener to have something they like. Which is the problem when you mix audio on them. They artificially raise and lower particular frequencies of what you are recording.
Now, I am not one to say you cannot mix on them. I do believe you can, if you understand what they are doing to the sound and you are able to compensate in your recording and mixing. Back in the late 90’s when I started to get into recording, that is all I had and no money to get anything else. I had to make do with what I had. Times for me have changed and one thing I will say, without studio monitors it makes recording and mixing much more difficult.
Here is a Frequency Response curve graph for studio monitors. Notice how much flatter the curves are? That allows you to hear frequencies in a mix with more clarity.*
Now to compare consumer grade speakers versus studio monitors, look not further that the aforementioned frequency response. They are as flat as possible, that is their job to get you to hear everything within the speaker coloring the sound.
I myself didn’t get my first pair of studio monitors until 2015, I dropped out of recording and there was zero need. Then when I got back in I purchased studio monitors. Good old JBL 308p and the first thing I noticed was everything I listened to was different. Pretty good starter monitors at a reasonable price. From movies, music to video games it was a whole different experience and for me I really liked it.
When I decided I was all in on making music and was expanding from just a hobby, the first thing I did was buy new monitors. My current studio set up is the following:
The sub was to really get a better handle on the low end, however that is an extreme luxury buy and I would say for 99.9% of the people out there would get zero benefit from it. Now the A7X were a different story. First, you don’t know what you don’t know. Second I wanted something with a smaller footprint. My JBLs were just too big for me.
I had gotten used to my JBLs and I quickly noticed that I needed to learn my equipment. Very important, learn your equipment. With the ADAM’s I was getting more information at high clarity, particularly in the higher frequencies. And honestly, getting cleaner information at those frequencies helped me balance out the low end.
So in talking with my friend I asked him two important questions:
Are you all in on making music?
What is your budget?
Going with studio monitors is expensive. And I didn’t want to recommend buying them until he told me he is 100% committed. I asked him one other important question, does he have an audio interface. Very important, studio monitors do not plug directly into your computer. You will need at least an audio interface and those range in price based on several factors which I won’t get into here. Just know you need one.
So once he said yes I told him what I had. He was then going to buy one A7X and one cheap one, which I told not to do. Get a matching pair, please.
So here is the path I started him on:
I felt those were better than the JBLs I started with and if I had to start over again I would have started there.
ADAM is what I currently use and I am extremely happy. I also, felt that size was going to be an issue.
He ended up going with the Adam Audio A5X and I feel that was the best possible choice for him. This he A7X has a frequency response that goes down to 42Hz while the A5X go down to 50Hz, something that he would not notice. Coupled with the physical footprint he is saving by going smaller, I really felt that was the absolute best choice for him.
*Note for the graphs used as examples, they do not represent any of the products mentioned in this post. They are meant to give a visual example for clarification. Not all speakers are going to follow those curves, if you want to know where your speakers fall research the product on the brands website.