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Selecting the right reference monitors and setting them up correctly in your

mixing environment is one of the most critical elements in creating mixes that will

translate to any speaker system. Just about anyone who has ever mixed a record

has experienced the frustration of getting a mix that sounds amazing in their mixing

environment, only to pop it onto their car stereo and wonder in confusion, “Hey!

Where did the lead guitar go?” The likely culprit is their studio setup. PreSonus has

put together this brief tutorial to help you pick out the best studio monitors for your

budget and set them up in your mixing environment so that you get the best results.

Next to your ears, your studio monitors are the most important part of your studio.

Investing in a high-quality studio monitors will make mixing easier and less fatiguing

and will help you to become a better engineer. Fortunately, a good monitoring setup

is possible on any budget.

High-quality studio monitors accurately reproduce frequencies across the audio

spectrum. Why is a ﬂat frequency response important? Mixing on speakers that

don’t provide an accurate frequency response is like trying to drive a car with a very

dirty windshield. Colors will have the wrong hue, details in the landscape won’t be

visible, and blind spots will be exaggerated. A ﬂat frequency response helps you to

more accurately hear what has been recorded.

In the past, many aordable reference monitors were designed to make

music more pleasant to listen to, which meant that they boosted or cut certain

frequencies for a more ﬂattering aesthetic result. The good news is that there are

now many aordable options that provide a ﬂat frequency response.

A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors

Selecting the Right Speaker 2

Speaker Basics 3

The Sweet Spot: How Wide is Wide? 5

Selecting Subwoofers 6

Positioning Your Full-Range Monitors 6

Calibrating Full-Range Monitors 9

Calibrating Using 85 dB SPL “Standard” Reference 9

Room Acoustics 11

Mitigating Room Problems 12

Adding a Subwoofer 13

Calibrating Subwoofer Level 14

Setting The Crossover Transition 15

Summary of content (18 pages)

PAGE 1
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Selecting the Right Speaker 2 Speaker Basics 3 The Sweet Spot: How Wide is Wide? 5 Selecting Subwoofers 6 Positioning Your Full-Range Monitors 6 Calibrating Full-Range Monitors 9 Calibrating Using 85 dB SPL “Standard” Reference 9 Room Acoustics 11 Mitigating Room Problems 12 Adding a Subwoofer 13 Calibrating Subwoofer Level 14 Setting The Crossover Transition 15 Selecting the right reference monitors and setting them up correctly in you
PAGE 2
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Selecting the Right Speaker The first big consideration when selecting studio monitors is your mixing environment. Unfortunately, for many project-studio owners, this can’t be easily changed. How big is your room? If you’re mixing in a small room, a studio monitor with an eight-inch woofer might overpower the space. On the flip side, if you’re mixing in a large room, you’ll want a bigger speaker so you can run your monitor system more efficiently.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Speaker Basics 2 You should familiarize yourself with a few terms before going studio-monitor shopping. These will help you to better understand what type of speaker will best suit your needs. Driver. The driver is the part of the speaker that produces sound waves. The better the quality of the driver, the better it will reproduce sound waves and take the wear and tear a busy mix engineer can dish out. High-frequency driver or “tweeter.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Active vs. Passive. Active studio monitors have onboard power amplification that has been designed to optimally power the drivers. This takes the guesswork out of choosing the right speaker/amp combination, because engineering teams have ensured an ideal match. Passive studio monitors do not have an onboard amp and require external power. Some monitors, like the Eris E3.5 and E4.5 media reference monitors, have the power amps for both speakers in one cabinet.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors One Pair or Two? The Sweet Spot: How Wide is Wide? As mentioned earlier, listening to your mix on multiple pairs of reference monitors can provide new insights into your mix by giving you a different perspective. If you’ve decided to purchase another set of stereo monitors, choose speakers that are different enough from each other to get the result you desire.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Some subwoofers, like both the PreSonus Temblor T10 and T8, provide an onboard variable lowpass filter. This allows you to fine tune the crossover transition between your full-range system and your subwoofer, ensuring a more even frequency response. If your studio subwoofer does not provide this feature, you should consider purchasing an external crossover for this purpose. you, causing phase cancellation and other potentially harmful acoustic interactions.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors This is also true for MTM monitors like the Eris E44 and E66 when placed vertically. That is, they should form a mirror image of each other, with the tweeters on the outside. Whether or not the manufacturer recommends horizontal or vertical placement, you should always feel free to experiment. You may find that you prefer the way a different orientation sounds in your space, even if it’s not the one the manufacturer recommends.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Use the tools your monitors give you to overcome problems in your room. Ideally, your mix space should be large enough to allow you to set up your listening position well away from walls and corners. But this is not always possible, especially if your mix environment also doubles as a bedroom, den, or family room. Luckily, some studio monitors, like all PreSonus full-range studio monitors, provide onboard controls to help mitigate this.
PAGE 9
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors The main purpose of speaker calibration is to ensure that a specific metered audio level in your DAW or on your mixer equals a predetermined SPL in your studio environment.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors system also includes a subwoofer, you will find continued calibration instructions the section “Calibrating Subwoofer Level.” 1. Connect the main outputs of your audio source to your studio monitors. The left output should be connected to the speaker on your left. The right output should be connected to the speaker on your right. 2. Begin by turning the input sensitivity of your studio monitors to the lowest setting. 5.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors 7. Power down your left speaker. DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED IN BATON ROUGE, LA, USA • MANUFACTURED IN CHINA • PATENTS PENDING “Sceptre” and “CoActual” IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF PRESONUS AUDIO ELECTRONICS room acoustics, even with proper speaker placement, can interfere with achieving the highest fidelity your monitoring system can provide. SERIAL NUMBER For example, if your room exaggerates high-frequencies, your mixes will lack life and feel flat elsewhere.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors much, the bass response is going to be much more powerful than if you’re in a room where the walls are normal sheet rock construction and the floors are hardwood. Reflectivity. Another way a room interacts with sound waves is through reflectivity. Like most room anomalies, reflections can be good and bad. Consider the effect of a cathedral’s reflections on a choir or a piano. This type of reverberation (reverb) is quite desirable for recording but not so much for mixing.
PAGE 13
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Diffusion. In general, rooms that are 10 x 10 feet or less will get great results with some combination of absorption material. If you are mixing in a larger space, you might want to add some diffusers to deaden it. Sound-wave diffusers are designed to break up standing waves by reflecting the waves at different angles. These panels can be mounted to the wall or ceiling as necessary and can get rid of “flutter echo.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors same plane (ideal) same half of room (acceptable) In general, you will want to avoid placing your subwoofer too near to reflective surfaces, like a wall or in a corner, as this will exaggerate the bass energy and make your monitor system sound “boomy.” But every room is different, and some subwoofers perform just fine near a wall, so use your ears rather than your eyes.
PAGE 15
A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors 6. Turn your full-range monitors back on, play program music with a lot of bass in it through your new 2.1 system, and experiment with the polarity switch on your subwoofer to see which position provides the best bass response at your mix position. Leave the polarity switch in the position that provided the loudest bass response. This means that your subwoofer is in phase with your fullrange system.
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors Eris E5 Eris E5XT ® Eris E44 Eris E66 ® ® Applications General mixing and production General mixing and production General mixing and production General mixing and production, Soundtrack, Sound design, Center channel, Post-production General mixing and production, Soundtrack, Sound design, Center channel, Post-production Unique Benefits Compact design, Great for small spaces, Transparent audio Compact design, Great for small spaces, Transparent audio, Wave
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors R65 R80 Sceptre S6 Sceptre S8 ® Temblor T8 ® ® Temblor T10 ® Applications General Mixing and production High-resolution audio, Soundtrack, Sound design, Mastering General Mixing and production High-resolution audio, Soundtrack, Sound design, Mastering General mixing and production, High-resolution audio Soundtrack, Sound design, Surround sound, Post-production, Mastering General mixing and production, High-resolution audio Soundtrack, Sound design, Surround
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A Brief Tutorial on Studio Monitors PreSonus Monitoring Products: Sceptre-series CoActual® 2-way Studio Monitors (S6 and S8) R-series AMT Studio Monitors (R65 and R80) Eris-series MTM Studio Monitors (E44 and E66) Eris-series Eliptical Wave Guide Studio Monitors (E5XT and E8XT) Eris E5 2-way Active Studio Monitors Eris-series Media Reference Monitors (E3.5 and E4.