thawkins

OK got my BM15A's now and eagerly listening to some of my favorite bassy tracks, and I think something's messed up with my setup. What happens is this - in this clip around 4-5 minute mark there is this cinematic bassy sound. First I heard the left bass driver make a sort of crackle, then I remember thinking "oh damn now I have to replace it", but after jiggling some cables (frankly I do not remember what I actually did), the crackle's moved to the right bass driver. It's definitely related to bass freqs because I can trigger the same effect with another similar track. I have my laptop hooked up to MOTU Track16, with balanced XLRs nicely going to the speakers. This setup used to work nicely with Yamaha HS8-s, so I wonder what's wrong here. Maybe this is just somehow related to my cable nest being a huge mess and it will go away once I find the time to finally neatly organize everything? Edit: these are used monitors and have had the shop tech go over them just a couple of days ago, so it should not be a matter of "breaking them in" or another technical issue.

Current GAS status: laptop in for repairs - using my trusty 2009 mbp messed up and broke the left driver on my Beyerdynamic DT-770s; need to order a replacement now but why bother fixing the part when it's probably worth it to just get a new pair? been without speakers/monitors for 2 months now, hopefully UPS guy will not leave me hanging tomorrow

I cannot fuckin believe it - I open the lid of my laptop yesterday and out of nowhere there is a fan making noise. It has literally been a month since I had to replace the screen a second time in 2 years because the backlight broke out of the blue. My last macbook pro was and still is a tank and lasted for 10 years with no issue, not sure what the fuck is wrong with the modern ones, and I took that one out to DJ and mess around more than I took this one anywhere. I don't like being the one mac dude who keeps talking about his repairs but this is getting ridiculous now.

Here's this week's jam cut down to size. Not very krautrock this time, I call it vaporwave instead. https://streak.club/p/35688/sun-1-sep-by-thawkins

I am not sure if I want to drop 500 EUR more on the monitoring setup but probably will consider this in the future as the speakers I feel ought to be a quality piece of the whole setup. The sound can come from a $5 beat up kids toy put through a free VST for all I care. ?

Yeah I remember reading about this somewhere (here?) and I want to give this a shot. I just hope I don't need to buy a fancy measurement microphone for that. It's this thing right? https://www.sonarworks.com/reference

Not yet, and I am not sure if it can be treated much at all. But I am looking in to what to do and this time I almost have a dedicated music room so it may be possible to throw up a bunch of damping things.

I think I can too, but I feel it's like a tradeoff: you can make good stuff on cheap speakers, but then you need to work harder and spend more time to listen how the result sounds on other systems (especially large PA ones which you do not really get to experiment on too often). Currently I am at a time in my life where I have more money than time to invest in getting to know my speakers, and I want to start taking my music out to be played on gigs so I am going a different route. I am going to assume that if I get good monitors and listen to music that I like, and then make my own stuff so that it sort of "fits" in compared to my inspirations, then I can be confident that whenever I get the chance to play my stuff on a larger PA, it will sort of still sound like it should in my mind's eye.

Thanks! Glad you like it! I have been on this streak of italo/minimalwave/krautrock for a long long time now. Trying to take bits and pieces from other music styles I like and just go with it and see where I end up. I think I sort of try to avoid going full 70s retro lo-fi sound because I feel that was just the sound for that time and place and going for that sound will only be a good "replica" at best. Besides I have always felt I can't afford all that fancy analog vintage gear. Now working on getting new monitors because I have been mixing everything on headphones for the last few months and it's not good at all.

Funky junk has used BM15A for what seems to be 1300 EUR. I think this is a sign. I hope it's not a case of the things being broken in some weird messed up way. I already have my laptop that I go spend $$$ on crap breaking every year...

Finished this week's edition - a weird attempt at italo disco/post punk. I guess in the end it's more of a standard electro banger track (except I don't know how to mix one properly). https://streak.club/p/35640/sun-25-aug-by-thawkins

This is such an alien thought for me because who the hell would lend a person like me a pair of 3k eur speakers. I have almost always bought my gear with the assumption that I will make it work for me somehow. I had the HS8-s precisely because it's "close" to NS-10 and they are popular on Thomann. Stepping up from that I figured I just have to get - like @xox pointed out - something-anything at that price point and it will be good enough for me.

I notice the BM-15A is described as a near-mid field monitor and the Amphions are only near-field. I guess this means that I should prefer the Dynaudio if it turns out that my listening spot is not close enough. I am pretty sure I will use the monitors for general purpose everyday listening as well so near-mid makes more sense.

That's nice to hear, except now I get the frets because I am just a dude who makes fart noises at home, nobody's paying me and I am afraid all these nice monitors will be wasted on me because I will forever fail to actually know the real quality of the things. On the other hand my significant other told me the Neumanns look like crap so now I am deciding between really seriously blowing $$$ on the Amphions and BM15A. And it actually seems it is possible to exploit Brexit and get stuff for relatively cheaps from UK. ?

You do dub and bassy stuff with the BM15A, right? Going to keep this in mind... ?

Thanks for the infos. I definitely want to upgrade from the HS8 so they are more like a fallback if I do not find anything better. I get that the BM15A are huge but that just makes me want them more. I can't shake the feeling that small speakers can not do bass well which is probably more a psychological thing that I have. Some guy on GS mentioned that Bob Katz said BM15A are the smallest speakers you can accurately hear bass on without a sub, so that is a big endorsement, right? Too bad that the Funkyjunk shop here has neither HS8 or the Dynaudio so it is not really possible to go and compare.

Thanks! I am mostly on Ableton Live with some external synths for sounds. For the past few months all my stuff has been in a container somewhere as I moved countries, so it is mostly Live + Push and some keyboard parts from Akai MPK Mini. By the way, I listened to some of your stuff too on Soundcloud, I remember 4p0ll0 being good. ?

I am finally moving into my new apartment this week so it's time to get my monitors. I have some savings so my budget is not super limited, but on the other hand I do not know if I can justify blowing significantly more than 1000 EUR on speakers if I probably can not do any serious acoustic treatment in my room anyway. Music is mostly for me having fun at home and releasing my stuff to the void of bandcamp/soundcloud so even though I wish it got a bit more "serious", I am not sure about piling a bunch of expensive pro equipment at home and eventually turning into an old dude with more gear than substance. Currently deciding between: Yamaha HS8 - I have been using these for the past 5-6 years and I guess they are good. I like that the driver is huge so I get my bass response without a sub. If all else fails I will just go get a pair and repeat to myself "if you know the speakers then it'll be good enough, no need to get high end stuff". Neumann KH120 - seems like a step up in terms of quality without getting into 1k EUR per speaker levels. I like that the sub ports are up in front so I don't have to worry so much about the speakers being close to the back wall. APS Klasik - same as the Neumanns except the sub ports. Also worried about it being a relatively random brand. Dynaudio BM15A - seems like a definite step up from HS8-s and they also have a nice big driver. The only issue is the price really. There seem to be some deals on Reverb though. ? Amphion One15 + Amp100 - same as above, except slightly worried about the bass response since the driver is not so big. Also reading the Gearslutz thread it seems a lot depends on placement and acoustic treatment (which applies to all monitors). Obviously this list excludes a lot of brands and otherwise good candidates, but I figured I had to start from somewhere.

Thanks you two for making my day. ?

TELECHARGER, or just check out this Tumblr for the most up to date tracks-videos-everything Quick links for just getting the good stuff without reading the thread: 2020 weekly: (also on weeklybeats: https://weeklybeats.com/music?s=thawkins&f=8&y=2020&r=3574) 2019 weekly: https://streak.club/u/thawkins 2018 weekly: https://weeklybeats.com/music?s=thawkins&f=8&y=2018&r=3574 --------------- I have managed to be on the weekly music train for a year and a half now and it's been really nice for generating ideas and keeping myself active musically even through turbulent real life times. Even though it's been good, recently I am feeling that my mixes and song structure needs a lot of improvement, so I figured if I post some stuff here I may luck out and get some feedback and who knows maybe some people will also like that stuff. Also now that I am based back in Europe if anyone wants me to come and twiddle knobs at their party, I'll gladly show up if the plane-train-whatever tickets aren't too much. Anyway, let's get this started with this week's instalment: https://streak.club/p/35552/tue-13-aug-by-thawkins This is basically another attempt (out of who knows how many) to try and marry krautrock and high-energy electronic music like dnb, 180 bpm hardtek, etc. As it says on the description, it's an old project laying around on my desktop which I cut and shaped together into a sort of mini-mix from a longer and more messed up jam session. I did not have any of the original hardware laying around, so it was a nice limitation to try and use the existing solos-loops to build something. (Also I have not had any monitors for the past 10 weeks roughly, so everything has been purely headphones which I am frankly sick of) I think the biggest bother I have with this one is that I keep overusing these dub delay effects to create an ambient hum and fill the stereo image. There's 2 delay busses and 1 huge ambient reverb buss (which is supposed to imitate a post rock style guitar vibe a la Strymon) and all of them have compressors on them which I think is making it a really difficult thing to mix, because most of the stuff goes through 1-2 busses and messes with each other as well (which creates a nice sound I guess) but practically it's hard to isolate and solo one element because they a) always sound nice on their own and b) things get fucky (but also really nice) with the interplay of two or more elements. Anyways I think practice makes perfect, got to get monitors ASAP and just soldier on with the weekly things etc. Feel free to check out past weekly stuff from the links in my sig.

Yeah I found those guys too. Will check out in the coming weeks once I get to move properly. Thanks!

Went to a shop today and whoa the KH120A are so small compared to Yamaha HS8. Do you also use a sub or is it enough just to have the Neumanns? There's got to be a shop in Paris that has the APS Klasik, Neumann KH120A and Yamaha HS8 for comparing, right?

I am about to move to a new apt next week, and I sold my Yamaha HS8's back in Japan because the voltages here in Europe are different. So now I guess I am also in the market for new monitors. Originally I was going to get the same old HS8's, because I have used HS80M and HS8 for the last 6 or so years and I hope I have gotten used to it. However in the new place there is a tiny glimmer of hope that I can get a dedicated music space and maybe some "better" monitors as well. Still not sure how far I can go with all this acoustic treatment stuff and also how much money I can justify spending on the actual monitors. The Dynaudio BM15A seem really nice but they are also like 6x the cost of the HS8 and I am just wondering whether I will even notice it significantly and if I have the opportunity to treat the room well enough to make it worthwhile. One thing I definitely know is that I want a fairly good bass response, but I am not going to get a subwoofer. Getting a sub sounds like planning for not so nice discussion with my neighbors and I really am not making bass heavy music anyway. I am used to checking bass on my headphones too. Also my laptop screen broke and I am due a cool 600 euro repair bill damnit.

I have been a couple of weeks without most of my gear and I am beginning to feel that I might not need it back...

Apparently there is a Rack SDK that has some kind of API that you can use for developing your own plugins. They even provide a getting started tutorial for this https://vcvrack.com/manual/PluginDevelopmentTutorial.html A while back I did check the source for the basic sequencer plugin and it seemed fairly readable and straightforward to mess with the code to add more steps, etc. As the tutorial says, I think it is a great way to learn some C++ and mess around. I just never got around to it... I admit that for C++ you can have some fairly high learning curve things going on if you make a slight mistake somewhere.