my friend's setup

mono wrote: ...with all due respect, I have! (at least a 2.1 Logitech in the same price range). And I've known Logitech for some time now, even if I never bought one. These are very popular speakers. I understand that you are satisfied  with your system, and I'm not arguing that! I'm not trying to convince you to throw them away. My system is 2 x Mackie MR5. These cost 290Euros (the pair at thomann). I find that to be quite cheap for the quality it yields, just like you find your system great for its price range.

How would you describe the difference between the Logitechs and the Mackies? For example on a range of 1 to 10 where 1 is the most horrible, and 10 is the most perfect system ever - where would you place the two?


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - November 20 2009 at 08:19

^ I largely agree with that - I would put my Logitech X-530 speakers at about 6/10, and I simply think they're underrated by people who haven't heard them - my guess is that most would put them at about 2-3/10.

Well, currently my budget for musical gear is kind of maxed out (purchased Guitar Rig 4 Pro and the ESI Maya 44e sound card a few weeks ago) ... but next year a pair of nice studio monitors will certainly be possible.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - November 20 2009 at 14:21

Mixing and mastering is kind of off-topic for this thread ... nevertheless I'll say this much:

Today the whole process of mixing and mastering is about to change completely. This week I picked up a magazine special issue about mastering - it seemed mostly like an advertising platform for various software tools and plugins to me, but it contained some useful advice too. The point is that the traditional separation of mixing and mastering will eventually disappear ... and although the magazine issue did not say that explicitly, there were several hints or passages that contained that message "between the lines". Just one example:

Multi-band compression. It can be a useful tool in mastering if for example the mix contains too much energy in the lower frequencies. However, a much better solution in that situation would be to go back to the mixing stage and fix the problem there, which would be much easier in most cases (by applying compression to specific instruments like bass and bass drum, applying high-pass eq filters to other instruments etc.). Back in the days of analog recording this would simply have been too expensive - I guess it was done if the budget allowed or if the mix was so bad that no mastering tool could fix it, but usually the mastering guy had to make do with the stereo mix he got.

Today I can record something in Ableton Live (or any other modern DAW), mix it, master it and export it to WAV ... and if at any point I find that I need to go back to the mixing stage, it's only a few clicks away. There's no need anymore to at some point finalize a mix to a stereo track and to try to solve any problem with individual instruments later by applying sophisticated (and error-prone, thereby making it a job for experienced specialists) processing to the stereo sum that will only affect one instrument.

Another issue I have is using (near) flat monitor speakers for everything, including the mastering. I know the motivation and argumentation behind it and it all makes sense ... but IMO it also unnecessarily complicates the whole process. Why not simply do the mastering on a very good hi-fi system? This is the target platform where it is supposed to sound best. Especially if you are a part-time "hobbyist" audio engineer - why should you spent tons of money on achieving a neutral sound?

Mastering (and mixing for that matter) always works on a reference basis. You choose a track that sounds great and then try to improve the mix you're working on until it matches the reference track. For the genres we're dealing with here (prog rock/metal) you can by all means do that on a good hi-fi system, too.

^ I don't believe for a second that room treatment and superior monitor speakers remove the necessity for using points of reference. Apart from that, pretty much everything in your post is open to opinion ... I respect yours, but in my opinion you got carried away a bit by the forums. I don't think that I'm in a position to tell you that you're wrong, given that I'm just a hobbyist ... I just find the notion of a "perfect room" that completely removes listening fatigue and lets you grasp every detail immediately a tad unrealistic. ;-)

And about mastering on a hi-fi: I think I said that no sane audio engineer would do that - but a hobbyist might get some pretty decent results with it for special mastering tasks.

oliverstoned.
A simple measurement with a good flat mic on the sweet spot, and you have your room frequency response (approx. of course).
Takes 1min if you can have an omnidirectional mic, and know your speaker's frequency response. If you don't know your system's frequency response, you can measure it the same way.
- Install the microphone on your seat at your head height (or ~50cm from the speakers for the speakers).
- Play a swept sine (20Hz-20kHz, a few seconds long) on your speakers. Most audio editors can generate a swept sine.
- The recorded sound should be quite representative of your room frequency response.

This should give a broad idea of what your room does to your sound.
For a more precise one, the set becomes very expensive ("flat" speakers, precision omni mic).

Also an easy way is simply to play songs you know very well in that room and listen...

Having measured a few mixing studios frequency responses, I can tell you very few are "perfect". But they never have big bumps and holes, which makes it quite easy for the engineer to get familiar with the studio.


Petrov Mizinski, I have to say I agree, even if sometimes you tend to stray from the subject...

The thing about Hi-fi systems... THEY ALL SOUND VERY DIFFERENT, so if you base yourself on one, even ten, you're much less sure to obtain a good result on another Hi-fi system than someone using monitors.
So being as universal as possible is using the flattest and most precise monitors you can get.

However, checking your mix on a standard lo-fi system is still important for already exposed reasons, and especially on "typically biased" systems as boomboxes...

Oliverstoned, concerning the rooms, I can easily show you the contrary in Paris (if you're in Paris).
The two options are not comparable.
Still, you are sure to have a crappy sound using a crappy system, but not with a non treated room. You can get lucky!

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ I don't believe for a second that room treatment and superior monitor speakers remove the necessity for using points of reference. Apart from that, pretty much everything in your post is open to opinion ... I respect yours, but in my opinion you got carried away a bit by the forums. I don't think that I'm in a position to tell you that you're wrong, given that I'm just a hobbyist ... I just find the notion of a "perfect room" that completely removes listening fatigue and lets you grasp every detail immediately a tad unrealistic. ;-) And about mastering on a hi-fi: I think I said that no sane audio engineer would do that - but a hobbyist might get some pretty decent results with it for special mastering tasks.

At no point do I say it removes the necessity for points of reference, read again. For some engineers it does, but I also do know that some of my favorite engineers, such as David Bendeth and Chris Lord Alge frequently use other sources as references (in the former's case, he regularly uses his car, in the latter's case, a boombox in mono is typically used). They also uses other albums as reference points too.
I do recall Bendeth saying for Paramore's Riot! album ( a big favorite of mine, musically and production wise) he regularly used other albums as a reference for it's sound.

However in the case of some engineers, they don't use references at all and rely on nothing but their ears.
Andy Sneap, another favorite engineer of mine, who as we know is quite well versed in the 3 major audio engineering fields (tracking engineering, mix engineering and mastering engineering), doesn't use references albums at all. He may, however use several sets of speakers as references, but he doesn't use other albums as references. If he likes a sound at a particular moment, that's what he uses.
And we can't argue he gets great results either.
Some engineers, in the case of a fairly well known mix and tracking engineer from my home town, pretty much uses nothing but his single set of Event Opals, and honestly his mixes sounded great on my fairly cheap hi fi system at home.
At the end of the day, is' an artistic decision and there are many approaches.
As long as it sounds good, it doesn't truly matter how you get there, I mean hell, there is nothing stopping me from mixing on my cheap computer speakers and getting good results but as I've said in the past, there should be certain standards, and there are certain tools and environments which will lead to getting good results more easily and more quickly.
And certainly, considering how poor the high end and low end detail is on my comp speakers, it's simply just easier to mix on my monitors because I can actually hear what's happening.
Pros just take this a step further with more high end monitoring and room treatment, they can hear even more.

And mind you, my point on ear fatigue is based on the fact one might be using fatiguing speakers in the first place. If you aren't, it doesn't matter.
In the case of some Mackie's, such as the HR824, the high end is quite excessive as noted by many users and many people have noted once they got their room treatment, a lot of those high end problems went away.
Yes, it's true there is only so much room treatment can do, and in 2009 we have yet to achieve total flat, pure sound from any speakers and ultimately the environment where things are being mixed/mastered, but hey, it's not like most people can ear with total accuracy from 20Hz to 20KHz anyway (at least, not those that live in noisy, industrialized nations like myself in Australia or you, in Germany, or mono, in France), so ultimately maybe it doesn't matter as long as the engineer likes what he hears.
I know my Behringers are quite hyped in the high end.

For a while I didn't realize what was causing my ears to tire out so easily, so I adjusted the EQ on the back of them to reduce the high end by 4 decibels.
Not only did this make it easier to mix for longer sessions (although to be fair, they are still a little bit fatiguing and room compensation switches can't totally solve the problem), but since I was no longer hearing such a ridiculous amount of high end, my mixes started coming out clearer and a little bit closer to that professional clarity.
Even though yes, I was using reference albums with the older monitor settings I had, having adjusted the EQ and being able to hear the high end more accurately has quite literally cut about 15 per cent of the time off my time to be able to mix things to a good level.
Honestly, I was the same as you, I thought it had to be voodoo, but it turns out having a more accurate mixing environment made it easier for me.
I might be taking it to the next step in a few months with some room treatment.
I currently mix in a small room, 2 by 2 meters, which is hardly ideal for obvious reason. I don't plan to go crazy and spend 10s of thousands of dollars on treatment, just enough to make things a little bit clearer, so maybe a few hundred dollars worth of treatment, since after all I don't need the holy grail of accuracy yet, since I don't exactly mix pro level stuff.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: BTW: For all you guys out there who have the money and resources go move to a flat with one additional room that you can then "treat" and put 10K's worth of studio equipment in there ... kudos, go right ahead. I, as a hobbyist, will simply use my good headphones in combination with my reasonably good, but in studio terms crappy Logitech system - or maybe next year some nice studio monitors in the range of EUR 200-400, which will still be crappy in studio terms. And I shall endeavor to produce nice mixes ... provided that I get a new computer first, so I'll be rid of those damn latency issues.

Veering more off topic now, but interestingly, I never really got any problems with my POD in regards to latency.
I figure since my sound is being externally monitored with no need to have plugs in on my track, I don't get that extra latency you can get when you have VST's on the track.
Plus USB 2.0 is pretty fast anyway, faster than the USB 1.1 you had with your Guitarport.
I'm thinking that if you buy a DI box with a splitter, you can perhaps pick up a cheap POD 2.0 , run that into a set of speakers, have half your signal route to there to be able to hear what you're playing, and then, because you have that set up happening, you wont have to use any latency inducing plug ins (pretty much all guitar amp sim plug ins cause latency to some extent) on the track, and you can just apply the VST after you have laid the DI tracks down



Edited by Petrovsk Mizinski - November 24 2009 at 01:29

Do you have the Asio2 driver? (if you're running Windows)

mono wrote: oliverstoned.A simple measurement with a good flat mic on the sweet spot, and you have your room frequency response (approx. of course). Takes 1min if you can have an omnidirectional mic, and know your speaker's frequency response. If you don't know your system's frequency response, you can measure it the same way.- Install the microphone on your seat at your head height (or ~50cm from the speakers for the speakers).- Play a swept sine (20Hz-20kHz, a few seconds long) on your speakers. Most audio editors can generate a swept sine.- The recorded sound should be quite representative of your room frequency response.This should give a broad idea of what your room does to your sound. For a more precise one, the set becomes very expensive ("flat" speakers, precision omni mic).Also an easy way is simply to play songs you know very well in that room and listen...Having measured a few mixing studios frequency responses, I can tell you very few are "perfect". But they never have big bumps and holes, which makes it quite easy for the engineer to get familiar with the studio. Petrov Mizinski, I have to say I agree, even if sometimes you tend to stray from the subject...The thing about Hi-fi systems... THEY ALL SOUND VERY DIFFERENT, so if you base yourself on one, even ten, you're much less sure to obtain a good result on another Hi-fi system than someone using monitors.So being as universal as possible is using the flattest and most precise monitors you can get.However, checking your mix on a standard lo-fi system is still important for already exposed reasons, and especially on "typically biased" systems as boomboxes...Oliverstoned, concerning the rooms, I can easily show you the contrary in Paris (if you're in Paris).The two options are not comparable.Still, you are sure to have a crappy sound using a crappy system, but not with a non treated room. You can get lucky!

i don't deny the importance of room acoustic. But it's useless to invest a lot in room acoustic with a mediocre system.
My system is in a small room which fortunatly stands a 38 cm subwoofer and the room sounds good (no audible resonances). I prefer to invest in cables, power flitering, vibration control...and after room's acoustic.

just curious, what's your system?

Price doesn't means nothing, there are good and bad things at every prices; there are musical 1000€ system sthat work better than others 100 000€ systems. Please forget scientific theories. I know what i'm talking about, my system works. What's your system please?

I just ordered the Logitech X-540 today, to replace my old X-530s, which a friend of mine will put to good use (watching TV & DVDs).

The X-540 is just an improved version of the X-530 with a bit more power. But the major improvement is that the right speaker is not combined with the console (volume knobs, headphones etc) anymore.