Elektron-Users

Let me preface this by saying that I would love for the milkman to jump on this like wow with his advice regarding acoustic treatment, etc. i'm here to learn, and that's why i'm starting this thread. so preach it, dairyman.

that being said, i want opinions about monitors. peoples' experiences, what they have, what they've had, what's balanced, what's not. and don't say genelecs.

myself, i have krk v6s which have a lovely mid and hi range. but no bass. like at all. it's aggravating, and makes even the md sound not phat (in fact, cranking the bass boost on my er1 is the only thing that really gets them bumping).

and if i can't treat an entire room, what are the little things that I can do that might compensate for the, excuse the phrase, poopie bass?

tks in advance for any responses.

-M

got my alesis MkII active's and love 'em for the most part. lots of low end. a bit TOO much, in fact. but you can reduce it with carefully placed muffling in the speakers. MD definitely sounds amazing through them! I trust them pretty well for mixing, though. most everything that I've been happy with on them, I've been happy with in cars, my stereo, friend's stereos, iPod headphones, powerbook speakers, etc. point being, you CAN trust a mix in them after you learn them a bit.

that said, they're not the best out there. I would prefer something else (like the Dynaudio BM6A's I fell in love with), something a bit smaller and a bit less colored. but for the money, the Alesis MkII Active's are certainly a great deal, IMO.

i also have the M1mkII's...
can't complain really but they are my first pair of monitors
the bass is pretty sufficient and overall sound, to me, if remarkably good.
i still would like a real sub though :-D

they seem remarkably flat ie not much frequency boost or loss. i do seem to notice that my mixes have a bit of a boost in the upper mid-range when rendered to CD and played in my car for example.

You should think about getting the v12 sub from KRK to augment your v6's. I use a sub in my studio a lot but you have to be careful that your sub is normalized correctly with your regular monitors. KRK themselves might even have some guidelines regarding this and what your sub should be calibrated to.

The general rule of thumb I've heard is you set your sub +4 db louder than your stereo reference monitors for the right balance. If your sub is turned up too much, your mixes will lack bass on other systems. Radioshack sells a DB level meter that can be used for this purpose and then track down a pink noise generator which you can find software for.

I would be curious to know what others here have to say too as I don't consider myself to be an expert in this area.

I have Alesis Active Monitor One Mk2. The Sound on Sound review I read before getting them stated that they sounded good without demanding to much from the room. I guess that's somewhat true, yet I have noticed a lot of difference to the sound depending on the room I use them in. The best results I got in my old studio where I could place them equally between the right and left wall. Also both walls were made of the same material which i guess made an positive impact. Another thing that makes a lot of difference with these speakers is whether you place them standing upwards or laying down. Small to medium rooms require them to be laying down. As a more generic rule generous space between the speakers and the walls are required. And lets not forget the fact that you need to beware of sound reflecting surfaces in front of the speakers. *phew*

I've been wanting to try the muffle thing Joe speaks of as I feel they (when I'm not being wary of these aforementioned things) make the bass sound a bit wobbly. All in all good speakers but I don't see the need for you to go get all physical just cause I want a pair of Genelec 8030A's.

wow, thanks for all of the respones, guys.

anyway, crix -- i'd love to get that woofer, but i can't drop that much cash on something that's supposed to be a hobby. hehe. i probably would have a year ago, but things change. thanks for your recommendation, though. it would be the route i would take if i had more chutzpah.

it sounds like people like the mkIIs. i will have a go at trying them, hopefully this weekend. i read the sound on sound review that ingy mentioned, and i usually trust their opinions on things. perhaps for what i am doing, being happy with the overall sound rather than individual spectra are where it's at. :-P

how do you guys compensate for the bass increase? or is it not overwhelming enough as to make things difficult?

thanks again, guys!

I use the Yamaha MSPR5 active monitors...and they are decent. However, the Dynaudio stuff seems to be the best when considering value vs. performance.

add me to the list of Alesis MK1 actives. i agree with Battery Collections take on them. once i learned how to mix in them (and how to mix) they've been great. for the money they're quite excellant. i've had mine for 5 years now and am probably do for some new ones. i'm planning on possibly getting the newer modeled version...eventually and after a listen

if you have the ability to go somewhere to hear a variety of monitors that's the way to go. take a few songs of yours on a CD and i'd probably take a few CD of others' work that you know well, and just listen. another thing to keep in mind is the space in which you're working....

there's really a lot of factors and its pretty well documented online at this point. i didn't know what i was listening for when i initially purchased them. i just bought mine at the time because of a few reviews and because of the price. :-D

good enough for me

I use weird hi-fi speakers. Mission and B&W - got a great deal on both pair and they blow any pro-sumer monitors out of the water.

I live in rented apartments so I do not get much chance to treat my listening environment properly

that said, I am all about the near field monitors - smaller ones that you have right next to you so that you do not need the room. Sounds like people are happy with the alesis take on nearfields.

some of the krk stuff is truly awesome from what I have heard. The higher end ones can blow your head off.

I still want to get a regular pair of speakers, like the Alesis monitor one so that I can use them as a reference.

papertiger wrote:
anyway, crix -- i'd love to get that woofer, but i can't drop that much cash on something that's supposed to be a hobby.
ahem... how much did your MnM and MD run again? did you get a special deal or something? int:

no, I had a hard time justifying spending even the $400 that my monitors were when I bought them. now, things have changed financially since then but I think more importantly for me, I've developed more as an "artist" - I have a sound, a style and I actually complete songs pretty often (I didn't when I bought the monitors). mainly, since I'm completing things often, upgrading to a very nice set of monitors makes perfect sense to me. even though it is still just a hobby.

point being - it might not make sense to you now to have excellent speakers, but it likely will someday.