Speakers to monitor edit

what? you know loads of people who mix on headphones?

I don't know that its true that the best pair of headpones could ever blow off a half-decent set of monitors. through headphones your kinds skewing your perception of many things, even if you know your headphones really well, and know the frequencies you have to compensate for, you won't be able to tell when it IS right. and the stereo image comes over i bit wierder too. thats weirder, not wider.

creative stuff usually sucks too..

whoa negative post, sorry about that.
 
MalcolmOng said:
but they are rather flat sounding
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and we shoud clear up the use of the word flat, when refering to sound. if something sounds flat to an engineer, thats a good thing, because it is referring to the frequency response, a comment that the response is not boosting, or negating any particular frequencies. which is the ideal, and what is aimed for in all aspects of mic design + speaker design.
 
Yeah I'm aware of the professional meaning of 'flat sounding' audio devices as my father is an avid hi-fi enthusiasts who's also pretty well read on monitor speakers etc. The reason why i claim my speakers are rather flat is because whenever i take a listen to my friend's set of logitech gaming speakers, i can't really put my finger on it but his bass tends to sound more boomy, and all in all more attractive. Not to say that my pair of speakers are lousy per se, but they tend to produce more accurately sounding..sounds.

But of course my above ramblings might be entirely false, so by no means should anyone take this as solid - i'm just 16, and i know jack about audio. huh. I'm all up for learning though, so please post any points of clarification!
 
malcolm, thats totally the point. his speakers are enhancing the bass further than it was originally mixed. if you mixed with hyped up bass on everything, it wouldnt translate well in other mediums. by creating a good sounding mix on neutral speakers, you are creating something that is fundamentally good for other tricked out speakers to emphasize what they can, and other crappier speakers to have a fighting chance to accurately reproduce (say, television speakers).

tim
 
Unfortunately he was talking about mixing, and mixing on headphones is near impossible. The image is much too wide and you cant set up a meaningful reference level. For editing it's fine, just get comfortable ones.

Shaw said:
Do you really need speakers? You can get a lot better audio quality for a lot less by going with a set of high end headphones. Mid range head phones are known to beat multi-hundred dollar speaker systems in pure audio quality. Definitely worth checking into unless you really need someone else to hear as well.
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If we are talking an "intial" audio edit then headphones could be fine but not ideal. Mainly you might find out later that some of the dialog you edited has some boom noise you didn't hear, that guy bumping into a chair over a line actually makes it uninteligable, or the traffic over one of the takes is going to screw up the whole scene. So later on you have to re-edit the audio...again.

Ideally the sooner you know what you actually got the better. I can't count the number of times I have listened to a cut on the video editor's monitors and not heard a thing but once I get it back to my DAW, it's noise city.

Bascially, headphones and cheap speakers hide a lot of audio crap. The sooner you are aware of the crap the more options you have to deal with it.

(our Avids all have headphones for quick and dirty editing; ideal is not always practical).

Cheers
 
That is a common misconception. People (not saying you scooby) use terms like sound design, sound editing, sweetening, and mixing interchangably. These are all distinct jobs with different tasks and requirements.

Cheers
 
Unfortunately he was talking about mixing, and mixing on headphones is near impossible. The image is much too wide and you cant set up a meaningful reference level. For editing it's fine, just get comfortable ones.
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Ah well crap. That'll teach me to open my mouth! :D

[Reading further down]

I didn't say mix. I said EDIT. I'd never mix on headphones. Re-read my previous post.
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Oh good! I'm not going 100% crazy yet!

f we are talking an "intial" audio edit then headphones could be fine but not ideal. Mainly you might find out later that some of the dialog you edited has some boom noise you didn't hear, that guy bumping into a chair over a line actually makes it uninteligable, or the traffic over one of the takes is going to screw up the whole scene.
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I'm not entirely sure I understand why headphones would be a problem in this case. Is this assuming a 5.1 or 7.1 mix? If so then I can certainly see the issues. On a stereo mix wouldn't this be perfectly find though? A nice pair of high end cans can provide very accurate sound representation or so I've found. Then again, I'm not an audio post production guy either! Just a wannabe audiophile :D
 
Well, yeah good headphones sound good. But they just dont have the SIZE to create the lower end frequencies that might be sitting in your mix! (hence the comment about not hearing the boom noise/rumble/whatever).

Personally, I think that editing with good phones when its practical is fine, but I wouldnt do it exclusively. During an edit, flipping between phones and monitors is a good idea if you need to edit with phones cometimes.

Mixing of course is a monitors only area.

Maybe we just need to blow up every speaker factory on earth except one. Then we can all just use those. :)
 
Shaw said:
I'm not entirely sure I understand why headphones would be a problem in this case. Is this assuming a 5.1 or 7.1 mix? If so then I can certainly see the issues. On a stereo mix wouldn't this be perfectly find though? A nice pair of high end cans can provide very accurate sound representation or so I've found. Then again, I'm not an audio post production guy either! Just a wannabe audiophile :D
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Headphones are good for some things. Dialog is for instance often edited with headphones. Partially because dialog editors tend to have to share rooms but also because you can hear little details more clearly and when you chopping syllables to try and make one decent word out of ten bad takes that can be important and because they are working in mono. For this same reason it makes mixing near impossible. The other problems with headphones are that as stated above they have limited bass response so some low stuff can get missed. They are on each ear and there is no interaction so the stereo image is totally skewed (part of the reason I think all these stereo setups that try to mimic "human hearing" are a complete wank - it only reproduces right on headphones - but thats a different thread...). Also because small details are so distinct little things can sound very prominent that just aren't in the air. You also don't get phase interactions that you do in the real world so stereo stuff can sound fine on headphones and very phasey through speakers.
And a biggie is that you can't really set a reference level. If your experienced and you know what ping at reference level feels like you can kinda sorta "pink" the phones but it's not very accurate. Even in editing you need to close to a refeence level or your "rough edit" can be way off in level.
 
Thanks everyone for all the responses - a lot of info to sort through here -

as for price range - I am not sure yet - this is for a temp track edit which will then be handed off at some point to a better setup. One thing I will do is edit a good portion and then cut to dvd and check on some tvs - this will give an idea if we are getting "good enough" for a temp track
 
You could get away with a modest soundcard like the M-audio 2496 or EMU 0404 with ASIO drivers (not microsoft's) and a small set of monitor speakers like the KRK RP-5's to give you a true image of your editing. As for headphones..that is best when you are recording dialog for excess noise on the set or in your recorded sound. But you should always mix and edit using speakers and not headphones to hear all the dynamic frequencies when mixing..especially when you are adding other elements into the track (IE compressors,SFX,Music.. etc..)
 
what about the M-Audio BX-5A set - the price is right at 270 at BH for the pair.

And how would they hook into a 1/8 inch jack (isnt that the size of the standard sound card jack?)

edit - sorry i meant 1/4 inch - i guess just 1/4 to 1/4 patches - but standard card has one jack - am i confused here?
 
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smelni said:
what about the M-Audio BX-5A set - the price is right at 270 at BH for the pair.

And how would they hook into a 1/8 inch jack (isnt that the size of the standard sound card jack?)

edit - sorry i meant 1/4 inch - i guess just 1/4 to 1/4 patches - but standard card has one jack - am i confused here?
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You need a pci soundcard vs your builtin soundcard to really take advantage of your speakers. I have my M-audio 1010 hooked up to my analog mixer then from the mixer I have xlr-xlr setup to my KRK V6's and have my outs from my mixer back into my soundcard. You should also audition any monitors before purchase because all speakers are very different in their overall sound.
 
smelni said:
edit - sorry i meant 1/4 inch - i guess just 1/4 to 1/4 patches - but standard card has one jack - am i confused here?
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The 1/8" or 1/4" jacks found on most (ie. consumer) sound cards are three-conductor jacks (tip, ring, sleeve) carrying an unballanced stereo signal (Left, Right, Ground, respectively). TRS plugs can also be used for ballanced mono audio, wherein the tip, ring, and sleeve become the positive, negative and ground (again, respectively). Mono jacks omit the ring, making them suitable for unballanced mono audio. You can read up on the fascinating history of jack plugs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_plug

To connect an unballanced stereo soundcard output into to the line input on a pair of active monitors, you usually only need a cable that starts with a stereo 1/4" (or 1/8") TRS plug and terminates with a pair of mono 1/4" plugs. You can find these ready-made at music stores as insert patches, just remember that inserts often have a different colour-coding scheme (in this application, red=left and yellow=right). Of course, a few simple tests will tell you whether your shiney new monitors are reversed left-right.
 
thanks to all that helped - today i purchased the tascam vl-x5 for 300 from BH - and the m-audio 192 audio card -

hooked everything up and works great - best news is our sound is far better then we could have hoped for to start from - this was very reassuring

question here - the sound from the monitors sound way more hollow then from the multimedia speakers - that makes sense since the MM speakers boost base and stuff - But what should a premix sound like through the monitors? Am I looking to make it sound as i want it to? that doesnt make sense since a tv will portray the sound differently - so what am I looking to accomplish here

thanks again for all the help
 
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