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January 2010
My Speakers Are My Therapists (January Winner)
Since I was a child, I’ve always been very interested in music. I could listen to almost everything, would it be rock, ethnic, electronic or classical. As long as the music gave rise to some kind of substantial emotion, I enjoyed it. As I grew older, electronic music became the style I listened to the most and at 14 years of age, I started producing my own music. Filled with inspiration both from songs and the fact that my computer was a fully-fledged music machine, I spent almost all of my spare time creating blips and blops.
The first ”real” monitors I got were a couple of Roland MA-8. Very small, quite cheap, computer speakers. Before this I used the lowest possible grade speakers. Even though the Rolands were very simple, I instantly noticed a positive difference on my tracks. What i created generally sounded better. At such young age I had bought these speakers because they were more ”studio” than my previous ones, but I had no idea about the impact they would have. This was when I realised the power of good monitoring.
Using these simple speakers, I had at 18 years of age released two techno EPs, and felt I needed to upgrade my monitoring. I auditioned many speakers and finally chose a couple of passive Hi-Fi speakers. The system I had bought costed almost 10 times as much as my previous Roland speakers, and I was very confident that this would give me much better monitoring conditions. I was wrong.
The new speaker setup wasn’t better at all. I enjoyed the sound, but my tracks became bad and sounded different everywhere I played them. I often blamed this on other, simpler equipment, not on my own. The effect of making bad-sounding music is that one doesn’t produce as intensively. It all winds down.
When I was 23, I had only made one full track in one year. I still had the urge to make music, but I had for a long time been convinced that the problem had to do with my musical incompetence, not my speakers. During this period, I decided to rethink the reason for my musical decline, and went on a new speaker audition spree. I listened to many different models, and narrowed it down to Genelec 8040 and another pair of Hi-Fi speakers. Now, you might find it stupid of me to include ordinary speakers in the final showdown, but I still enjoyed the calmness in the sound, and I had yet to realise my past mistake. However, I discovered something great with sound of the Genelecs - it had more than the clarity you expect from good monitors. When I listened to them I was truly amazed by how musical they sounded. The other monitors I auditioned were very plastic in their image, and I realised I wouldn’t be able to listen to them for hours without getting a headache. This was different with the 8040s, and that appealed to me greatly, which made my choice very obvious. What I needed to create music was a pair of speakers made for creating music. I was so right.
As soon as I had connected the 8040’s to my DAW everything was clear to me. I could hear every mistake I’d made in my old songs, reasons that made them sound different in other systems. All of a sudden I was in control. My previous setup that I enjoyed for years wasn’t worth anything to me in an instant. Since then I’ve produced many tracks, some have been played on radio and on clubs, but nothing released yet. The 8040’s now live in a studio I rent together with two friends, a place where inspiration flows once again, in a way it hasn’t done for a very long time.
My musical sense is once again flourishing, thank you, Genelec!
The first ”real” monitors I got were a couple of Roland MA-8. Very small, quite cheap, computer speakers. Before this I used the lowest possible grade speakers. Even though the Rolands were very simple, I instantly noticed a positive difference on my tracks. What i created generally sounded better. At such young age I had bought these speakers because they were more ”studio” than my previous ones, but I had no idea about the impact they would have. This was when I realised the power of good monitoring.
Using these simple speakers, I had at 18 years of age released two techno EPs, and felt I needed to upgrade my monitoring. I auditioned many speakers and finally chose a couple of passive Hi-Fi speakers. The system I had bought costed almost 10 times as much as my previous Roland speakers, and I was very confident that this would give me much better monitoring conditions. I was wrong.
The new speaker setup wasn’t better at all. I enjoyed the sound, but my tracks became bad and sounded different everywhere I played them. I often blamed this on other, simpler equipment, not on my own. The effect of making bad-sounding music is that one doesn’t produce as intensively. It all winds down.
When I was 23, I had only made one full track in one year. I still had the urge to make music, but I had for a long time been convinced that the problem had to do with my musical incompetence, not my speakers. During this period, I decided to rethink the reason for my musical decline, and went on a new speaker audition spree. I listened to many different models, and narrowed it down to Genelec 8040 and another pair of Hi-Fi speakers. Now, you might find it stupid of me to include ordinary speakers in the final showdown, but I still enjoyed the calmness in the sound, and I had yet to realise my past mistake. However, I discovered something great with sound of the Genelecs - it had more than the clarity you expect from good monitors. When I listened to them I was truly amazed by how musical they sounded. The other monitors I auditioned were very plastic in their image, and I realised I wouldn’t be able to listen to them for hours without getting a headache. This was different with the 8040s, and that appealed to me greatly, which made my choice very obvious. What I needed to create music was a pair of speakers made for creating music. I was so right.
As soon as I had connected the 8040’s to my DAW everything was clear to me. I could hear every mistake I’d made in my old songs, reasons that made them sound different in other systems. All of a sudden I was in control. My previous setup that I enjoyed for years wasn’t worth anything to me in an instant. Since then I’ve produced many tracks, some have been played on radio and on clubs, but nothing released yet. The 8040’s now live in a studio I rent together with two friends, a place where inspiration flows once again, in a way it hasn’t done for a very long time.
My musical sense is once again flourishing, thank you, Genelec!