Please Explain Yamaha NS-10s

[Ethan Winer]

Chris,

I'll ask you in turn to consider why this whole class of products (amp and cabinet digital simulations) fail so totally for a class of AEs, because it's totally analogous to NS10s and whether they can be reduced to frequency response anomalies.

An amp simulator tries to do "in the box" what a speaker and microphone do out in a room. One of the (admittedly cheap) amp simulators I've tried adds an obvious ambience / small room reverb effect. I don't know if amp sims are a good parallel to what we're discussing.

Mostly I was asking you why you think there's more to it than just the NS10's response curve, and what specifically that might be. Again, I'm not taking a stance either way! I'm just shooting the breeze and trying to understand this myself.

--Ethan

[Mixerpuppet]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

That must be it.

I have NS10s and actually use them occasionally. I also have a highly accurate response curve for (a different pair) made by an acquaintance. If anyone is interested I could figure out the EQ settings needed to duplicate that curve. The only problem is it wouldn't take into account the curve of the speakers they're applied to.

--Ethan

This sounds strangly like newbies with home stereo speakers using an EQ to flatten the response......


Which we ALL know is a bad idea right

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Mixerpuppet

This sounds strangly like newbies with home stereo speakers using an EQ to flatten the response......

Which we ALL know is a bad idea right

LOL. Most of the newbies you speak of write their posts as follows, as if they just dreamed up the coolest new idea in audio history:

Hey guys, this might sound a little crazy, but it occurred to me I could fix all of my room acoustic problems with EQ!

Then they go on to explain they have a 31-band graphic they intend to use.

I think the "conventional wisdom" is that EQ works to change a speaker's response, but does not work to correct a room's response. Mostly because the room has time-based errors as well as response errors, and a room's response errors change drastically with position. Versus speaker response that is constant no matter where you are in the room.

--Ethan

[meLoCo_go]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Can you tell me more about that CoolEdit tool? Are you sure it's not a "phase shifter" in the sense of a phaser or flanger effect that actually changes the frequency response? The only time I've heard phase shift is when it changes over time. In that case it's sort of like a 3D Doppler effect. But I've never noticed static phase shift as happens with EQs and crossovers etc.

--Ethan

Well this is an FFT tool that allows to change phase in any selected frequency, it does not introduce frequency change however. If you combine it with unprocessed signal freq-responce changes like it is supposed to.
As I told earlier it is hard to hear the effect on "steady state" instruments but over transient rich material like drums it is well heard. Transient is a coincidence of bunch of harmonics at the exact time and phace-shift distubs this coincidence so the effect is within my beliefs))))
There's a funny thing you can do with this effect - like making woofier drums without really cutting mids, however the effect is not real-time so never used it much.

[recall]

Speaking of NS-10's there is a company here in the UK called Studiospares which stock a monitor branded as an SN-10, Which as you guessed it is supposed to be like the avantone is to the auratone. I am intrigued by these and they are reasonable at about £90 each, but I don't have ns-10's to compare and have never spent more than a couple of weeks in total (over 10 years on NS-10's).

My guess is that these are chinese made and branded by studiospares. They look exactly the same down to the white cone.

http://www.studiospares.com/Product.aspx?code=248000

Anyone seen these or used them? There must be other variant out there?


Edit: They are actually £85 a PAIR!!!!, now that is either a great deal or a bad product.
If they are similar and work like the NS-10's then I'm gonna have to get a pair.

[ajcamlet]

my understanding is that the new HS series is nothing like the original NS's. I havent heard them myself tho....anyone?

[J.G.]

Originally Posted by Charles Dye

No, that would be as Pedophiles are to Pedals.

; J

[Comte de St Germain]

NS-10s became the defacto standard because the cones were white and no matter how coked up someone was they at least felt at home staring into them.

"The eight ball spoke to me, and it was all above 1k."

[KEN1]

I wanted a new pair of "B" monitor's so I picked up a pair of HS50M's this weekend and i'm really,really impressed with these thing's.Very flat response with nothing exagerated.Actually the last few day's i've only been using the 50's and ignoring my 824's to get used to them.My mixes from these little bugger's already are coming out pretty much spot on.I bought them at Guitar Center thinking i'd probably be returning them but no freakin way now............I dig'em bigtime!Every penny very well spent on these gem's.

My old "B" monitor's were Event TR-5's and I realize now how much they suck ass........especially the flubbery low end.They will be my new Internet pc monitor's now.

[beyondish]

Originally Posted by KEN1

My old "B" monitor's were Event TR-5's and I realize now how much they suck ass........especially the flubbery low end.They will be my new Internet pc monitor's now.

but why do you have to monitor the internet?

[pounce]

jeez, i have ns10's and auratones hooked up as second and third monitors. adams as my firsts. i find them all useful and different from each other. there is stuff that the ns10's tell me that the other speakers don't, i like having them there to check mixes on.

[KEN1]

Originally Posted by beyondish

but why do you have to monitor the internet?

I should have said internet speakers.

[southboundloco]

to those people who rely on their NS10's to work on their mids, my question is what if ur NS10's was taken away from u how do u go abouts workin on ur mids? do u put filters/eq on ur 2bus to emulate that mid freq bump that the NS10's have?

[Bob Olhsson]

Something NS-10s have is no appreciable suck-outs in the midrange.

Filters or equalizers can't really duplicate that.

[mattian]

hello i read very carefully the charles dye electronic musician interview, and i have to say thank you! it's the best interview about monitoring i have ever seen. usually anyone says something detailed about this argument about the way he monitoring.

but, if possibile, i would have more clear a couple of points.

charles, you say that in msp10 you make just drum kick and bass sound, or basses sound in general (synth etc, i think), than you switch on yamaha ns10 where you spent a lot of time. than you switch on sony computer speakers where you spent most of time.

to me is really difficult to believe that you spend more time than other in sony, it's really true? i've do that with a pair of Trust speakers, they seems have just from 200 to 10k, maybe less, i hear all so bad that i think, ok but if i start eqing here and levels, etc, i change completely my mix and than don't sounds good on dynaudio. the point is that i think that speakers like these Trust have a lot of problem to reproduce some frequencies, are not flat at all, and to make things sounds good on them, than, probably sounds good just on them.

i believe more that you spend more time on yamaha, so in this case, can you explain what is your approach with eq and compression in ns10? also here, they have a lot of mids, no lows, so if you mix on them you need to have a different approach, because it not your mix are with tons of basses, with no mids, probably.

and the last question is, if you work with ns10 at veryveryvery low volume that whispers distract you, you can work also at home in a small untreated room without compromise it with acoustic problems? i mean do somethings at home like hi cut/shelf, levels, fx, than go in studio without have to rebalance all?

i've not ns10 i've work with them a couple of times, i want more information about them to solve some problem of judgement/levels/boost-cut eq gains/comp GR amount things that i find very easily to do at my home with my hi fi speakers (old 80 handmade big 3way 15" speakers that i know since i was 4y.o.) and also to optimize my work at home instead in studio.

thanks!

[Bob Olhsson]

NS-10s are like a focusing screen. The idea isn't to make things sound good on NS-10s, it's about making sure you can hear everything in the proper musical proportions. They are a musical balance tool and not an audio quality monitor.

[mattian]

so are also a great monitor to restrain the audio frequencies of the instruments, as i say, a good monitor to hi cut/shelf the freq to give to any instrument the right place/prospective in the mix. ?
(probably less useful for low cut, but maybe useful if low cut is more low mid cut/shelf)

thanks, great advice.

[Bob Olhsson]

It's a good idea to use broad strokes with NS-10s. For that matter, it's generally a good idea to use broad strokes with any monitors.

[weedywet]

Originally Posted by mattian

... a good monitor to hi cut/shelf the freq to give to any instrument the right place/prospective in the mix. ?...

I think it's a bad idea to do that, or think like that, in a mix at ALL

" right place/prospective in the mix." is the BALANCE.



My take on NS10s:
Bob Clearmountain did a mix on them and liked it but thought it was dull.
So he put tissue over the tweeters and did another mix and liked that.
They started to pop up as people said "hey, you know Bob Clearmountain is mixing on them"
soon EVERY studio "had to have" them and you had to get used to them.

I don't at all buy the "it sounds good on this crappy speaker so it will sound good on anything" concept.
it's nonsensical on the face of it.

if your mix sounds good on a speaker with no bottom, for example, then what happens when it's played on a speaker with LOTS of bottom?

there is no standard consumer speaker.
So you can only second guess the end user playback so much.

you either get on well wiith NS10s (i.e. your mixes done on them hold up well for you) or you DON'T (e.g. you end up with mixes with no middle punch because you overcompensate for their awful oboe-like nasal midrange)


I avoid them like the plague

they don't work well for me.

the only issue is whether they work well for YOU. Not what anyone else thinks about them (or any monitor speaker, really)









(and yes, by the plague, I DO mean Steely Dan)

[Bob Olhsson]

Bob Clearmountain and a bunch of us LOVED the mixes we got using Yamaha NS-4s.

Lots of studios had them on hand because for a few years during the '80s they were the biggest selling speaker having dethroned the JBL L-100. They had dethroned the Advents and before them the KLH6s.

Unfortunately Yamaha discontinued the NS-4 and the amount of professional use quickly depleted Yamaha's stock of original replacement drivers. They came up with a substitute but it wasn't the same at all translation-wise. The closest thing Yamaha made to the NS-4 was the NS-10 which was a smaller "high end" version. When the Power Station finally ran out of NS-4 drivers, they put in NS-10s. Clearmountain thought they were brighter but sort of the same so he put tissue over the tweeters.

He got a write-up about a Stones album he mixed that included mention of the NS-10s with tissue over the tweeters. Next thing we knew, virtually every studio in the world had NS-10s with tissue over the tweeters sitting on their consoles.