Speakers for dialing in tones?

Sidivan

Fractal Fanatic
I've decided that my current setup just doesn't allow me to hear everything that's going on when I'm dialing in tones, so I'm trying to decide on what to get for this purpose.

Options:
Adam A7's - I plugged into this babies at a local studio and it sounded fantastic. This seems like a good chunk of change for 1 purpose though. Obviously, this would help when mixing as well, but I do very little of that save for my monitor mix live.

Active Monitors (Fratomic, FBT, QSC...) - I could use these for both dialing in and playing/practicing for occasions where I can't go direct. Though, I prefer to use IEM's.

High End IEM's (Westone or Fidelity) - I'm unsure how flat these are. It would be almost ideal to upgrade both IEM's and have a solution for dialing in tones as well. My current Shure E3's are worthless when it comes to this issue because a tone that sounds good in them is WAY to bass heavy everywhere else. Has anybody had any luck doing any mixing/tweaking with IEM's?

I'm really wringing my hands over which option will be the best for my needs. I really just want something where I can dial in my tones and they translate well into a PA. If only I could convince the band to sit around for hours while we're all hooked up through the PA so I can tweak! My #1 priority is to sound good through the PA live.
 
Sidivan said:
I've decided that my current setup just doesn't allow me to hear everything that's going on when I'm dialing in tones, so I'm trying to decide on what to get for this purpose.

Options:
Adam A7's - I plugged into this babies at a local studio and it sounded fantastic. This seems like a good chunk of change for 1 purpose though. Obviously, this would help when mixing as well, but I do very little of that save for my monitor mix live.

Active Monitors (Fratomic, FBT, QSC...) - I could use these for both dialing in and playing/practicing for occasions where I can't go direct. Though, I prefer to use IEM's.

High End IEM's (Westone or Fidelity) - I'm unsure how flat these are. It would be almost ideal to upgrade both IEM's and have a solution for dialing in tones as well. My current Shure E3's are worthless when it comes to this issue because a tone that sounds good in them is WAY to bass heavy everywhere else. Has anybody had any luck doing any mixing/tweaking with IEM's?

I'm really wringing my hands over which option will be the best for my needs. I really just want something where I can dial in my tones and they translate well into a PA. If only I could convince the band to sit around for hours while we're all hooked up through the PA so I can tweak! My #1 priority is to sound good through the PA live.

I think for home monitoring and working a lot of people like the KRK Rokits http://www.krksys.com/product_rokit.php for a lower price solution, but they don't compete with the A7s if you have the cash
 
The size of your room / space should factor into your decision as to which way to go. In a small room, such as many people have for a home studio, a good pair of nearfield monitors can be great. But if your space is larger, e.g. a space big enough for band practice or something getting close to that, the nearfields will get lost and lack warmth unless you're always close to them.

I really liked the A7's in the small room that I'm using them in, but I've only had a few hours with them, and not yet ready to comment further. I'll get some more time with them over the next week, though.
 
Sidivan said:
My #1 priority is to sound good through the PA live.

Fratomics or a Verve 12ma for consistency in the PA. If you want to know about IEM I would PM Scott Peterson he has been using EMI and a Verve 8ma for a wile now.
 
I use Focal Solo 6Be in my (big) living room which means I have less LF holes in the Frequency response than in a small room.

The sound translates very well with this setup.

I also use shure SE530 IEM's. These have a little bit of HF rolloff and of course the LF response which is tight and fast has nothing to do with a real speaker in a real room.

so what I do is I tweak a preset with the IEM's so as not to bother the wife and then fine tune the freqeuncy response and the "feel" using the focals.

Final check is playing with the patches along with a characteristic song mixed in, to see if the sound fits in the mix.

I find this last step to me the most crucial in QC because I can easily get lost after a while and come up with a sound that is too "smiley EQ currve" or too dull for the mix.
 
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