[saitoh]

Quote:

A very pertinent question and one without specific answers I'm afraid. There are no standards of music recording, production, mastering or of recording studios. A recording studio can be anything from a converted garage with a few thousand dollars of recording equipment all the way up to multi-million dollar facilities. The top facilities spend more on just their Analogue to Digital Converters (ADCs) than a lesser studio might spend on the entirety of their studio!

Correct, mics, preamps, and ADCs are where the money is blown most of the time, plus a good DAC and near-fields. Headphones are an afterthought most of the time.
 
For DACs, I've seen a bunch of shops like the Lavry DA series, the Myteks, the Grace Design products, and the Benchmark DAC1 line. The question is ultimately what will give 1) a representative view that enables you to make decisions that will produce as flawless a product as possible and 2) enable you to make decisions that will allow your sound to translate correctly across a vast array of audio systems without sound atrocious on a bunch of them.
 

 
Quote:

Here's a documentary about the making of Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay Z. Interestingly they use the Beyerdynamics DT770 Pro's during mixing and recording. They're actually not even that expensive or detailed as some of the higher end models. So apparently even Kanye and crew aren't hearing all those details or sound signature some of you guys do with your fancy higher end gear.
 
Want to hear Watch the Throne the way they producers intended it? Buy some DT770 Pro's and whatever system they are using to power them lol.
 
http://www.multiupload.com/BFK50FWLF1

I would suggest if you wanted to hear how a producer intended it, to buy not headphones, but near-field monitors that their mastering engineer used. Mixing folks are likely to use two types of speakers; something along the Genelec lines which would have a similar tonal signature to the LCD2 or Denon7000 or maybe one of the Ultrasones. The second type would be a clone of the old Yamaha NS-10 speakers which sound like absolute trash but like everything else in a studio are a tool (which in that case expose flaws in the midrange), similar might be cheap computer speakers or maybe AKG701s or cheap Grados, something that has a lot of 1k-3khz content and some stuff above 5khz but almost nothing under 130hz.
 
Most studios that I know of use the older Sony 7xxx line or the HD600/650s for tracking or odd jobs (each dependant upon purpose of course), but most decisions are made on near fields during mixing. Not many (but some) folks are doing the majority of their decisions on headphones and typically use something like a phonitor or VST plugin to replicate the HRTF and Haas effects. Maybe they are working after hours or on the road. Checking on headphones is typically resigned to seeing if you're stereo field is too extreme or just another view of whether or not something falls out in the mix. Just my observation, best of luck.

 

[gregorio]

Correct, mics, preamps, and ADCs are where the money is blown most of the time, plus a good DAC and near-fields. Headphones are an afterthought most of the time.
 
For DACs, I've seen a bunch of shops like the Lavry DA series, the Myteks, the Grace Design products, and the Benchmark DAC1 line. The question is ultimately what will give 1) a representative view that enables you to make decisions that will produce as flawless a product as possible and 2) enable you to make decisions that will allow your sound to translate correctly across a vast array of audio systems without sound atrocious on a bunch of them.

Not really. Most good commercial recording studios blow most of their money on acoustic design and construction. Next biggest outlay would be the mixing desk (or control surface). After that the main monitors and ADCs, mic preamps, etc. Most studios use integrated ADCs/DACs so they don't usually buy standalone DACs (athough that's not necessarily true for mastering studios). The cost of near fields is negligible compared to the other outlays, even the ADCs/DACs represent a small percentage of the overall outlay. Mics are relatively cheap but over the decades studios can build up mic collections worth millions. The choice of components for the playback chain are based on clarity and accuracy, to enable the recording engineer and producer to hear as much detail as possible. How the system translates across other systems is not so much of a concern in a recording/production studio, that is the domain of the mastering engineer and the mastering studio.

Headphones are sometimes used during tracking but very rarely (if ever) during mixing. Mastering engineers may check mixes on cans. VST plugins are not so common in top commercial studios, they are much more common in home and project studios.

G

 

[Clarkmc2]

Where do large monitors like Westlakes figure in? I know they are found in some upper tier studios.
 
http://www.westlakeaudio.com/Speakers/Professional_Series/reference_series.html
 
BTW, these are godawful heavy, much heavier than even my JBL 4345's, by a lot.

 

[gregorio]

Where do large monitors like Westlakes figure in? I know they are found in some upper tier studios.
 
http://www.westlakeaudio.com/Speakers/Professional_Series/reference_series.html
 
BTW, these are godawful heavy, much heavier than even my JBL 4345's, by a lot.

In my previous list the westlakes would be flush mounted and used as the main monitors. Near fields would often be used for most of the mixing, with the main monitors used every so often to check what's going on in the bass. It would depend though, the producer may prefer to do most of the mixing on the main monitors.

G

 

[saitoh]

Quote:

Not really. Most good commercial recording studios blow most of their money on acoustic design and construction. Next biggest outlay would be the mixing desk (or control surface). After that the main monitors and ADCs, mic preamps, etc. Most studios use integrated ADCs/DACs so they don't usually buy standalone DACs (athough that's not necessarily true for mastering studios). The cost of near fields is negligible compared to the other outlays, even the ADCs/DACs represent a small percentage of the overall outlay. Mics are relatively cheap but over the decades studios can build up mic collections worth millions.

I think we'll agree to disagree on the first paragraph. I can think of a number of small or regional places that have spent more on their mics alone then they did on the board. I suspect it's just a difference of experience between us. I do agree that major label places like Abbey Road probably have sunk more into their console alone than their mics. I guess it's an experience thing, I'm not nearly as familiar with the Abbey Road setup (for example) as I am with smaller shops, but I also don't listen to much major stuff anymore either, different focus/blind spot. Cheers.

 

[gregorio]

I think we'll agree to disagree on the first paragraph.

Then you didn't read my post very well, even the part which you quoted! Read the last sentence again!

G

 

[LFF]

Quote:

A very pertinent question and one without specific answers I'm afraid. There are no standards of music recording, production, mastering or of recording studios. A recording studio can be anything from a converted garage with a few thousand dollars of recording equipment all the way up to multi-million dollar facilities. The top facilities spend more on just their Analogue to Digital Converters (ADCs) than a lesser studio might spend on the entirety of their studio! A recording engineer could be anything from a kid in a bedroom who has just taken a six month audio engineering course to a 30 year professional in a top facility. Same is true of producers and mastering engineers. I've met people who call themselves mastering engineers, who think you just have to slam the level and don't even know what the job of the mastering engineer is, let alone know how to do it well. Cheap technology has made once highly exclusive and specialized jobs accessible to almost everyone and has lead to a huge variation of quality in available music. What's worse is that the younger generation doesn't seem to care to much about audio fidelity, so why bother spending money on expensive experienced engineers and recording facilities?
 
There are some genres of music (mainly classical and jazz) where fidelity is still highly prized but even so, all recording and production is a balance of compromises. For example, microphones do not record sound the way that we hear it, so we may have to add some EQ (and/or other processing), EQ is not a linear process, so it's a trade off. Pretty much everything in the recording chain and playback chain introduces non-linearities, not to mention that we are trying to make a performance of maybe 100 different sound sources (musicians in an orchestra) sound realistic when played back by only two sound sources (speakers). Another consideration is that many instruments do not sound anything like you expect them to. For example, when you listen to a french horn (in a live orchestra) you are not really listening to a french horn, you are actually listening to the reflections of a french horn off a number of different surfaces, very big difference. Same with a drum kit, a live (un-amplified) drum kit is usually nothing like what you expect on a recording. Ultimately, it all comes down to the skill and artistry of the producer and mastering engineer and the environments they have to work in.
 
Although there is nothing you can do about any of this as a consumer, the OP question is pertinent. In a forum where so much discussion is based on subjective opinion, what are you basing your subjective opinion on, what music are you listening to? Has it been recorded, produced and mastered by top professionals with a substantial budget and high quality in mind or are there mistakes (EG. frequency holes, imbalances, distortion, etc)? When people say they like the "warmth" of a tube, the "air" of a cable or the "width" of speaker x, what are you listening to and what are you doing to the sound? On the one hand you may be improving a poor recording on the other, would you want go and look at a Picasso or a Turner wearing pink tinted sunglasses? Personally I go for transparency but that's just my opinion and off topic
 
G

Awesome post!
 

 

[Clarkmc2]

Quote:

In my previous list the westlakes would be flush mounted and used as the main monitors. Near fields would often be used for most of the mixing, with the main monitors used every so often to check what's going on in the bass. It would depend though, the producer may prefer to do most of the mixing on the main monitors.

G

So mains are still used. I think that refutes the notion that listening to the nearfields used to mix the recordings is getting closer to the original intentions of the recording engineers. When the overall result is to be discerned, the mains reveal the total picture. I thought as much. My JBL 4345s were the pinnacle of full sized monitors in their era, about 1983 I think. The Westlakes still use similar technology, sometimes the same transducers.
 
Having gone through this approach to home stereo, using large mains studio monitors, I can say 1) Best bass on the planet, and approaches the dynamics of a full horn system; nothing else has impact like that and still remains hifi (the fr is essentially flat from 30-20K without EQ), and 2) the downsides are poor imaging - the sound is coming from too large an area to pinpoint anything - and the necessary multiple, specialized transducers and their crossovers (even when low level active) do not allow the coherence and purity of reproduction of a really good single driver or full range augmented system. But the best of these large monitors sound remarkably coherent anyway. It is just rather difficult to optimize them as they were designed to be sofit mounted, not easy in a home environment. A plus is high efficiency. 98dB/watt/meter is possible with a biamped example.
 
 

 

[gregorio]

So mains are still used. I think that refutes the notion that listening to the nearfields used to mix the recordings is getting closer to the original intentions of the recording engineers. When the overall result is to be discerned, the mains reveal the total picture. I thought as much.

I've seen it stated a number of times on Head-Fi that using near fields and listening like the recording engineers is the best way of getting closer to the original intentions of the production. Many things in recording and music production are quite complex and on occasion counter-intuitive, the simple answers wanted by Head-Fiers often either just don't exist or loose some or all of their accuracy or truth. Add to this the huge amount of misinformation or down right lies in the name of marketing or even worse, in the name of objective opinion (when marketing is the real but hidden motivation) and the average audiophile or music/sound enthusiast doesn't stand much of a chance when looking for concrete facts.

Most home or project recording studios cannot afford proper main monitors and if they do, they are almost never properly mounted in controlled acoustic environments, they usually only own near fields. This is one of the most obvious differences between a good commercial studio and a project or home studio.

It's not so uncommon (unfortunately) in some genres of music for the finished product to be either not mastered or mastered badly (maybe by the producer himself) in a project or home studio, in this case near fields may get you closer to the original. Although this notion still doesn't take into account the most important aspect of monitor performance, the acoustic environment. However, if the music has been mastered, the whole point of mastering is to take the pre-master (which sounded good in the recording studio with near fields) and change it to sound good on radio and/or a variety of consumer equipment. This makes a nonsense of the notion that near fields would get you closer to the original because it has been deliberately changed to sound good on equipment other than near fields.

G

 

[Clarkmc2]

Thanks for the answers, G. I have found the Head-Fi forums (mostly) a pretty uninformed place, dominated by youthful enthusiasts flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to knowledge. It is great to have experienced members like yourself to part the veil of ignorance.
 
As for myself, I read here sometimes but have not quite mastered the art of not replying. I have pretty much migrated to a site or two where the membership does not even put up with most of what passes for information here, and it is quite a relief. Posters who want to talk about $2000 interconnects, balanced wiring for anything but noise reduction, lengthy component burn in and the like, are referred to Head-Fi or given a suspension.

 

[gregorio]

Thanks for the answers, G. I have found the Head-Fi forums (mostly) a pretty uninformed place, dominated by youthful enthusiasts flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to knowledge. It is great to have experienced members like yourself to part the veil of ignorance.

It's good to know that my posts here are helpful and it makes me feel my participation on Head-Fi is worthwhile, thanks. It's also been good to meet someone as knowledgeable as LFF on this thread.

G