Edirol MA20D or Behringer Truth???

[Hunter]

why not ge the the event tr8s for only 500/pair.

you cant go wrong with them!!!!!

-and if you but from americanmusical.com you get freeshipping and can pay a interest free 3 payment option..u pay 166 a month for 3 months rather than all at once!!!!

that is sooo much cheaper than anything here in the UK @~£285, whereas they seem to retail for at least £399 here. Bloody UK prices. Its like when I bought my bike, it was the same numerical price in $ as it was in £, hmmf.

Event is one company I would trust to make good monitirs anyway...

[geeseaplenty]

BONES, these look nice and they are shielded. I think I'm gonna go with these. They are less than the ones you bought and have more wattage and (and hz).

[BONES]

My shielding problem seemed to go away mysteriously after our last gig so it was probably an issue with unshielded leads somewhere. They are fairly rockin' now and I'm getting used to them. And I got min e for Au$400, which is around US$300 a pair so they were a lot cheaper.

[fabriknos]

See, I told you dumb shits.

oh wow, someone pulls up one quote from a mixer and suddenly everyone elses opinions about cheap speakers are invalidated? just because this guy has a job as a sound engineer doesn't mean he's necessarily right. you are physically unable to hear certain frequencies on cheap speakers. period. that doesn't make you work harder to make a better mix, that makes you work DOUBLE because you'll have to go back to your second set of speaker to tweak all the stuff you couldn't hear the first time around. double does not = harder, or smarter.

i respect everyones opinions at the end of the day, do what you want, as long as you are happy with it. i know my current recording setup may not be your cup of tea and yours may not be mine. as long as we make good music and we and others enjoy it, that is what our goal is, right? but stop a minute and think: if you buy cheap speakers and try to produce music on them (which i have done before on multiple occasions), just be prepared for unknown frequencies sneaking their way into your mix that can come back to bite you in the ass. most common causes are low frequency vibrations that cheap speakers can't handle due to low ampage and case design, and high frequency whines that again, cheap speakers can't present properly because either they lack a good, dedicated tweeter, or their crossover is set poorly, or cheaper build materials were used resulting in poor sound playback.

well, let's get back to music making, that's the important thing!

[fabriknos]

P.S. - my MA20Ds already are exhibiting way too much amp vibration when anything bassy passes through them. they shake so easily from the slightest amount of bass, and at first i wasn't worried, but now a few months later that vibration actually produces its own noise too (the cone slapping back against the housing). i cant turn the bass knob more than 3/4s of the way to full because of this. be careful with them Bones, dont push them too hard or loud, i guarantee this will happen to yours too. i really think Edirol was going for more of a music listening system with these guys and not repetitive music production.

[bduffy]

I just have to say that I agree with the general notion that you don't need the very best equipment to turn out good mixes. I know we'd all benefit from having perfect, hi-end monitors - BUT - don't forget: you can chide people all you want for using cheap monitors, but what good is getting the very best monitor if you're room isn't setup for it? There's no point in getting $1500 Genelecs if you have reflections, standing waves, coupling, etc.

So what I'm doing is getting budget monitors (the Behringer Truths, actually! They sound "correct" to me) and absorption + diffusion material, speaker stands - clearing all that crap up. Once that's down, and I've made some more money from my improved mixes - then I'll get some nice Mackies or whatever. If your pristine 20-20,000hz is bouncing all over the place - what's the point?

Just a thought.

PS: I'm not crazy about Events, I find them a bit harsh - but you must demo monitors yourself, IMHO.

[fabriknos]

agreed with most of that. i don't like event monitors either, except for their outstanding ASP8 model which is hands down one of the best monitors i've ever heard. their mid-range models, especially the popular 20/20, have to my ears a harsh, exaggerated high end presence. my ears really hurt after listening to a few high-end-heavy mixes - i went and remixed the tracks to cut out more high freqs, only to playback on my own KRK system, and it sounded completely lifeless. whereas on my KRKs, usually what i hear in the high end is what i hear on someone elses high end.

as for room setups - you're absolutely right bduffy about standing waves and vibrations and all the rest that go along with rooms that arent sound treated. i'm suffering from that myself right now. but i did get good stands, Auralex iso pads and that combo gave me a HUGE improvement over my previous setup, of placing the KRKs on the top shelf of my recording desk. it's a good step - but just part one. next comes the wall treatment!

[bduffy]

agreed with most of that. i don't like event monitors either, except for their outstanding ASP8 model which is hands down one of the best monitors i've ever heard. their mid-range models, especially the popular 20/20, have to my ears a harsh, exaggerated high end presence. my ears really hurt after listening to a few high-end-heavy mixes - i went and remixed the tracks to cut out more high freqs, only to playback on my own KRK system, and it sounded completely lifeless. whereas on my KRKs, usually what i hear in the high end is what i hear on someone elses high end.

as for room setups - you're absolutely right bduffy about standing waves and vibrations and all the rest that go along with rooms that arent sound treated. i'm suffering from that myself right now. but i did get good stands, Auralex iso pads and that combo gave me a HUGE improvement over my previous setup, of placing the KRKs on the top shelf of my recording desk. it's a good step - but just part one. next comes the wall treatment!

Cool. I got the Auralex MoPads and I found a good deal on wall treatment stuff on Ebay (the Auralex stuff was too expensive, had to compromise - again!). I'm currently procrastinating putting it up, can't wait to hear the difference. The thing is, I'm so used to mixing on sh*t, that I'm scared of what's going to happen when I get a quality setup!

[fabriknos]

yeah that's the thing with me too. you get so used to doing workarounds - bad speakers, bad setup, bad quality of building materials in your room etc - that when you actually do things properly, it's like night and day. it may not blow you away, but youll definitely start hearing noticeable improvements.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[bduffy]

OK, I'm not trying to incite a riot, it's just that I was leafing through the last FutureMusic during a reboot, and this article on Thievery Corporation just happened to grab my eye at just the spot where they were discussing there unusual choice in reference monitors. (I just thought it was weird I came across it now, posting for relevance only, fabriknos! )

"I don't think I could cope without our Tannoy monitors, either" adds Garza. "They only cost us about $250, but they've stopped making them, so we recently had a search around town and managed to find three pairs that we could keep in stock. Yeah, they're cheap monitors and the woofer is only something like six inches across, but we know those speakers well now."

"there are a few problems when it comes to mastering a track that's been mixed on the Tannoys," Garza explains. "The bottom end sounds fine, the top end sounds fine, but the mids don't quite seem to open up. We noticed that as soon as we started making our first tracks together. It's a simple thing to fix in the mastering suite, though. A few tweaks and it's OK. No big deal."

"We stick with the Tannoys because they are a harsh reference," he says, "which is what I think you need in the studio. You don't want a great system in there that makes everything sound wonderful. I think you need to be made to work hard in the studio. We know that if we can make it sound good on the Tannoys, it's going to sound incredible when you get it into a club."

Kinda makes us budget-boys feel a little more relaxed, eh? Hell, those guys used to use, like, SONAR 1.0! But now they're Mac, I believe...

[fabriknos]

cool article. and not to incite a riot either, hehe, but i think some producers and musicians (especially those who have "made it") put way too much unnecessary importance on doing something a certain way in the studio. i see this "you dont want it to sound good" line endlessly - to me, that's a cop out. i work my ass off when i'm doing a thorough mix down and i have really good monitors. i worked my ass off on crappy monitors too. the only reason these people say that, is because they are used to their specific gear, and they think because of that experience, everyone else should go about things the same way.

my point of view is that regardless of what you like to do in your own studio, there is very little argument about the fact that you are missing stuff when you mix on cheap monitors. even if you get lucky and get your mix to sound great on cheap monitors, it doesn't mean that they're good, or that they're safe for your ears, or any other number of things. it just means you got a mix out of them that you liked. if you're just after personal satisfaction, then great! but if you are after a more across-the-board consistency between mediums, i still cant think of a monitor under $500 that can get you to achieve this with a high degree of accuracy. those Alesis MKIIs came close though for the price (but bad bass unfortunately)

you'll notice that the pro guys may like the cheap monitors so it "makes them work harder," but they always have a good additional pair waiting to be used. this, is a great idea. have two sets so you can actually compare and contrast mixing environments. i personally won't even use my MA20Ds as references anymore, because of the bass vibration issues they have, but i do want to get a cheaper second pair down the road.

[bduffy]

Good points, Fabriknos. This reminds me of the "Best Host" arguments, where the inevitable conclusion is: what works best for you. But I agree I would love to really know what's going on in all the frequencies, of course.

And when I get my million-dollar-babies, I think I'm going to hold on to my 10 yr old Technics bookshelf, just because for some reason I can mix well on the damn thing, and it would pay to keep that perspective.

But answer me this (I assume most of us have had this experience): what about all those times when you record at a pro studio, with the treated room, the 48-track SSL desk, the 2-inch tape, the NS-10's/Mackies/Whatever, etc and you bring your mix home and it sounds like complete shite - and you wonder if all that perfection is worth it? I swear to god I was never happy with studio sound compared to what I get on my own. Probably less accurate and "transparent", but closer to the mark, you know? Does that happen to you too?

Again, not picking a fight, I just find this an interesting subject, home vs studio.

[fabriknos]

no i think this is a great discussion (compared to some other recent ones, yikes!) i like to hear everyone's perspectives on this stuff because this is how we learn.

as for million dollar studios, those are fading fast because people like us, for a few thousand dollars, can get almost comparable results in the privacy of our own homes. that said, mastering studios will ALWAYS be around. mastering is a totally distinct artform that takes your creative output... and shapes it, sculpts it, all that frequency analysis that a guy like BONES here doesn't want to do because face it, after awhile it DOES interfere with your creative flow. but there is a time and place for everything. get your ideas down... until you're happy... then go back and sculpt! that's why i'm such a big fan of the DIY studio, because you can tackle production AND mastering if you take the appropriate steps (largely inexpensive too compared to a professional studio).

[Ja.x]

I'm still using "old" multimedia Commodore speakers; I'm getting used to them but I doubt it's good news. So I'm saving for a pair of Event TR-5, that can be found for around 370€. Much better choice that the Edirol and the Behringer, IMO.