Not a My Monitors Suck thread...

I use Sonarworks, though it's not doing anything drastic. My real secrete weapon is Metric AB.

Used to do the Sonarworks thing but stopped recently. I never really liked the volume difference it caused and I’ve just gotten used to my speakers ATC SCM12’s. They can be slightly bloomy in the low mids (warm sounding), but I just work with it. I think if you stick with your monitors for long enough, as long as your room is good, you’ll be fine with whatever you enjoy working on.

I would highly encourage the Trinnov for every studio. Especially since it’s a little more economical now. I recently went back and forth with sonorworks again just to see if I could live without it…and I can’t.
I bypass when I’m playing electric, because I’m listening through the monitors, so I’ll occasionally forget to flip it back on. So I’ll start mixing and think - “damn…that kick is boomy, where’s the bass…or that midrange is bright as hell etc…” then I realize the Trinnov is bypassed.

If Ethan were here he would tell you “ treat the room treat the room”, simplistic single axis approach, well on this one there is no simple approach unless you’re selling one.
Treating the room is great, but it acts in very broad ways unless we are talking custom tuned room treatment and even then you’re going to find position and a bit of DSP go a long way.

Start with position, the old rule of the triangle is a great place to start, but also take into account any positioning suggestions from the manufacturer. Move them till you get the most exceptable sound to your ears and measurements. Now treat the room. OK we are going to reavaluate our positioning choices because we changed the room and painted in broad strokes, next we add DSP / correction software of your choice if room treatment was macro correction this is micro here we are going to let the computer do the work. Now we once again measure and listen.
Hear comes the hardest part learning the monitors, chances are what we have isn’t going to represent what we imagined so we have to learn the monitors and figure out what they get right and what they get wrong, bad news at this point I guarantee there is going to be some new sexy speakers that make us start all over again.
Understanding the physics and that we are not going to get 25HZ out of a closet is important. More and more people are beginning to realize 2 lesser subs are going to both go further and be easier to tune than that one great sub.

And nobody will.  A perfect anechoic chamber would be necessary to even start "measuring".  Even the most elaborate and expensive correction software is still limited by physics of the speakers themselves, then the room, then the ears, etc.

The best we can hope for is *translation*...  Does your mix sound the same on any system you listen to?  Only a deep analysis would tell you why it doesn't.

Most of the time the analysis will tell you that the choice of speaker is probably the most important aspect of the translation.  It is literally the interface between the mediums of electricity and air.  It's as much of a change in the signal as going from digital to analog is, and perhaps even more important!

Speakers are a strange beast though.  Many folks won't bat an eye at upgrading expensive converters many times over the years but won't change their monitors once.  They'll shell out 5K$ for a Carbon interface or rack of Burls but won't even consider doing the same for a set of good monitors.  

However, it takes being willing to sit back and decide what the problem *really* is.

Take me for example..

I always mixed too much bass into my mixes.  I got a sub.  I then learned what the *right* amount of bass was.  Now I don't need a sub anymore. 

But I also mixed too much mids into my mixes.  Everytime I listened to a mix, it was muddy on the bottom but the mids were congested full of stuff.  I never had a lot of issues with top end except when I added too much into the mix trying to overcome the muddy bottom and congested mids.

So what did I do?

I realized that I needed a midrange in my monitors because two ways always put the crossover points where guitar and vocals sit in the spectrum.  I needed to hear the midrange better.  Paraphrasing a wise person, "the mids are where the song lives".  The highs and lows can take care of themselves for the most part if the mids are balanced.

And they aren't wrong.  I got a set of 3-way monitors and my mixes have NEVER been better and more consistent across all other speakers.  I can now mix a song and it'll translate everywhere and without second guessing anything.  Sure there's still some tweaks, but if it sounds good in the studio, then it sounds good everywhere.

I can't speak more highly of choosing the right speaker for your studio.  If I had to do it all over again, I'd choose to buy the speakers first before everything else, including converters and mics.

I chose the Neumann KH310D and I made the right choice.  Not cheap, but worth every single penny regardless of what anyone else says.  They work for me, every single time, no correction software needed.

I don't think about it. Ever. Not for a moment. 

Have found that whenever I do allow those kinds of things in my head... oh the monitors are dark so I need to push top harder, the midrange is doing this so I need to compensate with that... Soon as that happens I'm fucked. Game over.  

Think the only real solution is like nick8801 said - gotta learn the speakers warts & all. And then get a second pair and do the instant A/B thing. Every legit pro room on the planet has at least two sets of monitors hooked up for just that reason.  

I'm not a huge fan of these DSP correction things. Have had a few experiences working (as a freelancer) in various shops where like John said... it gets turned off for tracking because of latency or whatever & then gets popped in for playback which can be jarring. All that does is flip my head around... get to a point where I'm not really sure about what I'm actually hearing anymore.  

But I feel like when you really know a pair of speakers, which is going to require a serious investment in time... at a certain point there's a self confidence in what your hearing & doing and so things like checking mixes in the car all the time? Coming back & taking a big swing at the bottom end? That whole path disappears.

This month, I paid the mortgages and bills mixing one country-rock record from a band half Tennessee and half Alberta Canada.
Mixed everything on my Neumann 120s, and a Tannoy Sub I've had since 1991.

Limitations? Yes.
Perfect? Hell no
Translate everywhere? Yeah
Complaints? None.

Didn't need anything else. Just like my mics and outboard gear, converters and software and plugins. . . I know what I'm working with and I'll bet you all do too. And just like jmoose, I never think about it, ever, not ever for a moment,

Yup, I’ll say it again you listen to speakers, but you listen through monitors! One thing here and maybe . it’s because I spent so much time doing things other than pop but, for me personally where I really want a great monitor isn’t as much mixing but tracking. If I’m tracking I want my monitor to show me everything. Tracking is where ATC, Quested, Wilson and B&W earn their reputations because if I can catch an issue in tracking I don’t need to fix it in the mix.

i'm in the same boat. SW doesn't do anything drastic. SAM doesn't seem to either. Room isn't really bad at all. Monitors are both in the same place, one is mid forward, one is mid relaxed. Same room can't make speakers do different things in the same spot.

Referencing through Metric AB is my lifeline for translation.

I hear you. Makes sense.

I suppose all of the above as there are many ways around it. but as ericn said, there are no flat monitors and on top of that a billion of variables in your room and your ears. I was thinking alot bout DSP solutions a while back but didn't go all the way there at the end of the day. I did as I've done with my headphones, found a set of monitors I can understand, which makes sense in my room and I can hear what I need to hear. Then I listen to music in general until i understand what it should sound like in this environment and mix accordingly. I guess then it doesn't really matter how they are voiced as long as it is in ball ball park of not fatiguing your ears and gives you an close enough of honest idea about what's going on there.