The one thing I need?

[wodinlord]

Dave,You would love Compass Point Studio!

[davekershaw]

Apr 25, 2008, 9:07am, wodinlord wrote:Dave,You would love Compass Point Studio!Any pics?

[wodinlord]

It was a once in a lifetime, 2 week long joy, doing a project for Island records! We even managed to squeeze in a little work while we were there.http://www.compasspointstudios.com/

[davekershaw]

Apr 25, 2008, 9:19am, wodinlord wrote:It was a once in a lifetime, 2 week long joy, doing a project for Island records! We even managed to squeeze in a little work while we were there.http://www.compasspointstudios.com/Wow! My mouth was droolin' so much I had to stop the movie and mop the floor twice!I like the "without Abbey in the name" bit.Thanks for that.

[devin]

I think we have to remember why Dave was after the cans: he's tracking in the same room as his DAW, by himself, and he's trying to learn and establish good mic position and compression settings (if he uses any comp on the way in) for his acoustic guitar.Working alone (like 90% of us?) requires quality headphones to reduce this experimentation...that was the recommendation I gave, anyway. Are headphones more important than monitors to an engineer? Not a chance...and Wodinlord has that convincingly covered. Are headphones with isolation for a learning musican/engineer/chief bottle washer a good investment? Heck ya! I bet Dave's money on it!Great discussion on monitors & room, etc. I've got a bit of experience doing that on a budget too...but mixing room treatment and speaker selection won't be an issue unless he's creating good tracks to start with, IMHO.Good job on the cans Dave...you'll learn ALOT in the next 10 hours of tracking, I think!(Now, if I could just learn enough myself to get a forward!!!!) Have a good (productive?) weekend all!

[milfus]

ok, let me try to be constructive here, i have about 24 credit hours, devoted directly to accoustics, so, uninformed is a bit insulting there chief.1. you can make a mix go platinum without monitors2. monitors make it easier, a studio suffers from time constraints and charges by time, this is why there is speaker emphasis, not because its impossible to do with out it3. the fact that you use an omni mic and a plugin to compensate for room accoustics, to flatten your sound completely, lends to the theory that you arent setting up said monitors in the first place4. don't whip it out and measure it, i am trying to be nice, but if we start name dropping, im pretty sure it will at the very least be a tie, and then ill be pushed to match you mix for mix without using my monitors as a proof of concept, you where a bit insulting, im a little defensive, i know this, so im sorry if i ruffled ya, but i dont say anything without atleast 10 supporting details, im not uninformed, im either informed, or im quiet

[milfus]

case in point, why do most WORLD CLASS engineers, switch to a single mono monitor when they do dynamics and effects after the panning and balancing, if monitors are so ungodly importantedit:sorry, got ticked for a second, but the fact of the matter is, good engineers have good equiptment, great engineers have great ears, see my point?and no matter what, you are supposed to use songs as a reference, so cross referencing on diff home systems is equally to more effective to reproducing the sound you are afterand i say this from a 20 grand home studio, so dont think i am trying to justify a lack of equiptment

[wodinlord]

Apr 25, 2008, 2:01pm, milfus wrote:ok, let me try to be constructive here, i have about 24 credit hours, devoted directly to accoustics, so, uninformed is a bit insulting there chief.1. you can make a mix go platinum without monitors2. monitors make it easier, a studio suffers from time constraints and charges by time, this is why there is speaker emphasis, not because its impossible to do with out it3. the fact that you use an omni mic and a plugin to compensate for room accoustics, to flatten your sound completely, lends to the theory that you arent setting up said monitors in the first place4. don't whip it out and measure it, i am trying to be nice, but if we start name dropping, im pretty sure it will at the very least be a tie, and then ill be pushed to match you mix for mix without using my monitors as a proof of concept, you where a bit insulting, im a little defensive, i know this, so im sorry if i ruffled ya, but i dont say anything without atleast 10 supporting details, im not uninformed, im either informed, or im quietNo man, I'm not ruffled at all. I love a good friendly recording debate. Opinions are like noses, everybody has one and they are all partial to their own.1. I am totally open to hearing that platinum mix that was done completely without monitors. Post it, please.2. What?! Studios use good monitors because it is expensive to work there???????? This one I do not at all understand. No one said impossible, just better. Headphones are a useful tool, but I have never met or heard of anyone big who did mixes on headphones exclusively, by choice. I use them at home for tracking and programming a lot. I too, have a wife.3. ALL room voicing systems use calibrated omni mics. Whether you are using a White 1/3 octave parametric or computer correction. Check out the Genelec DSP system. Again, this argument just makes no sense. Even in a Berger designed room, they voice the room monitors. It just makes it better. That doesn't mean the monitors are bad or the studio doesn't know how to use them.4. I'm not even a minor bigshot. Just had some good opportunities and been doing it a long time. Mixing challenge - would be fun, but pointless. I mean, who would judge? Oh yeah, I ain't measuring nothing. I would probably lose that one. I did not at all mean to be insulting. Sorry if it seemed that way. As I said at the end, it read worse than I meant it. Dang it, so does this. I was just throwing out good general guidelines, not laying down the law. But, I truly believe that when that 24 hours turns into 24 years, you will feel differently. Do whatever works for you, you know what is best for you. If you are happy with your mixes done on phones, rock on. Keep at it and keep learning. I learn something new every day. Lately, it seems I forget a lot of it though.

[billg]

Ok, if this helps; A few months back I bought some cheap ($300 a pair) Mackie MR5 monitors to try out. At first I thought they sounded pretty bad but decided to use them for a while. What I noticed was that all of a sudden I didnt' have to play the car/boombox/walkman tweak repeat game as much. If you can afford great expensive monitors you should buy them. If you can't then you should buy cheap "honest" ones & you'll be fine. The trick to getting the most out of your humble system is listen to commercial cds that you're very familiar FIRST, & listen a lot before you start working on mixes.

[milfus]

yeah see, im 6 years in on some pretty heavy equiptment, and mary j blige's last album, that went platinum, was mixed without monitors, or a vocal booth, if you check tech forums, theres a whole gang of platinum albums that have been done very minimalist, engineers are just evolving i guess.2. i said its expensive for a client due to time, monitors make you work faster, not better, was my point.3. yeah my argument was agaisnt room voicing systems, In a personal studio, you acclimate to the room color in like a week, and can refence commercial mixes to get "that sound" in the room4. ah just seemed like the world class studio line was implying something, for the record ive been in some really huge studiosand yeah, i tend to be overly defensive when i think im challanged, thats why i was tryna tone it down, cause i figured half of it was self inflected. but im actually about 7 years in on albums and i worked directly under some really amazing engineers, and i really believe, that buying a 6000$ monitor system off the bat, hurts your ears, averaging balances and accomidating room responses is an invaluable skill as a mix engineer, I think the emphasis should be on your hearing rather than your system, was the point i was trying to make.and just for reference, I did the david vs goliath thing before, tho i used one monitor, a 200 dollar 15 year old auratone 5c and some beyer dynamic dt 880 phones on an 003, and ref'd with any non pro systems i could find, vs an ssl 2 million dollar a room, and in a panel of 40, instead of blind voting, most said they couldnt tell which one was which, it just takes a little extra effort, but anymore with digital frequency analyzers and stuff, you can digital map your references and mix your mixes to match the accoustics and what not BEFORE they ever hit a speaker.I will admit, monitors impress clients, and they are a bunch of fun, and make life easier, but id hardly say they where the most important thing in a studio, and i truly believe you should grow into the big boy monitors, otherwise its like putting a kid on a motorcycle instead of tricycle and scaling him up, all the nuances and subtleties you have to develope due to diff equiptment and room sound just arent there, so if you are in a less than perfect set up (you are an engineer, you've seen those studios im sure) you are like 50% effective, cause you cant mix around the equiptment, just on it, because of a lack of compensation. I am willing to bet you started on the same dinky speakers we all did, and then scaled up like i said, and now you can take advantage of a really nice monitor system, but picture yourself back then, and put you in front of that system, can you even appreciate the extra clarity you are getting, if you are being honest with yourself, it is doubtful.im sorry about earlier, just really believe in my point