Here's the honest question then... I won't have access to a real studio so should I just sell my speakers in favor of those AKGs... Can someone explain which ones are the best.. And also I have seinheisser 25iis I agree I can mix better with those then my JBL 305s

 

What's next? Room treatment.

You can only go so far without a properly treated room.

Strategically placed bass-traps and frequency absorbing panels are usually enough to reasonably fix bad resonances and reflections.

However, beware. It's easy to make bad choices regarding room treatment. If you want to optimize your cost/efficiency ratio, you will want to hire a professional, otherwise you may as well flush your money down the toilet.

 

So is it safe to say I should just get some bad ass headphones ? The Seinheisser 25ii's are pretty good but will the AKG's be what I need? I am just looking for any advantage.. Ear comfort is a good thing as well. My ears always hurt at the end of mixing my tracks (no jokes here please)

 

No man,dont sell your speakers,get a monitor control device for quick switching between speakers and headphones,behringer control1 should be just fine for that job and get some reference headphones,they need to be neutral.
Room treatmen yea,like RMorgan suggested,but that can be quite expensive if you want to do it right.
AKG K712 should be excelent for your production,though know these are very revealing and will expose bad mixes,if it sounds like shit those headphones will tell it like it is.

 

Mixing on headphones is a controversial subject. Most people wouldn't recommend to use them as your main reference tool.

Good headphones are great as an extra perspective; Different references are never enough, really.

However, a good pair of monitors in a well treated room is still the best choice.

 

Yeah I will pick those up for sure... Any discount places you have in mind to get them? I'll just use the seinheissers for djing and anhything else but the akgs for mixing and mastering. Although I'm not sold on mastering really I've always had the best results with mixing and staying away from 'real' mastering lol

 

I think my best bet is to get really good mixing headphones and find a studio that can tolerate me and my crazy music and personality.. Every time I try and network with a studio they run away from me.. Kind of sucks

 

Yea,definitely,thats why i told him not to sell his monitors,he needs both for production.

 

They are cheapest on amazon i think,otherwise the price varies from 300$ to 500$,so check out a few stores before buying.
If you are lucky you can get used ones for 200$,try to get a receipt if you do buy used ones.

 

probably repeating someone here, but get room treated most important, better monitors help but they don't make up for a bad room and there's tools that can fine tune good monitors to your room these days that work well. Get hold of Bob Katz book get a expert opinion on the subject

 

acoustics IS AND ALWAYS WILL be the most important.

if your room is shit. fix that first

 

Try at the grey market.

 

Overuse of mixing headphones will limit you loudness-wise as a reference standpoint, especially if you're trying to avoid ear problems. With speakers you can listen both low-volume or high-volume (periodically) with not much ear danger as the sound have to travel through air in order to reach your eardrum and it kinda "softens" up as it reaches your eardrum.
Headphones will strike your eardrums directly so that's why it won't be a good choice to have them as your main monitoring solution, even in the big studios they're used either for tracking or either to check for extra stuff in the mix as an extra mix perspective aside speakers.
It will be way more healthier to mix on speakers for long periods of time. I've been through that, learned my lesson, tinnitus-owner lol which will never cure, as the hearing nerve wasn't design to heal. You can only be cautious, such as never mixing on headphones for hours everyday of the week.

I'm saving money now to buy the passive Amphion One18 + Amphion Base25 Sub System + Amphion Amps + Amphion cables lol.
Goes around 11.500$ but they eat Barefoots, Focal, Genelecs for breakfast and you even get a full-range monitoring system that sounds amazingly musical, warm & detailed at the same time.
Amphion's phase coherence is on par with the top-end Geithans. Focal SM9's phase coherence is washy against Amphions.
I'd rather work and make sacrifices for 6-7 months saving up for this Amphion combo rather than struggling all my life with entry-level stuff that always make you feel like you could use more (with the right set of skills, of course)

Also, saying you can make the same stuff on a 200$ monitoring system that you'd do on a 12.000$ is pure fallacy. I've experienced on my own, as my german ESI AKTIV 08 didn't delivered the same details as my Yamaha HS8 when i was switching processing algorithms on Fabfilter's Pro-Q2 (zero-latency & natural phase, on ESI's i couldn't hear a difference, on Yamaha i could hear it clearly and for that particular track Zero-Latency sounded way punchier than Natural-Phase which was supposed to sound better, but i guess it doesn't work well for snares, HS8 told me that)
You simply can't fix what you can't hear. Speakers reproduce a certain amount of details based on the materials quality that went in, the concept and the tech. Better tech & materials means a higher price.
Pricy speakers tells you more, cheaper speakers tells you less. Simple as that.
There's no way you can cheat that.
(of course, not forgetting the room treatment).
My advice to you would be to just... sacrifice yourself for a while for getting at least EVE SC307 + EVE TS110 which is around 3200$, add 1000-2000$ for room treatment and you're all set.
you can make 5000$ in half a year if you get a job, even a bad one.

good luck!

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2016

8" (or additional subwoofers to nearfields/midfields) may have BIG problems in untreated rooms or rooms too small for the speakers (because physics). I mean they sound boomy & stuff, but the frequency response is far from decent for the purpose of mixing & monitoring. Better read 10x information on this topic before committing to purchase such a model.

 

But still, when you make Trap music or anything with very deep sub basses, you NEED these ultra low frequencies to be present. How am I supposed to mix 35-40 Hz if my speakers can only give me 50 Hz +? You can always turn the sub down or eq the basses down if you don't have the money for room treatment, but the frequencies at least need to be present in some way.

 

I like your post,agree,but you also have to realize that people here mostly are here because they can not afford even 100$ plugins.
Also,tinnitus can definitely be healed.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 30, 2016

You could buy the most sophisticated speakers and amps ever made, hear 'everything'.. But the vast majority of your audience has crappy speakers, so they won't hear what you hear. That's one of the reasons 'dull' loudspeakers like NS-10 and Auratone are widely used. If it sounds good on them, it sound good or better on high budget speakers. imho, room measurement & correction is still @1, knowing your loudspeakers comes second, having more than one speaker pair
to compare is also important.

 

I couldn't agree more. Most people use their reference monitors only while mixing; They are unaware that they should elect their monitors as their main music listening speakers for at least six months, so they can become familiar with them, they can learn how good music is supposed to sound through them.

I own a pair of really old Akai speakers that used to belong to my father. I've been listening to music through them since I was born. They aren't particularly great speakers, but the point is, I really know how music is supposed to sound through these speakers...I always alternate between them and my monitors while mixing.

Anyway, that's it. Always use at least another pair of monitors. It doesn't matter if it's a pair of crappy PC speakers or ipod headphones, as long as you're familiar with how they're are supposed to sound. Aside from that, listen to a lot of music on your main reference monitors, so you can become familiar with them too.

There isn't a better calibration system than your own brain.

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2016

Oh! Enlighten me.
//tinnitus since age 18

 

The lower you can get in the frequency spectrum, and the flatter the response of the sound coming out of the monitors would be best in my opinion. Then it's the room! But I suppose you can mix on whatever medium is the most popular (ear buds etc...) if the majorty of of the people will be listening on them anyway. Best of luck with your mixes bro!!