Which not ND-10's to get :D

U

USLatin

Panamaniac
My brother in law currently owns Event TR-5's, which I understand are a bargain for dialog and other film editing and are considered "decent" by many of you experienced audio pros. As soon as he upgrades them I will be able to buy them off for $200 + S/H in mint condition. They are all I can afford right now and I need to get into something other than my Klipsch 5.1 Promedia consumer computer speakers.

I am hoping to figure out what would be a wise investment for him.

He is a musician and composed, performed and recorded the score for a short I just finished and he is finally taking his passion seriously.

He had heard all the hype about the NS-10 Yamahas and he has been considering them for quite some time now. I knew close to nothing about them, I only found lots of articles explaining how they are uber popular in recording studios because they are a good representation of the average speaker in consumer's homes.

HOWEVER, it makes a lot of sense that they might be a good representation of the average speaker in the average household by being inaccurate or whatever else might make a speaker perform like a cheap set of consumer speakers. I apologize for not knowing why or how this happens but I hope you get the point.

CONSIDERING THIS I will recommend he get a pair of cheap speakers at the pawn shop till he bumps into a pair that does that job, and getting a pro set that gives an accurate representation of what he is working with... a switch of some sort to quickly shift the signal from one to the other might be a good idea too.

I do have an other musician in about the same stage of commitment to the craft. He has let his set of $300 studio monitors accumulate dust because he has a (VERY) old set of Bose that seems to do just what the ND-10's seem to be known for. Maybe we should try to score a set of these to compliment the studio monitors! They should be no more than $40.

THE TOUGH DECISION is the expensive one, as he still needs to score a pair of better monitors than his Event TR-5's, so he asked me to ask my oracle (you guys) about his situation. Hehehe...

He has a small to medium size room... he has Pro-Tools and lots of instruments and mad talent... wish I could tell you about the room a bit more but they moved to the West coast in FL since I moved to LA and I haven't seen their new home yet.


Which to get:
a. Event 20/20's
b. Yorkville YSM-1's
c. Meyer HD-1's
d. others?
 
A or B would be fine HD-1's need more room, You probably should have 10' + distance to the speaker for them to work well.
 
While I am a filmmaker now, I used to do a lot of studio recording for bands.

The NS-10 Yamahas are not quite flat, but are super crisp. That's not something you'll get from someone's boombox. If you get something cheaper, consider a nice set of headphones to pick up any details (maybe something like AKG's K240 series or something nicer)

Personally I usually mix with a nice set of Grund near field monitors from eBay and then take a CD to my miserable car stereo to get a sense of how it will translate to the masses.

If you're going to drop coin for high-end monitors, be sure to get isolation pads. :)
 
This brings up one of the problems with getting monitors for post. The ideal monitors for music and post are generally not the same, though if your aiming solely at the howe market they are probably pretty close. For instance it is a bad idea to do post with headphones, and "crisp" is close to lethal. In music your aiming at a home playback environment and car and radio. These are mostly limited dynamic range, limited bandwidth playback systems that are anything but flat. Home stereo's are almost always hyped in the treble and bass (even with out the "loudness" switch). Music tends to be hyped and also compressed to hell and gone. If your doing ad's you can pretty much get away with that kind of mix but not on a feature. Movies are mixed for the big screen, or at least a good home system. You need to assume a decent playback with a relatively flat response. You are not competing with ad's and people are focused on your film, not half paying attention while they drive down the highway. So you don't want a highly compressed mix, or your audience will be exhausted before your film ends. If you mix on "crisp" speakers you will tend to mix "dull", which is fine if your mix is going to play back over a treble hyped system but bad if your playing back over a relatively flat system. Very few people listen to movies over headphones. If you mix over headphones you will use too much reverb and will waste a lot of time fixing things that sound "strange" in the cans but don't over speakers. Over speakers the sound smears a bit and things like extreme L/R moves and such will smooth out and sound "correct" but will sound very off in headphones. Over speakers the sound will bounce around in the room and become more unified. Over headphones this will not happen and you will want to add reverb to smooth things out. If you take that headphone mix and play it in a screening room your mix will sound swamped in reverb.
For your film mix you would want to (if poss) take it to a large room or theatre and play it back (the film equivalent of the car stereo) to see how it will play in festivals.

The problem is there are probably 50 people with monitors for music to every one that has a set up for post and a lot of music folks do some amount of post. So a lot of advice on speakers will be good but not nec good for post. They are very different markets.

The catch (and it could be a big one) is if your aiming at internet distribution, or cel phones, small screen presentation etc. Now your much closer to typical music playback systems and you need to mix more in that direction. On big features (ones mixed on real sound stages) there is always (except on the tightest budgets) a separate final mix (printmaster) that is done specifically for video, small screen. It will be monitored on smaller speakers (often near-fields) and will be more compressed etc.
 
AHA!!! Separate mixes! I knew it but never asked...

It makes sence... it is obvious for big budget releases of course but the differences are such from theatre to average home theatre that you really need to get two mixes done.

What sucks is that I am such a noob and mixing isn't quick for me. But I am learning :)

Noiz, could you explain to me what you mean by compressed AD mixes.... do you mean the dynamic range is much smaller and the whole thing is up at the top to make it all loud? Just need to make sure I understand these things. Your post was so crammed with info that it will take me a second read or two to finally get it all right. I don't want to miss out of any info.

Thanks!
 
Ad's are aimed at lowest common denominator systems (not totally true but 99%). Most are mixed or at least checked on very small mono speakers. This is changing a little bit but it is still a pretty common assumption that most viewers will see it in a noisy environment on a mono TV with a 2" speaker. With that in mind they usually have all the low end sucked out and are compressed to a VERY SMALL dynamic range. THe peaks are quite low by music standards (~~ -10) because the networks broadcast limiters will slam anything over that, but the range is quite small.

I think your off in your assumption that most people have a "home theatre" system that sounds anything like it should. I think it is a fair assumption that most of the viewers of your film (low budget independent) are likely to have a decently sized TV with pretty good stereo speakers. But for instance houses built before WWII were not designed with the idea that people would watch anything in them or for that matter listen to anything other than a mono Radio/ phonograph. So in my house (circa 1925) there is only one room where you could actually set up a surround system and be anywhere close to balanced (well two if you count my studio) and even then the room shape is wrong (too wide compared to depth. That room happens to be the dinning room and unless I off my wife that room is never going to be a "home theatre". My next upgrade to the TV will include a surround amp but I'm not hooking up the surrounds, I just want the added dialog clarity of a center speaker. The room the TV is in would be pretty much impossible to set up properly for surround. Even if I could I don't know that I would. We don't have any room that is big enough to give a real theatre feel and I go to screenings and theatres for that. If I had the space to build a dedicated screening room I would, well maybe - it's not a huge priority for me but it is a fantasy.
Anyway figure that anyone living in an older house that hasn't converted a bedroom to a theatre, and anyone living in a not super expensive apartment pretty much can't do a proper surround setup and you have narrowed that market down to a very small number.

I think a lot of films are probably now doing multiple "video" mixes. Broadcast, VHS (probably the same as Broadcast), and DVD (since the DVD can have close to the same mix as the feature for the Dolby Digital version), and a matrixed version that is more compressed. Again your going to do a matrixed mix anyway since it's your analog fallback when the DD craps out and for non DD theatres (still probably the majority of screens) so a less dynamic version for video isn't a biggie. But a lot of folks are also still probably doing stereo mixes also. Doing matrixed mixes that might get played back stereo you have to be very light with the surrounds because they will get folded into the fronts. And that can lead to some unpleasant surprises. Like if you just sent some of your big crowd to the surrounds to "envelop" the audience. When that gets folded down and it all comes out the front suddenly it sounds like twice as many people as it did in the surround setup. It's sort of a mess right now because you never know what kind of playback system your film is going to get seen on. That is one of the reasons I recommend stereo. If you have a good stereo mix it will sound good on all the systems. If you have a great surround mix and you didn't check and it sounds bad in stereo (not that hard to do) then you have problems. For one thing many film festivals screen entries on small systems in offices. They MAY have stereo but you can't count on it. If your mix is trash on a small moo TV you may never get past the screeners at festivals. Unless a festival is going to play your film off a DVD (and that is certainly not a given) they won't be playing your surround mix. If you have it matrixed (Pro Logic) you might get a surround playback but often not (even if they have the capability) because most video's are not matrixed and someone actually has to switch the playback over.

Anyway I have gotten WAY off topic on my soapbox. Hope I answered somewhere in there your questions.
 
Noiz2, you answered my questions and then some!

But you raised so many more in my head, lol... I am gonna bleed you dry! HAHAHA... I am sorry if I an pestering you but it is impossible not to ask for more of what you are dishing out. Whenever you get around to it, if you feel like it, then please continue! :)

You overstated my idea of what an average home theater system is. I have a much lower expectation of what might be found... but then again I guess the mistake was in me calling those setups "home theatres" when I should call them something more like "$200 consumer 5.1 system (including amp) thrown about a big room that is completely wrong for those speakers" :) Sorry if I confused you... I call that a home theater system because unsuspecting consumers like to call it that when they do those atrocities. I myself did that with a friend not too long ago, before I got into this side of the industry. We couldn't figure out why the crap it sounded like, well... crap. There were too many variables and it was all going over my head... the living room was one big open area together with the kitchen and the shape of the room was way unbalanced plus loads of exposed reflective surfaces... the speakers were nice for their cost but still... nowhere near enough for the room... anywho


Thanks for the explanation about Ads! I get it... it makes a lot of sense! You are getting paid to reach as many people as possible so you need it to sound decent even in horrible little Radioshack AM radios, lol...

Also about the need for a less dynamic mix for your movies, for non Dolby systems and in a different scale for the same purpose as above.



1. What is a "matrixed" mix?!?!

2. Is there some sort of guide for the compression of your range for those stereo mixes? Some way to look at an EQ and know where you need to bring the lows and mids to? (gotta figure out how to have multiple mixes on DVD author now :D)

3. I am looking now so I might figure it out myself but... are there two types of 20/20's? Active and passive? if so are the passive ones not amplified?
 
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more about the Event 20/20's

I have found that there are two back panel styles and people say that some of them are "passive" while others "active". I suppose that I am correct in expecting the passive ones to be non-amplified... and the ones I want are the amplified ones... correct?


And one more thing... how much should I pay used?
 
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USLatinContent said:
1. What is a "matrixed" mix?!?!

2. Is there some sort of guide for the compression of your range for those stereo mixes? Some way to look at an EQ and know where you need to bring the lows and mids to? (gotta figure out how to have multiple mixes on DVD author now :D)

3. I am looking now so I might figure it out myself but... are there two types of 20/20's? Active and passive? if so are the passive ones not amplified?
Click to expand...

Matrixed is a process four.1 tracks into a two track master that is "stereo compatible" so you can stick it on stereo media (VHS, 35mm optical, DV, TV broadcast, etc). If you play it back on a stereo system it should sound OK. If you play it back through a matrix decoder you will get a four track surround and a subwoofer (4.1). So L,C,R, mono surround and sub). THe sub isn't actually encoded but the decoder takes everything below a certain point and sends it to the sub. "Dolby Stereo", also sometimes called "Dolby Surround" (as opposed to Dolby Digital) is a matrixed system. ProLogic and SRS are matrixed systems. All movies that have Dolby Digital tracks also have a matrixed "Dolby Stereo" track on the optical track. It's not actually a rule but you get the DS license for free when you buy the DD license so it's pretty much a rule. And you need the optical track for when the digital track craps out and for theatres that can't play DD. If you hear folks talking about LtRt's that is a matrixed track. It stands for Left Total and Right Total.

As to #2, that's way too long a topic. I would go to the Digi User Conference, post section and have a read. There are stickies about room calibration and delivery specs for video and such. It's all changing at the moment and a lot of cable channels are requiring a spec you can only get with a $5K box from Dolby, but you can get the general idea.
http://duc.digidesign.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=UBB6

#3, that is correct. Active means powered. If you don't already have an amp I would get powered speakers.
 
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