In article ,
Graham. wrote:
On Sun, 23 Jul 2017 09:30:41 +0100, Ian McCall wrote:

On 2017-07-23 07:53:31 +0000, "Brian Gaff" said:

I always thought that the generic term of monitor speaker was one that
sounded like it was the real sounds. It certainly seems to have meant that
in studios. However speakers that on paper are flat can often sound awful
and speakers with lumpy responses can sound nice.

That's the point though. Nipping in from my music writing side (i don't
have the audio experience people on this group have), the purpose of a
monitor speaker is exactly that - to monitor the sound levels and mix.
It's not to sound nice, it's to get the flattest and most neutral
response.

I've no doubt it's developed into marketing speak and there are plenty
of 'monitor' speakers about that are just ordinary speakers, but the
idea is to get the truest reflection of what you're actually doing so
that you're not fooled that you've e.g. put plenty of bass in the mix
just because your speaker overemphasises bass.


Cheers,
Ian


I thought a monitor was a speaker that was pointed at the performer
rather than the audience. What's the correct name for that?

Foldback.

--
*Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

sunnuntai 23. heinäkuuta 2017 10.53.32 UTC+3 Brian Gaff kirjoitti:

Most rock engineers like a forward mid to treble as they are deaf. Then
they get the balance right for the rest of us.

Top posted for Brian

So you think most rock engineers are deaf ? LOL.

May I continue with your hypothesis? A classical work by Anton Bruckner (a symphony orchestra with double brass, French horns and woods, with a choir of 120 may well be just as loud as any rock title, and will almost certainly have a greater dynamic. Classical recordings are not normally compressed and so for the producer and engineer to hear the passage where the string basses play arco piano-pianissimo (ppp) - very softly, the monitoring level will need to be fairly “robust� It is not common practice either to alter the monitoring level either, so that when the full orchestra plays sfffz this will be impressively loud. Does that mean that most classical engineers (such as myself) are deaf also?

Come to think of it, a jazz orchestra, (big band) with five trumpets, four trombones, tuba, five saxophones, four rhythm and percussion can also be impressively loud. In a multi-mic recording you have thirty mics each placed within 10 cms of a their own 100dB sound source. Does that mean that most jazz engineers (such as myself) are deaf also?

Who does that leave? Maybe the young lady who records the shipping forecast:-)

I have always been interested in audio perception - what people can and cannot hear. One of the most interesting experiments with which I have been involved is the black box three-band parametric equaliser, which has two rows each with three rotary controls, and a bypass switch. The controls are not marked, but people soon realise that the top row of three controls are cut and boost for the three frequencies selected by the three controls below the second row. People are asked to start by listening with the bypass switched in, and the to switch it out, and adjust the controls to their personal taste. Children, who you would expect to have the best hearing of any age group, often add a mid lift, say 3dB at 3 to 8kHz, just as the rock'n'roll engineer does, because so much critical information is contained in this band. Interesting too is the fact that a small group of people whose choice of music often coincides with the the type of music they are listening too, decide after a few minutes twiddling that they can add no improvement.


Iain

sunnuntai 23. heinäkuuta 2017 17.36.49 UTC+3 Brian Gaff kirjoitti:
It does seem though that in the 70s we had mixes for some recordings with a
definite middle to top emphasis. I suspect this might well have been added
by the cutting engineer to overcome some of the problems of analogue systems
perceived at the time.


Go on, please.

Apart from the problem with bass excursion, cured easily by Bass Phase (everything below 100Hz sent equally to both channels - hence mono and greatly reduced vertical excursion when cutting) the main problems were
with sibilence, and getting instruments such as cymbals, glockenspiel,orchestral bells, chimes, etc to reproduce cleanly. Exactly the reverse of what you state above.

This was why CDs made from the vinyl masters sounded
so toppy and bass light.

What do you mean by a vinyl master? Nothing except vinyl pressings can be made from the stamper.

The studio mix master (analogue or digital) was/is the source for vinyl, cassettes, eight track cartridges and CD production.

Iain

sunnuntai 23. heinäkuuta 2017 17.36.49 UTC+3 Brian Gaff kirjoitti:
It does seem though that in the 70s we had mixes for some recordings with a
definite middle to top emphasis. I suspect this might well have been added
by the cutting engineer to overcome some of the problems of analogue systems
perceived at the time. This was why CDs made from the vinyl masters sounded
so toppy and bass light.


Can you really make such a sweeping statement without stating specific instances or carrying out level matched AB comparisons vinyl to CD?



Iain

sunnuntai 23. heinäkuuta 2017 17.36.49 UTC+3 Brian Gaff kirjoitti:
It does seem though that in the 70s we had mixes for some recordings with a
definite middle to top emphasis. I suspect this might well have been added
by the cutting engineer to overcome some of the problems of analogue systems
perceived at the time. This was why CDs made from the vinyl masters sounded
so toppy and bass light.

Mastering in the vinyl days was somewhat different to what we do now. In analogue disc cutting, the object of the exercise was to cut a lacquer which when played back in rough sync with the master tape was as close a match as technically possible. Any fool could make it different:-)

Most recording/mixing engineers knew exactly what was and was not possible in stereo disc cutting. Many were working in studio complexes companies that had their own cutting rooms, and so had worked in disc cutting as a part of their training.

So the objective was to make a cut that sounded as close as possible to the master tape. This continues even to the present day with classical and jazz recordings in CD mastering. Gradually in pop music the mastering stage has become a separate step in the creative process in which considerable changes are made in EQ and dynamics so that the end result was no longer the same as the studio master (although all enhancements should be approved by the recording team)

Iain

Once upon a time on usenet Phil Allison wrote:
Graham. wrote:

-----------------


I thought a monitor was a speaker that was pointed at the performer
rather than the audience. What's the correct name for that?



** Correctly called an "on stage monitor" or "foldback wedge."

The boxes are typically wedge shaped to sit on a stage with the front
baffle at 45 degrees to the horizontal.

Yep, here in NZ back in the 80s they were reffered to as 'foldback monitors'
and were placed on stage just in front of the mic stands, angled to face up
at the mic position. They usually just contained one or two 6" midrange
drivers, at least the ones I worked with did. (No tweeter as that would
cause more of an issue with high frequency feedback.)
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet Brian Gaff wrote:
There were some odd speakers that in some surroundings sounded better
than they should have, such as those Toshiba spheres things in the
70s. They could sound awful though and needed a quite dampened room
and a bass bin to really sound sweet. Bloody heavy to fix to ceiling
supports though, Not want to drop one of those on my foot.
For those who like the spacial type sound.

Worst speakers? Hmm sadly some of the goodmans attempts ast high end
speakers all seemed to honk, even their cheap ones did. Maybe their
engineers were deaf?

I've had quite a few Goodmans speakers and the only ones I kept are Mezzo
SLs from the 1970s (they were nearly 450 quid in 1975). They're a two-way
'bookshelf' speaker with a 10" woofer and the wonderful SEAS H087 1.5"
soft-dome tweeter / mid. They sound extremely 'musical', the speakers
vanishing and leaving just the music...

That said I don't listen to them any more due to them rolling off the
highest frequencies (despite a bit of equalisation in the crossover to boost
the highs, that big soft dome which sounds so good up to 12kHz doesn't like
to go much above 15kHz) and, increasingly my ears are also doing the same
thing. Consequently I prefer 'brighter' speakers these days.

Oddly contemporary reviews (most long since vanished from the web) described
them as being a little bright and forward! I can only think that was when
compared to contemporary and older speakers.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Brian

Ian McCall wrote:



** No, it refers to *monitoring" real sounds - ie live mic signals.

It defines a purpose and the speaker must be suitable for that
job.


Hadn't really thought of it purely for live but yes - that's what I
was trying to imply in the other post I made. It's not there to
sound good, it's there to be accurate and let you monitor levels.


** Accuracy is an ideal that few so called monitors achieve and NONE
of the famous ones - like JBL's.

Other qualities matter far more, the most important one being that
studio engineers must be familiar with them. This last fact has made
it near impossible to develop studio monitors beyond 1960s standards.

The thing I hate most is the ABSURD and snobbish idea that "monitor"
class speakers are inherently BETTER than home hi-fi speakers.

JBL used this fallacy as a marketing ploy to sell huge numbers of
their awful L100s to a gullible public.

One speaker I know well is equally suitable for home or studio use -
the Yamaha NS1000. Justifiably very famous and very expensive today.

If you have never heard a pair, you need to.

Their accuracy on all sorts of music and speech rivals Quad's
electrostatics.


.... Phil

maanantai 24. heinäkuuta 2017 3.16.27 UTC+3 ~misfit~ kirjoitti:
Once upon a time on usenet Phil Allison wrote:
Graham. wrote:

-----------------


I thought a monitor was a speaker that was pointed at the performer
rather than the audience. What's the correct name for that?



** Correctly called an "on stage monitor" or "foldback wedge."

The boxes are typically wedge shaped to sit on a stage with the front
baffle at 45 degrees to the horizontal.

Yep, here in NZ back in the 80s they were reffered to as 'foldback monitors'
and were placed on stage just in front of the mic stands, angled to face up
at the mic position. They usually just contained one or two 6" midrange
drivers, at least the ones I worked with did. (No tweeter as that would
cause more of an issue with high frequency feedback.)
--


These days foldback systems may include in ear transducers, so the term "wedges" is preferable for the stage foldback monitors. Mixing foldback is quite an art, to give everyone on the stage exactly precisely what he/she wants to hear with no feedback:-) Often with a bigger band on stage, several layers of foldback might be needed, starting with just backline. Good concert rigs have a separate foldback mixer, which can be divided into subgroups just as one might do for the main monitors. If you know the material well or have a control score, you can lift fills and figures, and put the same detail into foldback as you would into the main mix.

Iain

Iain

Iain Churches wrote:

------------------------



These days foldback systems may include in ear transducers, so the term "wedges" is preferable for the stage foldback monitors. Mixing foldback is quite an art, to give everyone on the stage exactly precisely what he/she wants to hear with no feedback:-) Often with a bigger band on stage, several layers of foldback might be needed, starting with just backline. Good concert rigs have a separate foldback mixer, which can be divided into subgroups just as one might do for the main monitors





** Famous rock band, foldback engineer saying:


Q: What's the difference between a foldback engineer and a toilet seat?

..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..

A: A toilet seat only has to cop **** from one arsehole at a time.



..... Phil

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
Other than that, what is the difference between one
and a 'normal' speaker.

Just the name.

It's basically a US term. It wasn't used for speakers when I started my
career in broadcast. A monitor produced pictures. ;-)

Just about any type of speaker has been used as a so called monitor at one
time or another.

One term was 'average quality monitor'. That would be used to give a rough
idea of what people heard at home - as opposed to the speakers in pro use.
Aurotone being one example - just a single driver in a small box.

You'd hope that any speaker called a monitor would have tight quality
control - so that all of the same make and model sounded the same.

But then in a recording studio they may be custom made units anyway - just
for that studio.

--
*They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.