The frequency response is one aspect of an Aurotone-type monitor. Typcally they should have a mid boost, however, simply placing a HP/LP filter on your own monitors will not turn them into Auratone souandalikes. Their main attribute is their time domain domain response, as a result of being sealed boxes, something you don’t find very often these days. Percussion spikes, effects tails etc. should be crystal clear.
Think of them as a mini pair of NS10s. If you get on well with NS10s, you’ll probably appreciate Aurotones and their clones.
Maybe tastes have changed, but a while back almost every studio had Auratones. Probably to see what music would sound like on AM radio. The one constant with them is that if it sounded reasonably good on the Auratones it would be fantastic on everything else, so they certainly serve a purpose.
I never really bought into this line of thought. A lot of guys say ‘since some big studios are doing it, it should work for me too’. But then that particular group of people deliberately chooses to ignore many things the bigger studios are doing that they can’t afford to, and dismiss other techniques (like making use of a proper room or using a real mixer). This is a sufficiency/necessity fallacy if you choose not to account for the many other variables that help make a mix on low end speakers translate well.
I’d be open to trying it though. I’ve never owned junk monitors that were intentionally made bad under the claim of ‘translating better’. I personally like mixing on the clearest monitors possible, then relying heavily on a decently treated room, and not having to worry too much about translation. I don’t see how or why a bad set of monitors in a good room would give you a better result than a stellar set of amazing monitors in the same good room, but I can’t really say I know without having messed with it.
I still use the car stereo and macbook speaker test, but only ever to check translation at the very very end. Never to actually mix on. That’s a whole different than someone doing their entire mix on a set of those things.
I don’t mean to pile on or anything, but I’m not convinced there’s much validity to this either. The way I see it (again, I’m coming at this from a hearsay perspective because I haven’t actually had a chance to really do it yet) is that gutting the lows and highs (and maybe even the stereo image) forces you to focus more on the arrangement, which is arguably where the most important mix decisions take place. With good monitors, I can hear the vocals pretty clearly even if there’s a million other things going on. On crappier speakers, it all turns to mush, and forces me to go back and say “maybe that 3rd piano is a bit much.”
So I view it more as an arrangement tool than a mixing tool, but since arrangement is one of the more important aspects when it comes to mixing, by association it becomes a good mixing tool.
Again, all hearsay. I may find it to be absolutely dumb. I may love it. I have no real opinion on the matter yet.
So I view it more as an arrangement tool than a mixing tool, but since arrangement is one of the more important aspects when it comes to mixing, by association it becomes a good mixing tool.
I didn’t mean to imply they were used as the main monitors for mixing purposes. In my experience they were used mainly to listen to tings at low level, more as a break from the main monitor system, and often in mono to see where the voice was sitting in the mix. I’m pretty sure if you used them for full range mixing you would be obliterated by the low end when you switched to the main monitors.
@bozmillar, I completely forgot about this! When I was rummaging through google photos to pull that picture for @Calebz in the other thread, I had totally forgotten that I’d used those mono price 5’s for a little midi setup.
I JUST can’t not remember for the life of me what those things sound like
I only had this config set up for 4 or 5 months. It was while I was scoring a theater show and I needed my assistant in line of site sitting across from me running the DAW while I ran Sibelius. We put the monitors on a switcher and toggled them back and forth.
Hi!
I have a pair of passive mixcubes.
To me the most difficult part is to learn them, I still fight.
However, those can really change the way I mix, but I do not use them all the time.
Surprisingly, the best results I’ve had with the cubes so far were with mastering.
I thing there is a great way to use them effectively, but I am still searching.
