I have finally got hold of a pair of decent studio monitors. After a lot of research I went for KRK Rokit 5 G2′s. I was already very impressed with the KRK closed back KNS-6400 headphones so I figured the rave reviews about the monitors were likely to be correct. They were! I bought them second hand on eBay for a nice price too.
Flat response studio monitors are a pretty essential if you want to properly mix, EQ and master your music tracks.
I’m pleased to report that they do exactly what it says on the tin and the sound quality you put in is what you hear coming out of them.
Put a thin, reedy 64 or 128kbps radio audio stream in and you can instantly tell that’s what you’re listening to.
Conversely, put a nicely produced WAV of FLAC file through them and you hear every detail. Crucially you can hear whether there is too much bass or middle or whatever else might be wrong with your mix.
The power and detail of the sound is amazing. Despite what some people say the front firing bass ports really kick the sound out too. I think the low end spec is down to 53Hz but you can still feel sub bass and dub techno kick drums in your chest and ribcage which is great!
Here are a couple of Instagram pics of them standing on top of some old hi-fi speakers on my desk.
I can’t afford fancy stands or noise isolation foam at present so I’ve stood each one on three soft rubber pencil erasors which does improve the sound quite a lot surprisingly enough.
Anyway, armed with these lovely monitors and a beginners understanding of audio mastering I thought I’d try my hand at producing an hour long mix of ambient, electronic and dub techno music that I’ve particularly enjoyed recently.
You can listen to it in a new browser window on Mixcloud here > Ambient Mix #001
(I’m sorry but I can never get either of the Mixcloud widget embed codes to work on Word Press.
Incidentally if you’ve not seen the recently updated Mixcloud for iOS app you should give it a spin. Superb! It has jumped from clunky, frustrating and primitive to gorgeous and fully featured overnight.)
Track List & Approximate Times
01 – Am.Light – Memorium 00.00 to 08.10
02 – Advanced Dreams – Water (Am.Light Dub) 08.10 to 18.12
03 – Doyeq – Never Back 18.12 to 24.06
04 – Stray Theories – Find My Way 24.06 to 28.00
05 – Nikos F – Seasons & Circles (Original Mix) 28.00 to 34.52
06 – Advanced dreams – Monotone (Live) 34.52 to 42.04
07 – Tiny Leaves – Hope Awakening 42.04 to 46.10
08 – Stray Theories – Tomorrow 45.10 to 52.15
09 – Loscil (Feat Kelly Wyse) – Endless Falls 52.15 to 59.02
