“If you're listening to amazing gear through terrible monitors, you've wasted your cash”: Why monitors are the most important part of your studio

Best studio monitors: Focal Listen 65 monitors set up on a studio desk

(Image credit: Future)

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What is monitoring?
What do I need to know?
Setting up monitors
10 key monitoring points
Further reading

You can spend a fortune on software instruments, hardware synthesisers, vintage guitars, high-end microphones and classic studio effects, but if you are listening to the whole lot mixed together through a rubbish set of studio monitors, all that cash will have been wasted.

While we've explored various other vital elements of a home studio, we've no qualms about stating that your studio monitors are its most important items. This article explains why that is, and what to look out for when choosing and setting up your studio speakers.

On a very broad level, monitoring your music is simply listening to it and analysing it for ways in which it can be improved. Think of it as 'next level listening' as you'll need to hear your music in a very different way compared to listening to it purely on an 'enjoyment' level.

Monitoring your music is really about getting inside of a mix, hearing each component and how it contributes to the final mix (or not), the space the mix covers (either in a stereo field or surround sound) and the range of frequencies occupied by each instrument or voice.

You need to get the balance right for all of these component parts, so let's see how a decent set of monitors can help.

Monitors with MacBook — Even if you're mixing on a MacBook or laptop - don't scrimp on a decent listening set-up

What is monitoring?

Monitoring is fundamentally about hearing and absorbing a piece of music as a whole, and assessing whether it is balanced, dynamic, and powerful where it needs to be.

But it's also about breaking a tune down into its different parts and mastering how to use your monitors to correctly adjust volume, pan and EQ.

Firstly you need to listen to your instrument and vocal levels to make sure that none are too loud and overpowering, or others not contributing to the mix.

This will then feedback to the mixing process - see this Start Here for more on that - where you can adjust track levels accordingly. While doing this, make a note of the dynamic range of your music, can you hear the quiet parts, or are the loud parts too extreme?

Next up you want to use your monitors to check the stereo (or surround) spread of your music.

A good set of monitors will 'display' your music across a wide stereo image so you can hear and place each track in this space for greater clarity and a wider, more interesting user listening experience. Again, you can go back to your mix and adjust your pan positions according to what your monitors reveal.

Finally, use your monitors to check EQ levels. A good set of monitors should translate the EQ information: the bass, mids and high frequencies of your mix back to you with accurate clarity so you can check that your low-end isn't too muddy, your mid-range vocals cut through the mix, and your high end frequencies are lively and vibrant.

If your bass is too heavy, for example, this will translate to your listener's playback system so correctly adjusting EQ in your mix is vital.

Two studio monitors on a pair of studio monitor stands — (Image credit: Future)

All of these factors - checking levels, space and EQ - rely on your monitors being accurate and honest, the most important consideration of the next phase of our monitoring guide.

What do I need to know about monitoring?

The first stage of successful monitoring is to buy a set of studio speakers that are accurate and designed for honest studio monitoring.

They need to convey your track's true stereo spread, levels and EQ in all of their glory so that you can mix accurately and your listener's will experience what you intend them to hear.

Good studio monitors will detail everything so that you can mix accordingly; bad ones might have a coloured bass, or other frequency issues.

If this is the case, for example, they might emphasise your bass frequencies - meaning you respond by pulling back the bass while mixing to compensate. This can result in a thin and 'bass light' playback on your listener's systems. Not good!

So how do you know if a monitor is accurate or not? One straightforward way is to audition monitors at your local dealer using music that you know well to check that it is translating your favourite tunes accurately.

If this is not practical, you can use many of MusicRadar's buyer's guides to monitors. In which, we pick the best speakers for you across a variety of budget ranges. We've got the best budget studio monitors here, the best for under $/£500 here and the best overall can be read here

However, in order to check whether a set of monitors delivers a decent sound, you can also check its tech specs. The frequency range of a set of monitors (measure in Hz) determines which range of frequencies it plays back.

The human listening range is 20Hz to 20kHz so you'll want it to cover this, but don't be too disappointed if the stated level doesn't go right down to 20Hz.

Most studio monitors go down to 40Hz or thereabouts which is a very good response for most of us. At the high end, many go beyond 20kHz as even higher frequencies do make an impact on what we hear.

Basically the wider the stated response, the better your speakers.

Next check the response shape - if it is flat with a low variation in dB (this will be quoted as +-XdB where the lower the X the better) then that means there is little variation or 'colouring' in the response shape, so the bass levels won't be artificially boosted like in our example above.

Monitoring — A flat frequency responses like this one from a set of Eve Audio monitors delivers an accurate sound (Image credit: Eve Audio)

Setting up monitors

Once you have chosen a set of studio monitors it's time to set them up. We have a more detailed set up feature here, but the basic idea is to set them up in an equilateral triangle where the distance between the left and right larger bass cones is the same as the distance between the speakers and your head, while the tweeter (smaller cone) should be level with your ears.

Don't place your monitors too close to the back wall - you're looking at between 30cm and a meter away from the wall; don't go less than 10cm.

It's quite feasible to monitor your music on a decent set of headphones (see our feature here) and the same 'accuracy' considerations apply.

The bottom line is that whatever you choose - 'phones or speakers - they need to give you an honest appraisal of your music's mix so you can adjust it and your listener's hear your music exactly as you intended.

10 key monitoring points

1. It used to be that the more you spent on a set of studio monitors the more accurate they would be - great for perfect monitoring and mixing. However, over the last decade, studio monitoring technology has improved vastly so that you can buy great (and accurate) monitors for hundreds rather than thousands of dollars/pounds/euros. Check our guide for buying speakers on a budget.

2. Your room can impact on how well your studio monitors sound so it's likely that you'll need to make sure its acoustic is set up accurately – we have advice on doing this here. However, you can also work with a bad room by adjusting your monitors to compensate for it. When you set them up, you can adjust their position (see above) and EQ to make up for your room's inadequacies. It's therefore always good to play back your well known reference material through your speakers when you first set them up, and then adjust their EQ and position to play it back accurately.

3. Advances in any studio monitor technology also help with a room's acoustic problems. Many have frequency responses that are 'self adjusting' or 'self calibrating'. That means that they take a reading of your room (usually by way of a microphone recording the room response) and adjust their frequency response (maybe reducing the bass or increasing the treble ) to compensate for your room. This is not as complicated nor costly as it sounds, with cheaper monitors from IK Multimedia and KRKoffering the technology at the low price end, while Genelec delivers a high end version, which has refined it with its One range.

4. We touched on the bass (large) and treble (small) cones that play back those specific frequency ranges above. There is also a third mid-sized cone or driver that focuses on the middle frequency ranges. If you can afford a set of more expensive three-driver speakers that features this third driver then you will likely get a more accurate mid-range playback, but many 'two-way' speakers still offer a good 'crossover' response with just two bass and treble drivers.

5. Whatever speakers you choose, loud doesn't mean better. You should never monitor at high levels when mixing, mostly to save your ears but also to make sure your listeners can hear all the mix detail, even at lower volume levels.

6. If you produce bass-heavy music, where you need to get a good picture of low frequencies up to around 50-60Hz, it's possible that you'll need to add a subwoofer to your setup. Check the frequency response of your main set of speakers, and if they only go down to 60Hz, audition a sub to go with them which will fill in that low frequency gap. Subs aren't essential if you have a good set of main speakers but it very much depends on the genre of music you are mixing in.

7. It's a similar story with surround monitoring. If you are lucky enough to have projects where you are mixing in surround sound, you will likely need a speaker system, or array, that conveys all the 3D sonic information, although some headphones can deliver a good surround 'binaural' response.

8. A surround system will typically be a 5.1 system with five standard speakers (three at the front, two at the back, and a subwoofer). Obviously the cost increases but one important factor is that they speakers are all matched (the same) for a more accurate response. Surround monitoring is therefore more expensive so we'd recommend mastering a standard stereo (2.1) system before immersing yourself in surround sound.

Four studio monitors mounted above a large mixing desk — (Image credit: Getty/Andras Polonyi/EyeEm)

9. Using standard hi-fi speakers is not usually a good idea for studio monitoring as hi-fi speakers are often coloured to make the music sound artificially better. Small hi-fi speakers in particular might have bass enhancement to make up for their size, in which case you will hear more bass when you mix with them, resulting in that weedy mix translating to other systems.

10. Having two sets of reference monitors can also be a good idea: one relatively accurate set and one cheaper set with more of a 'hi-fi' response, the thinking being that if you can get your mix sounding good on both, you'll have all bases (and basses!) covered.