Are studio monitors overrated?

[Jiraya369]

I think we all know that the premises around "the best sound is true to (insert latitude about linearity or ideal target curves here)" is flawed, because establishing the perfect, ideal performance to recording to mastering to consumer media is very elusive.
We know many recordings are produced with the idea in mind that consumers used flawed equipment. For Motown it was AM radio, now it's people like loudness and compression So it actually doesn't matter much which speakers or headphones are used in production, since the goal clearly is very seldom sonic perfection.

you dont understand production. The main reason why calibrated or accurate stuff is required is so that everything translates.

Let's say you have a bump at 1khz, due to that your ear adapts to it and so you hear everything with a bump and you more than likely will lower 1khz in your songs in the production process in order to make up for your speaker's bump. You CAN get used to the sound and mix well, but that doesn't make it the ideal method. You CAN climb a mountain whilst walking on a handstand, is that ideal? Now let's say you're a mountain climber who earns his money climbing mountains and competing with others, would you want to do the handstand or just walk on your legs to make sure you do your job as efficiently as possible?

In order to make sure the sound translates, the mixing engineers listen to the songs on multiple devices. For example, even an iPhone. Would you now say an iPhone is the holy grail for mixing?

The goal of a mixing engineer is to make something that sounds good or at least good to him and to make sure that the sound is conveyed faithfully to most consumer devices. It's why the Michael Jackson Thriller album sounds so good on so many systems, it was mixed flawlessly. If you have a poorly mixed track, it'll sound great on the system the mixing engineer used but not on other stuff.

Therefore, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

 

[xanalog]

In my admittedly small sample of ‘pro’ customers, I have found the majority have very little technical knowledge of loudspeaker design and subsequently are just as prone to subjective marketing as any ‘audiophile’.
Keith

Aren't there more subjective hearsay and peer-pressure rather than marketing, at play?

 

[xanalog]

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I find such a posting to be rude, at best.
It's a personal setting and should be kept that way.
Sorry!

 

[EngineerNate]

you dont understand production. The main reason why calibrated or accurate stuff is required is so that everything translates.

Let's say you have a bump at 1khz, due to that your ear adapts to it and so you hear everything with a bump and you more than likely will lower 1khz in your songs in the production process in order to make up for your speaker's bump. You CAN get used to the sound and mix well, but that doesn't make it the ideal method. You CAN climb a mountain whilst walking on a handstand, is that ideal? Now let's say you're a mountain climber who earns his money climbing mountains and competing with others, would you want to do the handstand or just walk on your legs to make sure you do your job as efficiently as possible?

In order to make sure the sound translates, the mixing engineers listen to the songs on multiple devices. For example, even an iPhone. Would you now say an iPhone is the holy grail for mixing?

The goal of a mixing engineer is to make something that sounds good or at least good to him and to make sure that the sound is conveyed faithfully to most consumer devices. It's why the Michael Jackson Thriller album sounds so good on so many systems, it was mixed flawlessly. If you have a poorly mixed track, it'll sound great on the system the mixing engineer used but not on other stuff.

Therefore, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

This exactly.

Because your speakers/room won’t be exactly like anyone else’s speakers or room, the best course of action is making it as uncolored as you can, so that the colorations imparted by the end listeners’ systems don’t compound with the tweaks that you make in response to coloration in your own system to over or under emphasize certain frequencies.

If you start with an uncolored source, you’re dealing with one less step in the chain where the sound can go wrong.

Additionally, since our ears do compensate for sound issues miraculously well over time, it would take a heck of an engineer to not stop noticing that the 1khz band is too hot on his system over time and begin to correct for it less and less over time.

Things should be mixed and mastered on a neutral system, then played back over as many great and crap systems as are available to evaluate how the mix translates.

If you only have one point of reference *and* it’s significantly coloring the sound, understanding how that coloration compares to other systems’ coloration is simply a mental burden that’s not necessary.

 

[Pearljam5000]

My logic is simple
If they're used by professionals in the studio to *create* the music, then no they're not overrated.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Can you make a good mix using bad speakers?

Yes.

Does having good speakers make it easier to make a good mix?

Yes.

Lets move on.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Can you make a good mix using bad speakers?

Yes.

Does having good speakers make it easier to make a good mix?

Yes.

Lets move on.

Yeah but they could use good "hifi" speakers in the studio but most of them don't
So yeah I tend to think that they're more accurate and detailed in general

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

And these two aren't the only ones, just the two I mentioned here ...

And those two, plus a few others (plus you) are among the miniscule minority of 0.01% - just as I said before. Thank you for confirming my numbers. Other 99,99% use "overrated" studio monitors.

just because you can doesn't mean you have to. Expensive gear is simply much more fun to use and sounds better, this alone is a reason that's a thousand times more likely than your assumption that these people couldn't do their job right and would be help- and clueless if it wasn't for their gear.

Just because they can use Logitech and Superlux and just because they chose to don't use them - that alone is a billion times more likely than your assumption. You simply can not possibly know for sure whether they tried Logitech and Superux, or not - so your assumption is assumption squared ... and false.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Yeah but they could use good "hifi" speakers in the studio but most of them don't
So yeah I tend to think that they're more accurate and detailed in general

Partly this, and partly this is just because you need to be able to plug your speakers into your mixing board or audio interface with XLR and doing that with passive hi-fi speakers requires a separate amplifier that has XLR inputs and then running wires to the passive speakers and that's a pain in the ass.

 

[Behrelec 37]

Many people forget the high quality of the monitoring speaker as a tool and deliberately confuse it with their own mood and worldview from their own perspective of neutral sound, as is often the case with passive speakers, which are often admired for their appearance.


Passive speakers are more or less coarse-grained and more color-biased in terms of sound focus. They do not produce proper sound quality in studio environments. Perhaps this is how it happens in the romanticized world of teenage boys, but not in reality.

People need to educate themselves to understand the importance of studio recordings and learn to recognize the good and bad sides of production equipment.
Passive speakers are not up to the task of reproducing professional sound in terms of quality.

Passive speakers are like circus products: they are charming at first, but you tire of them more easily and become bored with the different colorations in the sound over time.

 

[kemmler3D]

Now let's say you're a mountain climber who earns his money climbing mountains and competing with others, would you want to do the handstand or just walk on your legs to make sure you do your job as efficiently as possible?

You don't understand, he's found a mountain climber who has climbed 8 of the top 10 peaks on his hands, therefore feet are overrated and irrelevant for everyone.

 

[Jiraya369]

You don't understand, he's found a mountain climber who has climbed 8 of the top 10 peaks on his hands, therefore feet are overrated and irrelevant for everyone.

even that logic is flawed.

Porter Robinson, one of the EDM producers i respect the most for their mixing, made their Vandalism EP with 100-200 dollar logitech speakers and got signed on to skrillex's OWSLA label afaik. Yet he later on got KRK Rokit 6 G2 and is currently rocking an Adam A7V.

Source

Listen to his tracks :
Vandalism, Sad Machine, Shelter, Get Your Wish, Something Comforting and Look At The Sky

You'll see he's been making exceptional mixes all the time but his writing got more complex yet still remained beautifully clean later on.

He's extremely talented, but he's a musician as well, he needs to be able to just write stuff nice and fast and his better gear allowed him to do that. And his skills meant he was able to make his mixes beautiful yet still translate well to all sorts of gear.

He also listens to songs on Apple Airpods most of the time. Yet he doesn't mix on those. Omg is he wasting his money and is he just a pretentious snob or something by using the monitors!?!?!?

 

[Jiraya369]

Many people forget the high quality of the monitoring speaker as a tool and deliberately confuse it with their own mood and worldview from their own perspective of neutral sound, as is often the case with passive speakers, which are often admired for their appearance.


Passive speakers are more or less coarse-grained and more color-biased in terms of sound focus. They do not produce proper sound quality in studio environments. Perhaps this is how it happens in the romanticized world of teenage boys, but not in reality.

People need to educate themselves to understand the importance of studio recordings and learn to recognize the good and bad sides of production equipment.
Passive speakers are not up to the task of reproducing professional sound in terms of quality.

Passive speakers are like circus products: they are charming at first, but you tire of them more easily and become bored with the different colorations in the sound over time.

thanks for this, one of the funniest things i've read in a while, made my day!

 

[Jiraya369]

Yeah but they could use good "hifi" speakers in the studio but most of them don't
So yeah I tend to think that they're more accurate and detailed in general

they literally used a B&W 700 or 800 series speaker in the abbey road i think.

They dont use hifi speakers cus they cost 40k dollars and have boosted treble, whilst still being passive. Hifi speakers have the "heritage", "design" and the "luxury" premium associated to them, studio monitors are cheaper with better output in comparison. And the companies also have partnerships with each other so they can send a bloke down to help calibrate for your studio.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

Porter Robinson, one of the EDM producers i respect the most for their mixing, made their Vandalism EP with 100-200 dollar logitech speakers and got signed on to skrillex's OWSLA label afaik. Yet he later on got KRK Rokit 6 G2 and is currently rocking an Adam A7V.

Interesting. I don't know Robinson's music, but it's mastered by Mike Marsh (and others) at The Exchange. Turns out The Exchange believes in some wacky stuff ("pure silver cables"), but does use pretty baller speakers. So while Robinson may use fairly pedestrian gear to craft his music, it passes through some decidedly non-pedestrian gear before it hits your ears...

 

[RexrothPigeon]

they literally used a B&W 700 or 800 series speaker in the abbey road i think.

They dont use hifi speakers cus they cost 40k dollars and have boosted treble, whilst still being passive. Hifi speakers have the "heritage", "design" and the "luxury" premium associated to them, studio monitors are cheaper with better output in comparison. And the companies also have partnerships with each other so they can send a bloke down to help calibrate for your studio.

This has been covered here before

 

[Pearljam5000]

they literally used a B&W 700 or 800 series speaker in the abbey road i think.

They dont use hifi speakers cus they cost 40k dollars and have boosted treble, whilst still being passive. Hifi speakers have the "heritage", "design" and the "luxury" premium associated to them, studio monitors are cheaper with better output in comparison. And the companies also have partnerships with each other so they can send a bloke down to help calibrate for your studio.

You just proved my point, you gave me one example of one studio.

 

[Jiraya369]

Interesting. I don't know Robinson's music, but it's mastered by Mike Marsh (and others) at The Exchange. Turns out The Exchange believes in some wacky stuff ("pure silver cables"), but does use pretty baller speakers. So while Robinson may use fairly pedestrian gear to craft his music, it passes through some decidedly non-pedestrian gear before it hits your ears...

where'd you get the info about the mastering from? His Worlds album and earlier were mixed and mastered by him, at least based on genius. The Nurture album stuff were mixed and mastered by him and some others. The Shelter song was produced and mixed by him and Madeon. Even on Tidal there's no other credits except for recording engineers and lyricists where vocals where used. I only see Randy Merill and Tom Noriss alongside Porter Robinson himself in the Nurture album. Randy has done some other solid work. Songs he's worked on, im a huge fan of.

I checked Marsh's list and saw some songs like Zedd's funny of which im not a huge fan of in terms of mixing. I doubt Mike Marsh mastered all his songs. Couldnt see porter robinson in his discography list.

Unless you can provide me a solid source this seems like a goofy reply to me. A7V is not pedestrian gear by any means. What does that even mean? An accurate monitor till 40hz (with the exception of a high Q notch below around 700 hz) is pedestrian? What makes the lockwood a better suited monitor for anything? For all we know it could be tuned like a Klipsch.

And I'm not just talking about mastering. That's the final finishing touch. The mixing process requires solid ears. The mastering engineers job is vital but not as important as the mixing engineers'. The tonality of the tracks may be touched upon by the Randy but Porter's mixing meant every instrument is processed beautifully yet is still crystal clear in the mix. So yeah bro unless you can give me solid proof of what you're saying, you're just as much of a goofster as the OP.

Edit : Nvm i saw the mixing wizard Tom Norris's discography, he's a magician. If he's worked on something there's definitely most of his hand at play in the cleanliness but still, Porter has had exceptional mixes pre-Nurture album days, so even if you ignore this album, i want proper proof as to where you pulled the Mike Marsh fella from and if there's any actual mixing engineers you can name.

 

[Purité Audio]

Just a reminder that a transparent speaker is a transparent speaker, whether it is active or passive, wherever it is being used.

Keith

 

[RexrothPigeon]

where'd you get the info about the mastering from? His Worlds album and earlier were mixed and mastered by him, at least based on genius

Genius is wrong, at least according to the liner notes