Sorry..let me change the Beheringer modal number to the B2031A.

If given the choice between Polk, Advent or Behr**ger, the B word would be the last picked.

Consider the NHT M-00. I just found that there's been a price drop on them to $399. They're without a doubt, the best sounding monitor on the planet for under $1000 and maybe better than some twice that price.

Sure they don't do low bass, but neither to most other monitors and the ones in that price range that do low bass do it so poorly that you'd be better off without the low bass in the first place.

http://www.listenup.com/lu/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=l&Product_Code=M-00&Category_Code=

Also, I'd say that if your Sennheisers are to hand, you can use them to pickup the low bass if you really need to hear it.

Ok...I found a bunch more reviews on the B2031A..basically they don't last longer then a year, and get am radio thru them....ETC:
So those are NOT what I want...LOL

Please kept in mind I'm trying to keep the cost down on these as I'm going to be running other speakers as well, to end up with the final mix.

I've read a bunch of good reviews on the KRK RP-8 Rokit..the price is $249 each on these. They seem like they would foot the bill, for price and good sound. Any opinons on these???????

This is a 1 room studio about 12x12...It will have isolation pads and what not, but no seperate isolation booth. So everything is done out in the open. I intend to use the Sennheiser HD 280 phones to set the basic EQ, and the recording, for Vocal and Mic'ed guitar amps, etc:....since I can't really run monitors, they will just bleed into the mic's.
The KRK's(if those are the ones I get)...would be the second line of general EQ, adding effects, doing basic tweeks....
The final eq, and master would be done between all three sets of speakers..to get the best sound I can.

I don't see the Advent nor the Polks as being a "Studio" monitor type, nor Flat. But will give me a good idea of what people would hear on there home stereo.

bobt wrote: I don't see the Advent nor the Polks as being a "Studio" monitor type, nor Flat. But will give me a good idea of what people would hear on there home stereo.

Then I would question which models of these you have as both Polk and Advent designed their speakers to be as flat as possible. I would dare say that I would far prefer to mix on either of these than some cheap piece of crap monitor.

Additionally, no matter which monitor you have (whether it be a $5000 pair of PMCs or a $200 pair of KRKs), if the room is not appropriately treated, it won't matter anyway.

Don't waste what little money that you have on monitors which will not offer you any improvement over what you have currently.

Otherwise, consider bumping up the price a little and seriously consider the NHT Pros that I mentioned earlier.

Good point Cucco.....the Advents and Polk are not listed as "studio" type monitors.....there High end audiophile home speakers.
the Polks are at least 3 1/2 feet tall and produce a hugh sound stage.
Plus I have all the audiophile equipment to run them. An Onkyo M504 dual mono block amp.

For some reason, i didn't think it was a good idea to just use these speakers to eq and mix.

The Polks are realy over kill and probably not some thing that most people would have in there homes.
The Advents are not small....but probably more as to the size of what most people would have and probably a little more flat then the Polks.
But thats a guess.

But I guess your right...putting up a set of KRK's against the Advent
Is gong to be no contest.
Plus what you what to mix to is what people listen too in there homes.
and at least not sound too bad in there cars...LOL

Thanks for the slap in the face...LOL

Also the room is going to be as "dead" as I can get it. Between foam, insulation..ETC.....not perfect , I'm sure...but should work.

Don't get too worked up about what clients are listening on. The reality is, clients listen on everything from crappy ear buds to cheap boom boxes to car stereos to $30K Wilson Audio speakers.

Listen on what you're comfortable with and that allows you to hear what you're doing in the mix. I remember Advents quite fondly. I'm not sure which ones you have, but most of them were designed to be very accurate and almost studio-monitor-like in nature.

Wasting a few hundred bucks on monitors is almost never a good idea, but it sounds like you're coming around to that idea anyway.

The biggest advice I have for anyone is to not get caught up in what you think you should have or what others have told you that you need but embrace what you have and use it to its fullest potential.

Cheers-
Jeremy

bobt wrote: Also the room is going to be as "dead" as I can get it. Between foam, insulation..ETC.....not perfect , I'm sure...but should work.

BZZZZZZZT..... Sorry, Wrong answer.

There is nothing further than the truth about a mix environment. Dead is exactly opposite and counter-productive to what the environment should be.

OK... not to unload on ya' here, but I would LOVE for you to tell me what moron told you that your mix environment had to be "dead"?

If you came to this conclusion on your own, you're not a moron, but again, PLEASE tell me how in the hell you came to this conclusion?

I'm serious, I'd really like to find out what the heck is causing all this confusion between flat and open room response to tight and dead. Is it all the photo's of crudely thrown together mattress foam firetraps? Is it the lack of information on acoustics?

Seriously, I'd love to hear your answer...

I wasn't going to try to tackle that one here.

But since you brought it up...

OK MAD.....let me state again, that this is a 1 room..recording AND mixing studio. It is a 12x12 room and ALL equipment will be in it.
It is also NOT in a basement, it's a standard back bedroom.

The blanket statment of.."as dead as I can make it" altho a poor choice of words, without an explanation, did not mean I was making it into an isolation booth.

It would be dead as opposed to an extremly 'LIVE" 4 wall plasterboard room, with guitar amp sound banging off all the walls.

The room is going to need some acoustical treatment, how much ,I don't know at this point. Some strategically placed panels on the wall, maybe some movable isolation type panels, (floor standing)that i can move to suit the piece of gear I need to record (such as drums).

No, I would NOT like to mix in a completely "dead" room, I'm sure it would come out sounding like crap.

I hope that clears thing up a bit.

bobt,

OK... s'all good. It's just that a LOT of folks somehow (and continuously) seem to be under the impression that things like one room studios and isolation booths are supposed to be "dead" and/or dull and lifeless places.

Acoustically, it's best to try to create a sonic signature that's pleasing to record in. (and to mix in)

Toward that goal, a room with two or more equal dimensions will have some nodal issues... You can tackle nodal issues with dispersion, but more importantly, you really need to treat the issue of low frequency (LF) buildup with bass trapping.

One of the better (IMHO) methods of bass trapping is with super chunk corner traps. The reason I like the concept of corner traps is that they are very efficient usage of space.... the corners of a room are pretty much not useful real estate.

Mad, I do like the thought of corner traps, as you say..usless space.
I also really like the idea of moveable standup panels.

A 1/2 stack of Marshall's is really not hard to contain, you can of course move and angle it in any direction you like.
A drumset on the other hand is a different animal. A much bigger foot print, mic stands all over and not so easily moved, do to restrants on size and giving the drummer the room he needs to move around and not feel constricted.
I think some stand up movable panels would be a big plus for that.
Of course the prices I've seen on those is pretty much out of hand for what your getting. Cost as much as a good drumset...LOL

One thing you could do is to put ladder truss, or photographic lighting truss on the ceiling and use "cheeseburgers" and clamps to get things down into the recording space.

That would definitely make getting gobo's in/round the gear a LOT easier.

By the way Cucco, I believe the Advents that I have are the one's you are thinking about. I think the originals came out in the early 70's to compete with the JBL monitor type speakers. They were called bookshelf speakers at the time...altho I don't know what bookshelf you could really put these on....LOL
They reissued these in the late 80's which is when I picked up this pair. I don't think you can buy these anymore.
It's a 2 way with i think a 10 and a dome tweeter. There is 1 switch in the back, for normal, or extended.
I'm not an Audio engineer nor studio pro, nor do I profess to be one, I'm really a musicain, who knows sound and what I like.
I Beleive you are right about these speakers and when put in the normal mode are very flat, and if I recall may have been used in some studio's as monitors.

The reason I'm building this studio, is my keyboard player, kind of went off the deep end. He, along with alot of other keyboardplayers, im sure...think they can reproduce every sound, bass, drums whatever to sound like the real thing...except good guitar, which he sends to me.

Ok , yes after years of dealing with bass players and drummers that can't keep the beat strait....yes, you can get feed up.

But bottom line...even his 3K keyboard can't produce a human sounding drum line. In some cases it's passable..but when he starts looping stuff and gets carried away......it sounds like what it is. Programmed drums and stuff no human could play.
I used to play drums for many years before I started playing guitar. I can pretty much tell right away if it's programmed drums.

So I basically decided to do my own stuff, with real drums...LOL

To be honest..this is going to be a real pain in the butt...as i need my wife or somebodey to sit and bang on each drum...so I can set the eq.
It's like in the studio...takes about 2 min to set up my guitar....OK your going to deal with the drummer now...OK I'll go out and have a couple of beers.....call me when your done....LMAO

But on a more serious note....I intened to do this on a "Reasonable" budget.
A set(2) of overhead mic's for a grand is out of the question. I think people tend to get carried away with equipment.
The tried and true SM57 has been the staple for recording for years.

And I think still the best snare mic there is.
I dislike the "beta" stuff for anything...vocal, or what ever. They come across as too bright, and brittle to me.....I just don't like them.

In fact I would probably use the 57 as the all around drum mic...overheads and all, except of course for the bassdrum.

This may or may not work..but I haven't started researching this yet.
Which I tend to do with everything...working dollors VS performace.

Mad...I don't know if your trying to be funny, or just Sarcastic.

What lighting crap (Gobo's) has to do with standup isolation panels ...I have no clue.

And if you didn't know ..stand up(and moveable) isolation panels have been used for years, in pro recording studio's.......and used on drums, were there was not an isolation booth for the drummer.

If you were not trying to be sarcastic...well...sorry, I don't get it.

bobt -

I think MadTiger was referring to using the lighting rails as a means to run your cables up high and avoid having to use mic stands which makes using Gobos far easier.

Basically it's a cable-tray like grid across your ceiling which you would run cables on and drop the mics down from there versus using the mic stands.

Re: the Advents -
I was selling hi-fi back in the early 90s and the Advents were one of the brands we carried. They were damn fine. Paper cones all around which won't hold up over 30 or more years but has a very smooth, tube-head kind of sound. If I remember right, they were insanely sensitive too.

They couldn't put out the absolute lowest frequencies, but the stuff they did put out was smooth as budda'

Re: the drums -
I would strongly encourage you to do some searches on this forum regarding drum recording. You have the basic concept in that you don't want to go overboard (which is a problem that plagues the younger generation). There's a lot to know about drum recording and ironically, the more a person knows about recording in general, the more likely they are to overkill the drums until they get to that magic point in life (as in all other facets of life as well) when they start to figure out that simple is better.

Anyway -
Enjoy the stuff you have and keep it simple.

Thanks, Cucco.....if Mad was talking about that....fine no problem....but still far from the cost of a few mic stands...LOL

I'm on this site to "refresh" my memory..as to recording stuff.

I have been playing music since 1969....and been in a number of recording studio's....
But as with most musicains......I was pretty much drunk at the time...LOL...not funny...but true.

Nice mixing rooms, had couches....ashtrays and refrigerators....and what you smoked was up to you...LOL

I don't rememeber what mic's were used for mic'ing drums....nor did i care at that time.....I was the guitar player....could not care less...LOL

I remember some general stuff.......but i will have to research the drum mic thing.

It'd be a lot cheaper than you think. I could rig up my ceiling with that for maybe $80. That's the cost of 3 mic stands.

To be honest with you..Cucco...that's not a bad idea.......but...as being the cheap person that i am....I could do that with, a buch of cable, claps which cost about 25cents each......at least for over head type stuff.....
very good idea!!!!!

Jeremy's dead on... the ceiling stuff is for your stands... you increase your square footage by about 30% by getting the mic stands in the air. Getting square 30% more square footage for $100 is some of the cheapest damn real estate value you will EVER buy.

You can do 2-8' ladder trusses for about $100 to reach all but the tightest nook in the studio.

The stand-up isolation panels are called GOBO's in the recording industry, just as they are in the photography industry... the are both functionally the same thing.

I may be brutally friggin' honest. And I'm perfectly happy to flame the hell out of any asshole who stumbles along, but bob, I ain't trying to steer you or anyone wrong.

OK, it's been awhile since you were in a studio. It hasn't been for me, nor Jeremy. Lighten up a bit bro... there's no reason to get your shorts bound up... We're not gonna sell you down the river.

I just want to throw out there that I miss my Advents!

I had some circa 1988, I believe.
Dammit, I wish they were sittin' in front of me right now!

They were the sh*t!
Drinkin' on the porch, listenin' to mixes, cranked up & tanked up - everybody loved 'em...

...Oh, yeah, nobody's selling anybody a bunch of B.S. here, but you already know that, right?

Sorry to get a bit testy... your reply just kinda' chapped my cheeks a bit.

57's are still great mic's.... just watch out for the bootleg Chinese imports. I guess they're OK, but I'd rather have the real deal.

kick drum mics.... Shure Beta 52, AKG D112, Audix D6, RCA 44BX and Shure Beta 91's are all very much accepted as good standard mic's.

Check out ribbon mic's as well for snare, overheads and guitar cab mics.

Mad..sorry to get you upset....not looking for that. I did not know what they called the movable panels.
But then again I don't remember much of the "tech" terms for stuff in the studio's....LMAO ..to say the least.....

Bent , your right..they are kick ass speakers....and the ones I have...LOL

Thanks guys..what I needed was a kick in the face....to atleast try and remember what was right, or wrong...LOL

I spent why too much time in the control room , drinking and haveing a good time.....LOL

To be honest, if I had the money....i'd build a 24 track TAPE recording studio....with a seperate control room......but since I haven't won the lottery......oh well........LMAO

Mad....I just really Don't like Beta anything....I was given Beta stuff to use ..on stage...I just hated the way it sounded....and just picked up a standard 57 or 58.....they just seem to be too bright..too...hot..too brittle for lack of a better word.

Not real sure that Beta
would work for a kick drum mic?????

The Beta 52 is ok... lots of fat bottom, some click.

The D6 is decent... woofy but pretty good if you take the time to find the right spot.

The D112 is tricky, but tollarable to excellent if you work at it.

The Beta 91 is not what you're used to dealing with from Shure. Although it's really used more for live, it's one of the better boundary mic's.

Anything else is gonna cost a few hundred to about a grand.

57's can be used for a kick, but they're pretty wimpy and need a LOT of eq to get em' dialed in.

Since we have progressed to drum mic's...LOL
Shure has a basic drum package of the Beta 52, and 3- 57's for $399.
The also include drum mounted clamps for the 57's.
It's not a bad price for the mic's. The drum clamps I'm not so sure about.
I've never used them before, but toms bounce aot. Even with good hardware, more so with a heavy hitting drummer. Plus if he hit's the rim, I would think this would go right thru the mount, into the mic.

Since I have never used these, my fears may be unfounded..and they may work great.

If the mic clamps are built like [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.zzounds…"]LP Claws[/]="http://www.zzounds…"]LP Claws[/], they should have rubber dampening in the jaws and surrounding the post.

I use them all the time (LP's that is).

Yeah Bent, one would think it should be"shock" mounted somehow. I just don't see it in the pic's. Then again the whole clamp device could be made of some kind of hard rubber?
For the price of the 4 mic's at $399....the clamps are a freebee....if they work...great.
They may work for the tom's...but I can't see using it on the snare.
I myself, hit the snare rim..alot, I think I'm just too aggressive to use that clamp on a snare. Plus that clamp"at least for how I see it clamps on" would have the mic more sticking up. Basically in my way on a snare..and end up with broken 57's....LOL

Basically I would use the Beta 52 for the kick, 57's on all the toms, snare and high hat. I don't want to use more then 8 tracks for drums, so that leaves me 2 mic's for overheads.
I'm not sure the 57's would cut it....as they are very directional.
Figure you have 3-4 cymbals to pick up. Any good mic's for around 100 that would fill the bill????

One more thing on the Claw:

Yes, aiming them in spots can be tricky.
Sometimes it is simply quicker and easier to slap up a mic stand instead.

/hijack
:wink:

Yes Bent, your right..LOL Like I said these clamps are really freebees...so if they work, fine, if not I have mic stands...LOL

Now for a complete off the wall question. I am, basically rebuilding(rebuying, more to the point) every thing I had, due to moving, divorce...BLAH,BLAH,BLAH....

I'm going to get a set of Yamaha drums, maple or oak...don't know yet which. They record pretty well.
Now the insane question.....dose anybody feel that some cymbals record better then others?
Like dose a Sabian AA or APX..just come across better then say Zildjain customs?

I know this sounds nuts...but I just seem to remember that some cymbals sound really good recorded..some, just don't...just don't ring or just don't sound as good. I'm not talking cheap cymbals here VS good ones. They were all..not cheap stuff.
Anybody have an opinon on this?

Light fast decaying cymbals always record better than heavy, loud, obnoxious ones. Cymbals that are meant to cut through a loud onstage mix are not going to sound good in a controlled environment.

My personal favorites are old Zildjian A's. A ride cymbal that stops soon after its being hit...Crash cymbals that explode and then decay quickly....Hihats with a nice swish as well as a great chirp....Chinas that dont sound like the garbagemen at 5:00am....

Its all about control and the mixing of overtones and fundamentals. The drumkit has so much of everything, you have to get a lot of it done mechanically to give the electronics a chance to do their thing with some sort of quality.

Dave I agree with you completely about..."LIVE" or playing onstage VS whats used for recording.

Are you saying that only the "old" Zildjain A's...work as compared to the new ones?

Is that they only cymbals you would recomend for recording??????

Man, I gotta say that this (to me) is another one of those type of "which preamp is better" questions.

Zildjian has some thick ones that are, for me, a little too dark and heavy - but I do dig a dark ride.
Sabian's got their models that are equally dark and heavy.

I've never really noted which brand I like more, though I play on Z's more than any other - mostly A and K Customs (Zildjian is everywhere on the mouse's property, as is Remo for heads).

I have a Sabian B8 thin crash on my practice kit, I like it. I think it would translate well on a recording, it's got a nice bit of decay.

Thanks guys for all the responces..yeah the cymbals question was really like which preamp is better thing...LOL

As for the drums themselves, I'm pretty set on Yamaha's...the Oak set's I would probably love..for playing out with...but for recording, I'll probably go with the Yamaha "recording" type set's made from Birch.

I agree with Dave's idea of an ideal recording cymbal. Fast decay is the key here. There's a much lower noise floor in the studio than in a live venue and the goal is to keep it that way. No reason to have to play louder than a lot of cymbal wash. One example - I have an old A Zildjian 20" ride that responds well when played loud, but builds up too much wash when played quiet. Not good in the studio. I got my wife a 20" Zildjian K Ride for Christmas. Very sweet. Records much better. (When your wife takes up drums, it's much easier to shop for Christmas presents.)

I wanted my wife to take up audio production so I could get an HD3 protools setup and a bunch of delicious preamps but instead she took up bikerchicking so I got a Harley....................waddaya gonna do??

Davedog wrote: I wanted my wife to take up audio production so I could get an HD3 protools setup and a bunch of delicious preamps but instead she took up bikerchicking so I got a Harley....................waddaya gonna do??

Mine (re)took up piano.... so, now I gotta buy a baby grand, a B3, a Motif, a Roland and a few more synths.... (she's even expressed an interest in either a Chamberlain or a Mellotron)

Count your blessings! (and your money!)

Mine has finally decided to take up guitar.

Finally!

MadMax wrote: ....Mine (re)took up piano.... so, now I gotta buy a baby grand, a B3, a Motif, a Roland and a few more synths.... (she's even expressed an interest in either a Chamberlain or a Mellotron)...

Be still my heart. My daughter goes to college in August. I'm already scheming how to take over her room so I can fit a B3 into the house.