What will I do wrong if I don't have monitors?

deefstes

Just wondering... I don't have monitor speakers so when I record I either run the output to a set of headphones or even my Roland Cube which has an aux input (presumably for backtracks or so). I've contemplated even using my HiFi but haven't really felt a need for that yet.

So, what am I liable to get wrong in my recordings? I'm sure there must be something, otherwise people wouldn't be spending thousands on monitor speakers.

ezietsman

So imagine you have a pair of Headphones. These are the awesomest headphones in the world.... for listening to Hip-hop. Their bass is very strong to make your gut shake and your teeth rattle. Now imagine you mix your songs with them and the bass sounds just right and you have a sweet recording of your song. Now you give it to me and I listen to it on my ipod with my little earbuds.

What will the bass of your song sound like on my system?

deefstes

ez wrote: So imagine you have a pair of Headphones. These are the awesomest headphones in the world.... for listening to Hip-hop. Their bass is very strong to make your gut shake and your teeth rattle. Now imagine you mix your songs with them and the bass sounds just right and you have a sweet recording of your song. Now you give it to me and I listen to it on my ipod with my little earbuds.

What will the bass of your song sound like on my system?

I understand, the bass will sound puny to you. But what if I don't have hip-hop headphones? The headphones I currently use are not particularly expensive (but at least not cheap either). It does not purport to be better suited for any one style of music so I would like to believe it is fairly neutral in that aspect.

How about using one of the AUX inputs on my HiFi? I'm sure it will still not be as good as using expensive monitors dedicated to the task but I'm still not exactly sure what the flaws in my recordings will be?

majestikc

You won't necessarily do anything "wrong", it will just take you a long time to do anything right.

The reason room acoustics and monitors are important is to eliminate any guess work and surprises later on, in other words, once you got it sounding good you'll know it will translate and sound good elsewhere.

In your case what will most likely happen is it sounds good on your headphones, then you take it to your car and there's either to much, or too little bass, so you come back and tweak it on the phones to where you GUESS it sounds ok, then you go back to the car and there might still be a bit too much or too little and so on and so on, so it ends up taking you 2hrs and a lot of back and forth just to get a decent balance on the bass which should of/could of only taken 2 minutes, then you go listen to it at a friends house and you realise the reverb is too much and it's back and forth all over again just for that etc etc etc, so it ends up taking you 3 weeks to mix a track that will always give you, most likely, unpleasant surprises on any new system you listen to it.

ezietsman

Thats the thing. You don't know if they are neutral or not and usually they're not. High-end flat-response monitors are (or rather SHOULD BE, as everything else in audio) carefully engineered to give an accurate representation of the sound. If you look closely you won't find any EQ knobs on monitors. There is just a volume knob. The moment you mess with the EQ its all gone to hell.

On the flipside, even with the bestest monitors in the world, most studios are said to have an array of other playing devices on which they also test their produce, to make sure the track sounds decent on ipods and various hifi systems and the like. Hifis are not accurate, they are meant to enhance the listening experience.

AlanRatcliffe

EQ, stereo imaging and reverb. Some headphones have a better EQ balance than others (notably in the higher price brackets), but headphones cannot give you an accurate stereo image and generally tend to overaccentuate reverb and delay. I can usually identify headphone mixes by the way they sound.

Any inaccurate sound source will cause problems of portability - where the mix will sound good on one playback system but bad on another. This is because most of consumer systems flatter the sound with slight EQ curves that accentuate certain things and dampen others. If you mix on something that has a dip in one frequency, you are likely to overaccentuate that frequency to make it sound "good". But that same mix on a flatter system will sound accentuated in those frequencies and on a system that boosts those frequencies, you are likely to get a horrible overemphasis. So monitors are designed to sound as flat and unflattering as possible, so that when the mix is played on any other system, it will translate well and sound even better without any nasty surprises.

Detail is another issue. Good monitors let you hear the subtlest things in the mix which help you to identify and correct any problems. A lesser monitor may well blend and mask two sounds so they become one - which can be great, but if you are trying to identify something a slight pitching problem between two similar sounds you want to be able to distinguish them separately in the mix.

majestikc

I'd suggest going to the aux on your hi-fi, it's your best bet for now.

If you work that way long enough you'll eventually be able to "learn" the short comings of your setup and be able to preemptively compensate for them mentally.

OR, just use it temporarily and eventually get yourself some decent speakers.

deefstes

majestikc wrote: You won't necessarily do anything "wrong", it will just take you a long time to do anything right.

The reason room acoustics and monitors are important is to eliminate any guess work and surprises later on, in other words, once you got it sounding good you'll know it will translate and sound good elsewhere.

In your case what will most likely happen is it sounds good on your headphones, then you take it to your car and there's either to much, or too little bass, so you come back and tweak it on the phones to where you GUESS it sounds ok, then you go back to the car and there might still be a bit too much or too little and so on and so on, so it ends up taking you 2hrs and a lot of back and forth just to get a decent balance on the bass which should of/could of only taken 2 minutes, then you go listen to it at a friends house and you realise the reverb is too much and it's back and forth all over again just for that etc etc etc, so it ends up taking you 3 weeks to mix a track that will always give you, most likely, unpleasant surprises on any new system you listen to it.

Makes sense, thanks.

So until I do have the money to buy proper monitors, any recommendation for what the better approach would be? Use the headphones? Use the guitar amp aux input? Use the HiFi aux input?
*EDIT* Answered already, thanks.

Would it be worth perhaps trying to figure out what is it that the headphones (or whichever output I decide to use) over- or under emphasise and then try to compensate for that while mixing? In other words, always boost the bass a little more than what sounds right and cutting the reverb back a little more than what sounds right (or whatever the case may be)?

I'm not at the point where I'm looking at churning out platinum selling albums anyway. At the moment I'm just recording for personal enjoyment and GFSA challenges etc. Consequently I can't quite justify spending big dosh on monitors yet but I'd like to at least start getting a feel for where it is that monitors would be useful in the future.

majestikc

ez wrote: On the flipside, even with the bestest monitors in the world, most studios are said to have an array of other playing devices on which they also test their produce, to make sure the track sounds decent on ipods and various hifi systems and the like. Hifis are not accurate, they are meant to enhance the listening experience.

I have Genelecs as main "monitors, then Sony MDR-V6 headphones, then an old Sony Boomboxy cd carousel double tape deck thing, then the crappiest R60 pc speakers from a flea market, then my, and everyone else's car that has usb on the radio, then the tv, then through the xbox to another tv, then my cellphone (one crappy little mono speaker) then the cell phone with earbuds, that's pretty much my listening setup, when it's good on all those, then I know I'm safe.

One of the bigger studios in the US (before usb and mp3 car radios) even used to have two cars in the parking lot wired up permanently to the console so they could send the mix straight to the car's sound system.

Even big expensive audiofool hi fi speakers like B&W's have a boost around 150hz-250hz for "warmth" and another around the upper mids for "clarity".

deefstes

majestikc wrote: Even big expensive audiofool hi fi speakers like B&W's have a boost around 150hz-250hz for "warmth" and another around the upper mids for "clarity".

LOL, I like that ?

singemonkey

I'm also new to this game and unable to afford monitors at present. My current approach is to use the flat-response head-phones I've got to assess levels and EQ, etc., and then check it against a cheap hi-fi with speakers at my PC and fairly high volume. The hi-fi warms everything and is deceptive, but gives, as Alan says, a better stereo picture and a better sense of the reverb and stuff. The headphones help to keep it more honest. Then ultimately, I guess, trying it out on a few other systems.

Bob-Dubery

I bought a pair of high-ish end AKG headphones with, I'm told, a very flat frequency response. After years of listening in a car with the loudness on and treble and bass boosted they're driving me mad.

Maybe I got cloth ears.