Hi

I've started to work back on a new project that is kinda "entirely homemade"and on a budget, it's been a ton of years since the last one with those constraints.

I never had monitoring speakers in the past, but by multiplying crappy playback devices to check my mix, I could get ok result on most systems.

Nowadays, I did all the work on a pair of focal chorus 816v and a bit on hifiman sundara when I need "a lot of precision".

When I double check on an inexpensive pair of headphones, on laptop speakers, on smartphone speaker, the mix is kinda ok, not perfect, but totally acceptable most of the time "by default" when double checking.

Now, I'm considering maybe finally buying a dedicated pair of monitoring speakers. But my budget for this expense is still limited to up to 300€ for the pair for tons of reasons. But I feel like maybe it's not required as the focal speakers I use are quite truthfull imho, even tho they're meant for "audiophile hifi" usage, I know how other stuffs sound on them, same with the headphones, I use reference tracks from time to time, etc.

So, for that price, am I better using my current system and double checking my mixes against crappy playback devices like laptop speakers and smartphone, or for that 300€ price range, I'll still get a decent improvement in term of trust, even on a new pair of speakers I know nothing about and I have no experience with ?

Or, for that price, I have 6 track to mix for a total of 21 minutes, should I hire someone for that budget to maybe help a bit, and not take the "risk" ? 300€ will be short, but I could do and justify more efforts for that expense than buying gear.

Thank you in advance for your perspective and your help !

To be completely honest, I would say avoid spending on speakers for now. There are just so many factors at play when it comes to speakers besides the actual speakers themselves - the acoustics of your room, if those are taken care of then whether the ideal listening position in that room is even realistic or feasible for you to set up your system around that spot, and so on and so forth. And there's very few things worse than listening to speakers you don't know if you can quite trust, in a room which you don't know if you can quite trust. Your confidence in your decision making and mix translation will plummet, and so much of what we do as mixers and producers is about instinctive decision making and having the confidence to make those decisions without second-guessing everything.

I would much rather recommend, as you suggested, you hire someone to help you out with your mix instead - whether it be to actually mix your tracks for you or to just act as a mix 'consultant' to give you a fresh perspective and ideas on your process (it's got to be someone you trust and whose body of work you enjoy and respect). You'll learn a lot in the process, the mixes will probably come together a lot quicker, and you'll have fun.

Speakers are always something you can invest in down the line when you've got a slightly bigger budget for the speakers + a bunch of DIY acoustic treatment solutions. Till then, headphones that you trust and like working on will more than suffice. Just my 2c!

I think you would have to be out of your mind to think that a 300€ pair of speakers would be better to mix on than those! Why? Because they say "studio monitor" on the box? And the Focals say "hi-fi" on he box? Don't do it. 300€ doesn't buy a lot of speaker. Then again 300€ doesn't buy a lot of mixing, either.

IMO, there is way more to doing a great mix than "having the right speakers". If you are dissatisfied with your mixes, maybe "new speakers" is not the answer. Maybe an outside perspective would be worth pursuing. Six songs for 300€ is a big ask, but you could probably get one song for that, and if it blows you away, start saving your money.

Another idea would be to search out someone who uses the same software as you. Hire them to do a mix and send you the session files so you can open them up, study them and of course so you can tweak them further. I have a client that I work this way with. It was kind of pain for me to limit myself to only those plugins we have in common, but he was willing to go out and get some 3rd party plugs that I considered 'essential', and now we are both happy.

Wow. I don't know squat about the 'Focals -looked them up but didn't go further but.. $2 or $3k I guess a chance of being at least decent (read; usable..?)
So I'd say Joeq's sounding pretty spot on here.

@ keshavdhar thanks for the perspective, I agree for the room treatment, as I plan on doing it for listening to music, but as I might be going back to "homestudio production", might be worth it to consider it for that matter too. And didn't knew you could hire sound engineers as "consultant" for review (or at least, not for much cheaper than having the mix done), will get info about that in my region and what can be done, sounds interesting !

@ joeq thanks for the reality check, maybe I needed it. It's not that I don't like the current mixes, but I'm scared considering the infinite combination of setup that could be used to listen to them. It's more about I want to get it as good as possible on the broadest variety of systems, so I felt using speakers that are designed to be "harsh" on your mix and put problems more in front of you might gave me another perspective I could use (that's how I see studio monitor, opposed to hifi ones who want to focus on embellishing things and provide an incredible listening experience, but might be wrong about that). I would continue to use the speakers/headphones I have, my smartphone, laptop built in speakers etc. So it was more about "can that additional perspective, designed to be used that way, could significantly help me ?". But the problem is on me I think, it's a confidence issue, maybe I'm putting too much "pressure" on this project regarding my limited skillset, like getting to the point where it might never be "good enough", dunno. But thanks for little slap. I know a studio near me I've already worked with in the past, and 300€ for 6 tracks and quality work will be short indeed, but I know they could do most of the work for a few hundreds more, while also having on-site review session etc and I could justify increasing the budget if it's to hire a dedicated experienced professional. So maybe that's the safest bet I should go along with.

EDIT: @ Wayne : thank you too, you answered while I was answering too haha But I got them second hand for a ~quarter of their MSRP at release. Doesn't change a lot, but might be worth mentionning when I start this post with "I'm on a budget" haha.

So yeah, thanks to both of you, I'll spare the speakers, and redirect those 300€ (with a few more imho) towards someone that will provide me the trust and confidence I'm lacking now.

Thanks !

To me, this is precisely where product like Slate vsx really shine…. It’s not just about monitors. If the room sucks and/or isn’t treated properly And you have very expensive monitors you’re starting so far behind the curve

the way I approach this concept is that these "harsh" speaker are an alternative. They are for checking my mix, not for mixing "on" them. I have a pair of main speakers that I have learned and I trust them and spend about 90% of my time mixing on them. The remaining 10% of my time is split between the 'junk' speakers, and two pairs of headphones. I might check in the car at the end, but I am not running back and forth to the car as I mix.

My 'alternative' speakers are Auratones, but every engineer has their own favorites for this purpose. One guy uses some little computer speakers, another person likes a particular clock radio, or a boom box or whatever. My takeaway is that it's useful to have a checking speaker but there's a wide variation of what that speaker can be.

I disagree with the implication that mixing needs to be "painful" to be effective. One saying is that "you can learn any speaker". Listen to well-made, well-mixed commercial records on your speakers and learn what good mixes sound like on that system in your space.

There are plugins that go on your master bus and let you load in a few reference songs so you can easily flip back and forth between your mix and a song in a similar genre mixed by some top mix engineer. This can help you get a centered feeling of what the balances should be.

in any case any 'studio monitor' you could purchase for 300 Euros going to be a step down from what you have, even if you think your hi-fi speakers are "too pretty" or something. Focal makes some well-regarded studio monitors, so I doubt your speakers are too far off the mark.

Of course additional perspectives are good - but you don't need to cover every base. You don't need a boom box and a clock radio and an Auratone. You don't need to listen in a Toyota, a Cadillac and a Ford F150. And again, just my opinion, but 'additional perspective' to me means occasionally flipping it on, listening for a bit to identify something, then going back to my real speakers to continue actually mixing.

The very elite mixers who are booked up day in and day out might not offer the consults as a service, but for many folks it's just another means of income, especially since it's just advice and suggestions they need to give which you aren't obligated to commit to. Also, you can be as specific as you like with what exactly you want to consult about (eg. there's a particular issue in your vocal mix that's bugging you and you don't know how to fix it, or a specific masking issue between two elements in your mix, or just the guitar tone, or something unpleasant in your snare, etc etc). Saves both you and them the trouble of having to critique everything.

I wasn't aware that it was a thing either until I started getting quite a few requests for this from self-producing+mixing artists who didn't want to reinvent the wheel with their mixes, they had the bulk of the vibes down and just wanted to finesse certain things and of course get a fresh perspective on their work. I charge much less for this than doing the actual mixes, and often I don't need to spend more than half an hour critically analysing a mix and making all my notes.

Good luck!

Take a look at the canton.de site for the things they sell direct. If nothing else, you might like something for the living room.

You can be an amazing mixer, but the only way to remove your ego from your work is to have someone else work on it. Getting new speakers will not solve that problem, you'll still be mixing your own music, which is hard mode. You can never give yourself a second opinion. This is why bigshots still go to mastering. Mastering isn't doing anything they couldn't do themselves, except removing their ego from the process. Anything mastering does would be something they had never even considered, otherwise they'd do it themselves.

It's not impossible to mix your own music, but I don't believe new speakers is going to really be the revelation a lot of people often think it is.

I couldn't possibly agree more. Even with 20 years of professional mixing experience behind me, when it comes to my own music I always hand it over to someone else to mix. It's the only way I can end up with something I actually enjoy listening to rather than ending up despising out of sheer frustration.

Thanks a lot for the interesting opinions, I get/request "fresh ears" over what I'm doing continuously, but indeed, I'm always the one filtering the feedbacks and correcting, will help to get someone involved indeed, and maybe release some pressure in delegating entirely that task to someone I trust, and indeed put myself aside of it.