
The STRING analyser
This same concern about reflecting surfaces applies to all nearby widgets such as computer monitors, outboard gear, coffee cups, rolls of tape, the producer's wooden leg and all the other usual paraphernalia found in a studio environment. Cleaning up this short sound path between the speaker and your listening position is like using a cotton bud on your ear.
You can repeat the process with an extra 3000mm (10 feet) of string to see which surfaces will influence the timbre and imaging of your mix. This exercise is not just about finding places to stick fuzzy or foamy absorbers to, the last thing you want to do is make your room completely dead. What this process will show you is which surfaces you should try to angle to redirect reflections away from your mix position. If there are surfaces that you cannot move or shift, you can apply a small amount of absorbent material to specific surfaces, rather than covering the entire room in absorbers.
You may want to consider a speaker placement other than the console meter bridge, perhaps on an elevated mounting arm attached to the wall, or on a
It's important that you listen to the effect of speaker placement on the sound character of your speakers, and understand what those changes are going to do to your mix. To make the point here's are some more things to consider: -
3.4: SPEAKER MOUNTING
You've probably got your monitors delicately balanced on your console meter bridge, or sitting on a counter top beside your hard disc editor. Find some music with some real solid low end that you know well. Try listening to this music with the speaker sitting directly on the mounting surface and then with it sitting on a thin piece of rubber pad. Hear a difference? Which one sounds more like the recording should? Does one get tubby, or muddy? Depending on the type of mounting surface, you may find it beneficial to use a thin layer of flexible material (eg:
3.5: BASS PORTS
The Reveal monitors' bass port is located on the back panel. You should keep the back panels at least 150mm (6") away from the nearest wall surface to avoid an overblown bass sound. If you cannot avoid being close to the wall or if you're using a separate subwoofer, you may want to consider plugging the port tubes on your
3.6: EQUALisATION
Our feeling is that you shouldn't equalise monitors at all to compensate for inadequate room design. Variations in the monitor response should be fixed through placement (after all, that's what this manual's about). But we realise that equalisation is sometimes a necessary evil. If you have a choice of equalisers for monitor applications, less is more. The fewer the number of filters, the better the equaliser will sound. A stereo five band parametric is better than a stereo 15 band that is better than a stereo 1/3 octave. You may not realise that in all but one or two brands of
An important thing to keep in mind if you are equalising these compact monitors is that they are not intended to substitute for really large loudspeaker systems you might use for tracking synth lines, or drum samples. Don't try to equalise them to sound the same as the 15" monitors you were listening to in the in the music store. The equalisation of your
4.0: REVEAL 6 DIMENSIONS
210.0mm |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 319.0mm |
|
|
|
|
| 50.8mm |
81/4” |
|
|
|
|
| 121/2” |
|
|
| 2” | ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
107.9mm
41/4”
340.0mm
133/8”
179.0mm
7”
8 | 9 |