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•
At the listening position, your ears should be horizontally
level with the mid-point between each speaker's woofer
and tweeter.
•
Place your monitors on stands or wall mounts designed for
that purpose. Avoid placing them on shelves or tables.
Room Treatment
Due to the way that sound waves reflect off of walls, the
listening room itself greatly influences the sounds you hear. A
low ceiling and parallel walls can conspire to create all sorts of
tonal anomalies such as "standing waves" and "comb filtering. "
These wreak havoc on your mixing and mastering decisions,
because you're making adjustments based upon a skewed
acoustical picture.
Fortunately, with a little experimentation and a few relatively
inexpensive acoustic treatments, you can set up your
listening environment so that you're much better equipped
to make accurate aural decisions. Acoustic treatments work by
absorbing and diffusing sound waves. With proper selection
and placement, such treatments can minimize your room's
acoustic problems.
There are lots of companies that offer reasonably-priced
acoustic treatment products. Two of the most popular for
home and project studios are Auralex (www.auralex.com)
and Real Traps (www.realtraps.com). At their sites, you can
also find a lot of information on the causes of—and solutions
for—common home-studio acoustics problems.
If All Else Fails...
If you're planning to go to the expense of mass-producing a
CD of your V-Studio music and haven't yet had a chance to
perfect your home-brewed mastering skills, you may want to
consider letting a professional mastering engineer do the work
on your project. This allows you to benefit from the experience
of someone who does mastering for a living, and also provides
a fresh set of ears for objective listening. You should try to sit
in on the mastering session as well, so you can observe the
pro's approach to the mastering process. You'll benefit greatly
from the tips that you pick up, enhancing your future V-Studio
mastering experiences and the work you'll do with the MTK.
The End
We hope you've enjoyed this booklet on using the VS8F-3's
Mastering Tool Kit. Keep an eye out for more VS8F-3 Workshop
booklets, available for downloading at www.RolandUS.com.
For the latest V-Studio updates and support tools, visit the Roland U.S.
Web site at www.RolandUS.com. If you need personal assistance, call our
amazing Product Support team at 323-890-3741.
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