Bigger monitors for DAW

[Todd R]

I monitor from my QU-16 to Stereo Monitors and a Mono monitor and headphones. My TV/Monitor is set behind the Speakers so it has no effect on my speakers.

Ah, thanks, was just curious...

hmmm, ok, you kind of mean no appreciable effect for your purposes...because reflections
I suppose if it is wall hung...

[Microstudio]

Ah, thanks, was just curious...

hmmm, ok, you kind of mean no appreciable effect for your purposes...because reflections
I suppose if it is wall hung...

Yes the Monitor hangs on the wall and the speakers are in front of it a couple of feet.

[Dave Labrecque]

Yes the Monitor hangs on the wall and the speakers are in front of it a couple of feet.

Devil's advocate: as we all know, a hard, flat surface behind speakers will cause more comb filtering (primarily lower freqs) at the mix position due to reflections of sound coming from the rear of the speakers. I guess if the monitor is elevated, though, that would be a mitigating factor.

I'm just starting to learn a bunch of this (audio) monitor placement stuff as I begin to anticipate my attic studio build. It's not pretty. How anyone gets decent listening/mixing out of medium-to-small spaces is a bit of a mystery to me at this point.

[Microstudio]

Devil's advocate: as we all know, a hard, flat surface behind speakers will cause more comb filtering (primarily lower freqs) at the mix position due to reflections of sound coming from the rear of the speakers. I guess if the monitor is elevated, though, that would be a mitigating factor.

I'm just starting to learn a bunch of this (audio) monitor placement stuff as I begin to anticipate my attic studio build. It's not pretty. How anyone gets decent listening/mixing out of medium-to-small spaces is a bit of a mystery to me at this point.

Sound treatment behind the speakers is a well known must do and I have done that.

[jmh]

Devil's advocate: as we all know, a hard, flat surface behind speakers will cause more comb filtering (primarily lower freqs) at the mix position due to reflections of sound coming from the rear of the speakers. I guess if the monitor is elevated, though, that would be a mitigating factor.

I think Micro already had a wall back there. If his display is a couple of inches thick, it is possible that it is not significantly different to a 10' 100Hz wave that otherwise would have been bouncing off the wall. A 3" step between the wall and display may be more of an issue when you get toward 2k (with ~6" wavelength) - but higher frequencies are more directional, so the volume of possible reflections might be significantly lower?

[Todd R]

I'm gonna say this acoustic treatment discussion is absolutely relevant to the large display discussion.

If you look at my pic, I really have not done any treatments beyond a couple absorbing panels behind speakers

when I first moved into this room, low end was very enhanced
nowadays I/we don't hear it

I have other audio gremlins

so, directionally speaking, yes...there is one "good" position in my current space
a visual monitor on the wall would be unworkable with my vision

bass traps are very much needed in here...and I really don't intend to install them at this point

frankly, if I can work "comfortably", that is the current goal

I'll have to get my understanding to the translation of my mixes, cuz I'm mixing a film that is due to be played in festivals and cinemas later this year
(same one I been working on for about 5 years)

maybe I can enlist you guys to give me some feedback once I get closer to a shareable product?

I too have building a studio space on the docket starting this year...
demoing the barn ruin at this time and a new building being planned

house and studio (critical listening room and live room (will probably double as a library))

[Microstudio]

It's really not that difficult. Speakers out front of the monitor and of course bass traps behind the speakers and the speakers are facing to you, the sweet spot, and that means the rear of the speakers are facing away from the monitor. Also it's not how perfect your setup is but rather how well you know your room and speakers.

[John Ludlow]

maybe I can enlist you guys to give me some feedback once I get closer to a shareable product?

If you want an objective idea of where your mixing position is at now, here is something you can do that should only take a few minutes. Ideally, what you listen to at your mixing position is the same as what it was sonically before it hit your speakers. So...

Obtain a copy of Voxengo Span (frequency analyzer VST). It's free. Install it in SAW. Obtain a recording of pink noise. Load it into track one in SAW. Position your flattest, directional, mic (preferably a reference mic...) at your mixing position at ear level. Setup a record-while-play on track 2 with that mic as input. Open an instantiation of Span on the output of track 1. Open an instantiation of Span on the input of track 2. Arrange the two Spans such that you can see them both on your screen and cause them both to be 'smoothed' to 1/3 octave. Pan track 1 completely to one side or the other. Point the mic at that speaker.

Sit behind the mic and play track 1 while you 'listen' on track 2. The Span from track 1 will display the pink before your speaker and room modified the sound. The Span from track 2 will display what the mic actually heard from where you make mixing decisions - including the interference from your body. The difference between the two is what your speaker and the room did to it in the meantime. The advantage of using pink is that it outputs all frequencies at once. So the result in Span is mostly stable over time on both output and input. You can even alt-prnt-scn that and paste it into Paint for future reference.

This will tell you where you are starting from. You can use the same process later to judge the result of your room 'fixes'. Ideally, you will end up with the two looking identical (although they'll never actually get completely there). You can even do it in realtime as you place absorption around.

[Dave Labrecque]

Cool. Sounds exciting, Todd.

When we bought our current house back in 2012 (1875 colonial/farmhouse), it was a total gut-and-renovate. As soon as we got the interior walls pulled down in preparation for insulation, I ran 16 tie line pairs and two CAT6 lines from the attic to all three lower floors (basement, ground floor, second floor). I think I'd read an article in Mix years before about the Chili Peppers or some band renting a big house and running snakes to all the rooms for tracking an album. I thought that was a cool approach for isolation and, depending on the size of the rooms, acoustics. Of course, the band-in-a-room jam vibe would be absent. So, the plan is to have an input panel on a wall on each floor, running cables to various rooms and placing musicians as may be needed, depending on the project. Headphone monitoring via either an old Furman twisted-pair system I have or maybe a more up-to-date system. The control room/main room will be, I think, an open-plan deal in the attic, which isn't huge. We'll see.

After years of renovation to this old house, my wife is finally letting me get to the attic. This year sometime. Maybe. I hope.

[jmh]

I ran 16 tie line pairs and two CAT6 lines from the attic to all three lower floors (basement, ground floor, second floor).

CAT6, that's it?

The school system I work at has been getting Alan & Heath SQ series mixers. One of the other network admin ordered cat8 to use as our digital-snake which lets you deploy another 16 mic ins (plus a couple stereo line) and a bunch of outs in a remote box. The cat-8 has more strict twist specifications with each pair having a foil shield in addition to a shield for the whole bundle on the theory that it reduces the chance of needing re-transmits. His point is good as one install had to go through the fan room with a bunch of motors in addition to the usual florescent ballasts...

For those who want to know this is done on standard ethernet (but I don't know how devices discover... I'm pretty sure the devices need to be on the same segment and will probably wireshark it to find out). Coincidentally, I just set up a switch to bounce this signal though it yesterday, just set both ports to the same unique vlan, and turned PoE off.

The school plays are mixed by an elementary school teacher. I tried to warn of the digital mixers not being a great match for the casual user - but I am confident that the dSnake will work.

On a side note, I'm wondering of the cat8 could be used for 4 xlr mic cable? The individual pair shields are not terminated and I don't know if they are grounded to or insulated from the main shield (which is terminated) - and if it matters. Maybe I'll look online to see if xlr breakout boxes exist - and they probably do - it would be kind of handy to have a cat6 (they use a shield - or is it 6a?) serve as a quick audio snake.

EDIT: of course there is:
https://www.lyxpro.com/products/lyxpro-4-channel-xlr-male-and-female-to-rj45-ethercon

...maybe more crosstalk than a real snake? Then again, that is one of the things the twists are about...