thawkins

Yeah I am thinking about it definitely. I am also wondering what are the chances of messing my bass frequencies up by setting it up incorrectly though... ?

I think I care about the informational content as well as the sound, meaning that I want to hear that the bass is playing an A1 (which is information) and I want it to not sound weak compared to the rest of the bassline (which is more down to feeling and sound). I wrote that earlier post while at work, then as I came home I listened to the exact same mixtape as I did in the office, and I got to say I was very happy with how all the bass solos sounded on both the Sennheiser HD280 and on the KH120s. Of course that was from Soundcloud but what mattered more to me is that both times I enjoyed listening to it - never felt that anything was missing frequency wise.

Thinking of getting a Neumann KH 750 DSP sub to fix all the bottom end issues I keep complaining about in this thread. I wonder if this is a dumb decision or not? https://www.thomann.de/intl/neumann_kh_750_dsp.htm Gearslutz seem to be mostly concerned with the lack of app/manual, both of which now exist. https://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/1258394-neumann-kh-750-read-before-you-buy.html Looking back on the BM15A, the lowest their spec goes is 40Hz, which is 12Hz less than the KH120's 42Hz, or approx the notes E1 - G#1. This is a really silly 4 semitone difference which makes me think that if I am seeing such a huge difference between, it means that the BM15A must have boosted the low end considerably. In any case it seems that getting the sub will resolve all bottom end issues once and for all.............. if I manage to set it up correctly and put bass traps properly. Free lunches don't exist, it can't be just a plug and play deal. ?

Ooh should do the update...

Damn, the bigger Neumanns look good. So good in fact that I keep thinking about "what if the KH120A but with no more worrying about bass", which is not good for GAS or mental health. Thanks to you guys advice in the studio pics thread I now put my stuff in an equilateral triangle and re-did the calibration thing... and my first impression's not so good. I feel I liked the wider stereo image even though that is probably psychoacoustic bullshit I just liked to believe in, and the rearranging also destroyed my carefully set up desk feng shui. I think the main reason I might still not be 100% decided to keep the KH120 is that I find a lot of my favorite stuff not so well sounding, especially in the low end department. I guess it's fair to say that maybe some of that material is not particularly well mixed/mastered either though.. Because I do notice that when listening to more mainstream label stuff, it does sound way better and more in place. Let's see how it feels next week... I probably did a lot of my listening this week in feeling tired and aggravated at various things so that may color my impression of the speakers. ?

Some half finished piano loops... https://streak.club/p/36096/fri-18-oct-by-thawkins

That might be possible, although for now I feel the editing is insane menu diving. And I usually use the thing in the performance mode, where (I think) it's not really possible edit individual parts/patches in depth. Also I think the main rotary selector knob got dinged in transit when moving back to Europe. ? I want to figure out a good rack enclosure thing for my desk so I can have the XV-5080 and MS2000R set up in a more accessible and hands-on way. I had some time yesterday to move my speakers in a better position but that absolutely destroys how I had the other stuff set up on the table. Time to start up the DIY I guess.

I am still exploring it, but it's got a lot of amazing sounds and capabilities. I mostly care about presets, especially real instrument modeling like organs, rhodes, vibes, etc. I think it's a good piece of kit.. sometime in the future maybe I will bother getting some librarian/sound editor to go with it.

Roland XV-5080.

That's a KORG MicroX. I have it on a IKEA tablet stand because I mostly use it as an external sound module. I like that it's basically like a MicroKORG but way more powerful (no vocoder though). Yeah I guess you have a point. The picture is may be a bit deceptive though - that table is around 1m in depth and the listening spot is at around 140cm from each monitor.

Ok so the ideal positioning is the 22.5 or 30 degrees like in the manual? I swear I read the positioning page for 4-5 times and there is no mention about whether it is a good idea to aim for any positioning or not. You might have a point though - I do feel that sometimes the stereo image is kind of wiiiide.

OK, let me drop a small teaser life hack until I get around writing the next episode. The life hack is (loudness warriors hate this) - when testing out your mighty pro audio rig after you have just spent half an hour carefully doing the measurements for your 21st century clever room correction software... do fucking remember to turn off the automatic gain correction crap in your free DJing software so that you don't spend the next day wondering why some tracks sound really quiet and weird.

I spent some very frustrating hours this weekend dealing with the cable hell. I hope these monitors work out well because the rest of the setup is pretty neat, and in history we all know neat setups are great for making music and you never ever end up just listening to crap on youtube and procrastinating. Nope, never.

You can satisfy the first criteria by getting rid of some pieces of gear. ? No need to bother yourself, I'll see myself out...

I get your point about flattering and giving a good accurate representation. I think currently I am a bit unsure about whether I am happy how the music I like sounds on them. It's because I feel a large part of my thing depends on me listening to a lot of music on the same system that I use to produce, so I feel it's kind of important to like the sound for everyday listening, even though it may not be analytically good or revealing. Not sure if I had this with the Dynaudios either though. On the other hand I did some test listening with the ARC system yesterday, and I think it sounds ok. As you said it's a 2-3 month process to get used to things so it's probably too early to tell...

So I got the Neumann KH120A a week ago. They are surprisingly small, sturdy and metal. No technical issues so far, which is nice (and what I would expect from a quality german brand ? ). I also like that they are small and compact, I can now have loads of room on my desk to arrange all the other gear nicely. The sound is not as nice as it was with the Dynaudio BM15A, at least I don't feel the same kind of nice vibes when I listen to music. I think this is due to my room being fucked up and also that the Neumanns not having the bottom end the BM15A had. That said, some songs are really nice to listen to on the monitors, especially old school stuff like Fleetwood Mac (Dreams was jaw droppingly good), Miles Davis, which are not mixed to depend on a massive sub woofer anyway. I think in general the lack of bottom end really does not bother me mostly, at least not when I am not really making any club bangers that absolutely demand this. Listening to some of my fave hard banger tracks though I got to say that they fail to deliver the punch. A. Mochi, Funktion, Katharsys .. no way I could make stuff like this at home and be into it. Yeah I could drop a cool 2,5k EUR into getting the Neumann sub too, but I that will absolutely blow the budget - might as well get the Amphion at that stage. All above said, this is without applying the IK ARC correction system which I plan to set up properly tonight. It's probably going to be a pain to set it up so that I can listen to regular audio with the room correction stuff going on, because the thing only works in a VST host, which means there is going to have to be a dedicated Reaper instance going at all times. Ps feel free to tell me to fuck off if this thread is becoming too much of "one guy livejournaling all his bad monitoring decisions".

Here's another krautrock type thing. I think it's got way too many conflicting elements or something's way off with the mix. Will have to do better in the future. https://streak.club/p/36055/sun-13-oct-by-thawkins

The good folks have uploaded a video of that last show:

Nice sci-fi vibes. I hope to hear more parts in the future. ?

I would definitely love to. I am currently just trying to find some contacts and generally I don't say no if anyone invites me to play out somewhere, no matter if I have to pay for transportation to get there or not. So yeah, work in progress. Hopefully someday soon. ?

This week is a special treat - full live set that I played yesterday. https://streak.club/p/35932/sat-28-sep-by-thawkins

Just wanted to say big thanks to everyone here who recommended Sennheiser HD280 Pro - I got an used pair for work a couple of months ago and only yesterday had a mix session with them as my Beyerdynamics are a bit broken. Really nice sound - I'm happy with them. ?

Put the BM15As in the strong hands of the UPS now - hopefully they will get back to London without too much issue. While packing them I noticed some screws on the back were loose enough to tighten with bare fingers. That and they did not come in original packaging so now I am thinking that most of these issues are probably due to shoddy packaging and damage in transit. Anyways now the wait is on to get the money back so I can order the new ones. ?

Had a close encounter with the Neumann KH120 yesterday. I guess it is true that they don't look so ugly in person, but they are still unbelievably small and this makes me struggle with my preconceived notions of "how speakers should be". However, I got the chance to do some listening (even though the room was a huge mess of noise and reverb and there were people talking etc) and at least Alice Coltrane's Journey In Satchidananda sounded totally alright. Found this bundle on Thomann https://www.thomann.de/gb/neumann_kh_120_room_correction_bundle.htm Wondering what you guys thinkg of this fancy new-fangled IK Multimedia ARC System 2.5? I am not expecting it to be perfect but probably it is way better than nothing at all.