Really Expensive Speakers: Overrated For Mixing And Mastering

[SigbergAudio]

As stated, using “better” monitors will NOT necessarily make the job easier.

It is my opinion and experience (having talked with engineers not mixed or mastered myself) that in general, it will. It is easier to make things "fit" in the mix, it translates better, and it is less straining to work long hours.

 

[goat76]

One anecdote about some mixer who for some reason struggled to "get the mid-range right" on a particular monitor known to be neutral and high quality does NOT necessarily constitute good evidence that a good monitor isn't useful.

No, there are many more examples, but are we really gonna fill up this whole thread with examples?

No one has said that good monitors aren't useful, it's just not happen to be the right tool for someone struggling to use it. The right tool could be another monitor that is considered good, or even a monitor that is generally considered worse.

 

[goat76]

It is my opinion and experience (having talked with engineers not mixed or mastered myself) that in general, it will. It is easier to make things "fit" in the mix, it translates better, and it is less straining to work long hours.

And still, there is no evidence of that, instead, mixing engineers are using all kinds of different studio monitors, which they all find easy to use, and not all of them are considered generally good monitors. No one is using tools that make them struggle, everyone has found their favorite monitors that they like working on, and the proof of that is that they constantly deliver good results.

 

[SigbergAudio]

And still, there is no evidence of that, instead, mixing engineers are using all kinds of different studio monitors, which they all find easy to use, and not all of them are considered generally good monitors. No one is using tools that make them struggle, everyone has found their favorite monitors that they like working on, and the proof of that is that they constantly deliver good results.

Let me summarize:

• All mixing engineers are using different studio monitors and they all find all those variants easy to use irrespective of their quality.
• No mixing engineers struggle with their work.
• All mixing engineers have found their favorite monitors (out of what sample base?)
• All mixing engineers constantly deliver good results.

This is one of the weirdest over-generalizations I've seen on this forum so far.

 

[goat76]

Let me summarize:

• All mixing engineers are using different studio monitors and they all find all those variants easy to use irrespective of their quality.
• No mixing engineers struggle with their work.
• All mixing engineers have found their favorite monitors (out of what sample base?)
• All mixing engineers constantly deliver good results.

This is one of the weirdest over-generalizations I've seen on this forum so far.

Let me summarize your view:

• Every problem in music production is solved if you get to decide what monitors every studio engineer should use.

That is the weirdest over-generalizations I've seen on this forum so far.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Let me summarize your view:

• Every problem in music production is solved if you get to decide what monitors every studio engineer should use.

That is the weirdest over-generalizations I've seen on this forum so far.

That is not what I said at all.

 

[goat76]

That is not what I said at all.

Same to you.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Same to you.

I basically took your sentences and put bullets in front of them, but okay.

 

[goat76]

I basically took your sentences and put bullets in front of them, but okay.

Do you want it repeated what I really said?

Here you go:

And still, there is no evidence of that, instead, mixing engineers are using all kinds of different studio monitors, which they all find easy to use, and not all of them are considered generally good monitors. No one is using tools that make them struggle, everyone has found their favorite monitors that they like working on, and the proof of that is that they constantly deliver good results.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

lots of great recordings have been made by experienced engineers on less-than-stellar monitors that they knew well.

Lots of great recordings have been made by engineers on heroin or cocaine as well, but that I'd still recommend avoiding that if you can.

Of course if you can't avoid it, make the best of it.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Do you want it repeated what I really said?

Here you go:

It reads the same to me, but I my reading skills are apparently not great.

 

[goat76]

It reads the same to me, but I my reading skills are apparently not great.

Apparently not great reading skills when you put together a list like that with extreme exaggerations.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Apparently not great reading skills when you put together a list like that with extreme exaggerations.

If you read your own text, you have "all" and "everyone" and "noone" all over the place, so hard to exaggerate further. But no point in arguing further since you obviously didn't mean what I interpreted you to mean, which is good.

 

[Audionaut]

Just that when budget is limited in many small operations you can still do a good job if you know your monitors well and have experience with how they will present on other systems.

If the bass range cannot be reproduced at all, you simply have no way of knowing how it might sound on other systems.
The broader the frequency response, the lower the distortion, and the more neutral the speakers are in reproducing the source material, the better you can evaluate it.
This is true regardless of whether it’s a studio monitor or a hi-fi speaker.

 

[thewas]

The funny thing is that for professional film or graphics creation nobody would purposely prefer or use a display system which is not calibrated and showing the wrong lighting and colour balance but the audiophool world of course has to be an exception there too.

 

[chelgrian]

The funny thing is that for professional film or graphics creation nobody would purposely prefer or use a display system which is not calibrated and showing the wrong lighting and colour balance but the audiophool world of course has to be an exception there too.

Well similarly for film audio at least for Dolby you have to do the final mix in a certified room, music production on the other hand is the wild west.

 

[geol]

We need to define what "really expensive" means. Furthermore, sounds recorded or created for films are either simply recordings or not real at all. Our ear can vaguely recognize the sound of a violin or a plane explosion (a classic sound effect). But at no point is it the actual sound.
Finally, we will never have any influence on the final mix.