Why does everyone spend their last bits of money on low cost monitoring systems?

[ChrisRoberts]

I was having a conversation with some of my teachers at Berklee, and we were talkin about monitoring systems, and why people are always spending their last (and usually smallest) aamounts of money on monitoring. Wont then your mic and preamp choices become null since you have no seriously accurate way of listening to their sound?

Just a little topic to open up for discussion.

[cmchamp]

Too True, Too True. This doesn't just happen studios, believe it or not, it happens in fixed installs and regional bands looking for gear also.

[Brandon Hook]

I too have fallen victim to a lack of bugdet when looking for a descent set of monitors. However, you can still be recording with all the benifits of great outboard gear (mic pre, compressors, limiters....etc.) but in the end you'll be wishing for a better listening environment.
What I end up doing is using about 5 sets of different sounding speakers and eventually come up with something that works on all of them with reasonable amounts of success ( at least that;s what I think). I'm currently using some satallite speakers by aiwa, fairly large and very inexpensive towers by sony, sony MDR V-700 phones, and my car stereo (which I have come to trust the most believe it or not), and between them, I can make fairly judicial decisions that seem to accomodate all the speakers.
This is a big pain in the ass though, don't get me wrong. But try to keep in mind that your mixes will more likely end up being played on consumer products.

Hope this was somewhat insightful.

Brandon Hook

[Chris Jude]

Great point. Weak links in your chain can lower the end product, but without good flat monitors, you can't even really hope to reasonably judge everything else up the line. It never ceases to amaze me to hear someone going on about the subtlest of nuances, when they are tracking with speakers not fit for a weather radio.

[Ed Belknap]

Originally posted by Chris Jude
Great point. Weak links in your chain can lower the end product, but without good flat monitors, you can't even really hope to reasonably judge everything else up the line. It never ceases to amaze me to hear someone going on about the subtlest of nuances, when they are tracking with speakers not fit for a weather radio.

You mean like an NS-10M?

[TeeCee]

Because the last thing you do is make it sound right. You need to get good stuff into whatever and work on it. You can't really go to just any friends house and record their guitar or yours on their setup. You can take what you're working on burnt to a CD and go just about anywhere for a reference listen. Additionally, about the only outsourced in the production chain by a home studio musician is is the mastering. Guess what kind of systems they monitor on?

I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but it's what I believe is at least part of the reason.

[Chris Jude]

Originally posted by Ed Belknap


You mean like an NS-10M? I'm not sure what you are suggesting. If you mean do I think NS-10s aren't fit for even a weather radio, not at all. NS-10s (although not considered snobby expensive monitors) attained huge popularity for a simple reason: if you could get a mix to sound great on them, it was almost a given it would sound just about as good as possible anywhere else. I think that they are somewhat of an exception. I find them a little hard to track with for long periods of times and I miss the frequencies they don't deal with very well, but for budget (or for a second set of tracking monitors), if you can find some, they can be very useful indeed. Great value for money, and one of the more popular monitors of all time.