Listen Closely

It goes without saying that in order to create a great sounding recording you need to have a good set of ears, but your ears will only be as good as the audible devices they are listening to. So a reliable pair of monitors (speakers) is a must as well as an excellent pair of headphones. While many computer speakers do sound exceptional when listening to your media player or dvd's they are not designed for recording purposes. In order to create a well balanced and uniform mix, the monitors need to be partial to a zero frequency atmosphere. That is to say, when you are listening back to recorded tracks, you should be hearing the best possible reproduction of sound without adding EQ's or effects, through speakers that are designed with that in mind. Low noise (or no noise) monitors that let the engineer hear exactly what is happening in the mix through a naked sound wave.

While there are numerous brands on the market that will do the job, you need to ask yourself a few questions before dropping down loads of cash on gear.
1.) How big is the listening environment you will be working in? - This will decide on which size monitors to purchase, the bigger the room the larger the speakers.
2.) Do you have a dual channel power amp? - This will decide whether you need to purchase powered monitors (the speaker cabinets will have their own amplifiers built in) or unpowered monitors in which case you will need to have a dual channel amp to power them (wattage and ohms play a factor here).
3.) What is your budget for this expense? - After all this will most likely be the deciding factor for the above as powered monitors are more expensive than unpowered but if you need a power amp that will be an added cost as well. Size also weighs in on the overall cost.

After asking myself these questions and doing a lot of comparison shopping online (this is a great way to narrow down the field of choices), I purchased myself a pair of Alesis M1Active monitors 320USB. They are perfect for my situation. Self powered, compact and very versatile. These monitors allow me alternative analog to digital inputs in the back (an added feature I did not consider) as well as USB connection to my PC. Most importantly the sound is amazing given the size of them. As far as price goes, $99 US for the pair.
As a matter of fact, it took over a month to get these shipped to me due to the fact that demand was higher than supply. At first listen one might say, "oh my PC surround sound set up is much better than these", but after close attention to detail is given one will hear things that were unrecognizable before. Just listening to mp3 files at 320kbs will offer ear candy to songs. Acoustic guitars will pop out in tunes that didn't exist before, tambourines suddenly feel like someone is standing beside you and rattling away, background vocals while still distant in the mix are actually distinguishable from the main vocals. These are all qualities you want from your recording monitors, but don't discard your pair of Altec Lansings just yet, they will prove to be useful later when all the mixing is complete. That is when you want to hear your songs through every imaginable device possible; mp3 players, home stereos, car cd players and pc speakers will give you the final say in whether your song is complete. Stay tuned for future blogs on that topic.

Unfortunately I have not yet purchased a quality set of headphones that will allow me to listen to my recordings discerningly. I do own a pair of Numark 125 phones (came with my Nady mixing console) that are descent but in order to achieve my goal of quality recordings on a budget I will have to take the financial plunge, do some research and purchase a pair of high end (as in quality & price) headphones that can accomplish what I need them to do. Noise elimination in a zero frequency atmosphere. I will post my results as soon as I make my decision on this.