The studio monitors you get should offer you the best representation of your sound. Whether you’re recording, mixing, editing, or mastering your audio, good monitors will play a big role in ensuring that you get the perfect sound that will project well on different mediums as people listen to it.
Distorted sounds boil down to a poor choice of monitors. To help you avoid this error, here are 4 tips to buying new studio monitors:
1. Determine Whether You Need Powered Or Unpowered Monitors
Powered studio monitors have their own in-built amplifier and don’t need an external one. These are the most convenient standard monitors that are highly preferred these days. These monitors are bi-amplified so each speaker has a dedicated power amp that’s aligned with its frequency, giving the speaker exceptional performance.
Unpowered studio monitors are the older version monitors. They need an external amplifier to function. The advantage they have is that they can crossover circuitry to split low and high frequency. They also have the provision for you to set-up multiple speaker arrangements.
Both of these monitors are great to work with and you can choose any of both depending on what your sound needs are.
2. Determine The Kind Of Production You’re Doing
When buying new studio monitors, it’s important that you determine the style of music you intend to record. Different music styles require different setups which then require specific monitor types to work with.
If you’ll be playing acoustic guitar and need to record yourself, then small near-field monitors will come in handy. If you’re recording hip hop or pop songs, subwoofer-assisted 2.1 system monitors will be a good pick. If you’re working with rock bands, 8” woofers will be ideal. If you’re creating soundtracks for movies, TV, or video games, then the 7.1 or 5.1 surround sound system monitors will work well.
Ensure that you buy monitors that line up with the style of song that you’ll be producing most.
3. Determine The Power That You Need
The power handling of monitors will have a huge effect on the kind of sound they produce, the amount of headroom available before signals peak, and the dynamic range. The higher the watts of the monitors, the easier it will be for you to hear transient details and make proper adjustments to limiters, gates, and compressors.
As you listen to a mix through two different monitors with different watts on the same volume level, you’ll realize that the monitor with higher watts will offer you more headroom. Transients such as kick drums and snare hits require 10 times more power as music program material. For a volume level that will require 20 watts, the program peaks will require 200 watts.
If your amp has low watts, you’ll experience distortion and clipping in sound. As such you’ll need monitors with high watts to get a better dynamic range and more definition.
4. Consider The Cost
The money you’ve set aside will determine the kind of monitors you get. If you have a professional high-end studio, you’ll need to spend some few hundred dollars to get the best monitors. Important to note is that you are paying for value which in this case is the sound you get, the level of performance, and the suitability of the monitors to the style of music you produce.
Conclusion
With these 4 tips in mind, here are the Best studio monitors for 2019 to buy.
