Is there any point for good studio moniters, in a untreated room?

Z

ZMbeatz Producer

New member
I make beats on m audio av 40s in a non treated room, but when i come to mixing i mix at pretty low volume so nothing reflects alot, but i keep referencing on the flat headphones to. once i am done mixing i test on about 4 other systems.
Is this a good approach to getting a good mix?

Here are 2 of my new beats.




Soo i am thinking of getting better monitors, is it pointless in a non treated room, and am very serious about music, and deffo wannu succeed with music ?


Please any advise peeps, by a experienced producers will help.
 
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There's nothing wrong with doing the best u can with what u got. U can reference your mix on cans and other sources(home stereo, car stereo, etc). But that does take extra time in going back and forth. I would say while your saving up for new monitors put some money aside for treatment. There a bunch of u tube vids on DIY treatment options, and u don't have to it all at once. my 2 cents. Also the beats sound okay, its just that a better acoustics help you make the miking process more efficient. good luck.
 
killikSan said:
low volume doesnt improve room acoustics :) or makes it less bad
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Actually , low volume can help as it doesn't excite room resonances as much .
That is part of the reason that nearfield monitors were "invented" .

Still , treatment is a must .
 
mwandishi said:
There's nothing wrong with doing the best u can with what u got. U can reference your mix on cans and other sources(home stereo, car stereo, etc). But that does take extra time in going back and forth. I would say while your saving up for new monitors put some money aside for treatment. There a bunch of u tube vids on DIY treatment options, and u don't have to it all at once. my 2 cents. Also the beats sound okay, its just that a better acoustics help you make the miking process more efficient. good luck.
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Soo you think my mixes are good, but it will save time with treatment, but are new monitors pointless with no treatment.

My rooms big with bigg glass doors which leads outside, and i have a big window 2.
soo treatment cant be done good tbh............and also my room needs space to movearound i am wheelchair bound, soo i cant go to a studio very easy. Any suggestions broo lool
 
Yes! studio monitors are vital, listening to your mixes from your computer's sound card will **** your whole sound up.
 
Im thinking about making some of these ASAP: PME Records Broadband Absorber Construction


I wonder if a properly treated room would make creating easier. For me I get fed up trying to get the exact sounds I hear in my head to come out of the DAW and I think it's cause my room sucks but I can't be sure. I just wish I knew what I was hearing was exactly what everyone else would hear.

I think my next investment is gonna be to build about 8 of those absorbers, and then start saving for the NS-10's.
 
AG Beats said:
Im thinking about making some of these ASAP: PME Records Broadband Absorber Construction


I wonder if a properly treated room would make creating easier. For me I get fed up trying to get the exact sounds I hear in my head to come out of the DAW and I think it's cause my room sucks but I can't be sure. I just wish I knew what I was hearing was exactly what everyone else would hear.

I think my next investment is gonna be to build about 8 of those absorbers, and then start saving for the NS-10's.
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It just might not be your room, As long as you don't live in a room with sound reflecting walls or something you're fine lol.

in all seriousness,
there are 2 broad things thatmight be causing you trouble if your mix feels like it's lacking
1. Mp3 mixing is much harder than mixing with trackouts because you have to add plugins to a "mix" instead of different components (my personal experience with mixing)
2. You are not completely sure of what to do when mixing or what order to do stuff in so it won't be destructive? (also personal experience and learning outside of "school")


are one of these your issues?
 
ZMbeatz Producer said:
Soo you think my mixes are good, but it will save time with treatment, but are new monitors pointless with no treatment.

My rooms big with bigg glass doors which leads outside, and i have a big window 2.
soo treatment cant be done good tbh............and also my room needs space to movearound i am wheelchair bound, soo i cant go to a studio very easy. Any suggestions broo lool
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its all about yo budget. just about any room can be treated, but u would have to break down the specific dimensions for folks to make suggestions. look or post in the studio section of the site. if u have physical challenges u might want to ask around to see how much the treatment ideas may cost in terms of labor.

AG Beats said:
Im thinking about making some of these ASAP: PME Records Broadband Absorber Construction


I wonder if a properly treated room would make creating easier. For me I get fed up trying to get the exact sounds I hear in my head to come out of the DAW and I think it's cause my room sucks but I can't be sure. I just wish I knew what I was hearing was exactly what everyone else would hear.

I think my next investment is gonna be to build about 8 of those absorbers, and then start saving for the NS-10's.
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treatment wont hurt. before u put it on the room, u have to ask r u capable of relaying the ideas in you head to the daw musically. music b4 the mix.
 
mwandishi said:
its all about yo budget. just about any room can be treated, but u would have to break down the specific dimensions for folks to make suggestions. look or post in the studio section of the site. if u have physical challenges u might want to ask around to see how much the treatment ideas may cost in terms of labor.


treatment wont hurt. before u put it on the room, u have to ask r u capable of relaying the ideas in you head to the daw musically. music b4 the mix.
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It's mainly the bass I have trouble with. I'm decent musically always room for improvement but it's an actual sonic mixing issue with me
 
I have the same exact monitors.

You may have this problem because you aren't 0'ing out all your volumes (it matters to have everything at the right level, everything)

Check and make sure you aren't turning any of your volumes up to listen to the mix, just use the volume control in the DAW (not the output, the other volume control that is most likely in the DAW itself)

Very overlook-able problems cause stuff like that. Just check everything and make sure your levels, are level.

if that isn't the issue, could you shed more light on the situation?

also, make sure the volume on your monitors is set to 0 as well (look at the blue power dial around the knob, there is hash mark that denotes the 0 decibel line)
 
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Dumping $700 into acoustics will yield better mixes than dumping $700 into monitors. It's not even close. Acoustics ALWAYS trumps monitors by a MILE.
 
chris carter said:
Dumping $700 into acoustics will yield better mixes than dumping $700 into monitors. It's not even close. Acoustics ALWAYS trumps monitors by a MILE.
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I know what you are saying Chris , and that you use hyperbole to re-enforce the the point , but the specs of those monitors are certainly questionable IMHO .

EG : "frequency response:85 Hz – 20 kHz"
Couldn't find any other unit/quantity ... no "at -3db" or even better "-1db" .

Acoustics aren't going to bring anything outside that questionable bandwidth .

If the OP is serious , then he needs to consider both monitors and treatment .
 
If you are worried about quality, find a pro studio nearby to record in. Usually around 30 bucks and hour for simple recording, for the price its as good as you can get it. The ISO booth and mic alone are 10 times the price of what you would spend to get your stuff recorded. I personally used this website Thumbtack.com and got great results really fast too. No spam, I had 5 studios get back to me in a day.
 
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Honest to god, I would rather mix on speakers that only go down to 80Hz in MY ROOM (The Feisty Chicken Recording Studio - Birthplace of #1 Hit Singles - Silver Spring, MD) than mix with speakers that go down to 30Hz in my bedroom (no treatment). There's no question about it.

As for how flat a speaker is, it is MEANINGLESS in an untreated room. From one speaker to the next the craziest difference you could possibly expect is +/-3dB at any given frequency, max. But a typical untreated bedroom very likely has peaks and nulls in the range of +/- 15dB!!!!!!! 3dB is NOTHING in that context.

People really underestimate the importance of the room you are mixing in. 90% of what you are hearing is your room. 10% at best is the actual speakers. Just because you can't see all the f*cked up standing waves and comb-filtering phase anomalies with your eyeballs doesn't mean they aren't there. That's just burying your head in the sand. Just because you can't see that Lion doesn't mean he/she isn't going to chew you up into a billion pieces.

You can make a SIGNIFICANT improvement in any room with no damage other than a couple nail sized holes with nothing other than very simple bass traps and absorbers made from some 1x2 pine, some rigid fiberglass pieces, and whatever fabric you think looks pretty. You can hang absorbers on the wall like pictures that will not interfere with floor space. You can put bass traps in the corners that will eat up maybe a couple square feet for the whole room.

But don't mind me, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I just started making music last week.
 
I am stuck mixing on headphones and home stereo speakers (some free Bose 201s I won in a raffle 9 years ago) because I can't come close to affording good monitors anytime soon. The more I listen to others music when I know their setups the more I realize how badly it seems to be hurting the quality of my music's sound. Its frustrating but I try to make do by watching the wave forms, limiter, and graphic eq and comparing that to other songs to try to imagine what it would sound like on good speakers. I used to get a lot more feedback saying my sound was bad some years ago than I do now (though I still get that often); I just say "Okay, I'll work on that" but there doesn't seem much else I can do to drastically help that issue any time soon other than trial and error and guessing what others might be hearing that I can't.
 
nathankendrick said:
I am stuck mixing on headphones and home stereo speakers (some free Bose 201s I won in a raffle 9 years ago) because I can't come close to affording good monitors anytime soon. The more I listen to others music when I know their setups the more I realize how badly it seems to be hurting the quality of my music's sound. Its frustrating but I try to make do by watching the wave forms, limiter, and graphic eq and comparing that to other songs to try to imagine what it would sound like on good speakers. I used to get a lot more feedback saying my sound was bad some years ago than I do now (though I still get that often); I just say "Okay, I'll work on that" but there doesn't seem much else I can do to drastically help that issue any time soon other than trial and error and guessing what others might be hearing that I can't.
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That's not necessarily true... every beat that I've made on my SoundClick page has been made solely through the same pair of old Sony headphones.... you just have to know what your speakers will and won't give you, headphones included...
 
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