Neumann KH310 Monitors Are Great...a (long) Home Control Room ...

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You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Neumann KH310 monitors are great...a (long) home control room story.

Thread starter Terry McInturff
Start date May 26, 2021

Terry McInturff

45th Anniversary of guitar building!

Joined Nov 4, 2003 Messages 7,550 Reaction score 13,716 Location Pittsboro NC Hello all, I've worked on the acoustics of my control room on/off for 4 years now, and have finally arrived at the "this is gonna work!" stage. I am blessed in having an old friend to advise me (periodically) who has made a big name for himself as a studio designer...Wes Lachot. https://www.weslachot.com Wes got me off to a great start and I've been tweaking sporadically ever since. It's all been via DIY bass traps (the biggest of which are two measuring 6' x 3' x 7') and broadband absorbers, with a little diffusion thrown in too (in truth I'm still playing with diffusion a little). The dimensions, makeup, and placement of these required much experimentation/dead-ends. Thank goodness for R.E.W. (BTW the Dayton mic for that purpose works very well). There has been no use of "studio foam" (except for what the monitors sit on, and removable panels for the screen and mixing console, these are only used when mixing and then only on occasion). I've learned that foam is of little/no use (with respect for users of foam). It's really vital that I get my control room "right"...if only for business reasons. You see, part of the process of exploration at the beginning of ordering a TCM guitar involves the potential client sending me 5 songs that he/she feels hint at important attributes of the "sound to be built". Prior to sending these, a potential client and I have at least one longish, very fun conversation about the person, his/her music, guitars, and sound; we are talking about "building a sound" and I do not feel comfortable building a guitar for someone until I *feel* that my "musical imagination" is in tune with their's. It often requires more than 5 songs but when it "clicks" I can begin to choose materials and get to work. This took many years to fine-tune. That's why it is vital that my control room sound as accurate as I can make it; I need to be able to HEAR! The control room is every bit as important a tool to me as a guitar builder/guitar designer as any of my woodworking machines; I literally couldn't/wouldnt build TCM guitars without the control room. I use it for listening to sound samples, on-going education about sound, and for proprietary methods of testing the resonant characteristics of woods, guitar parts, guitar chassis', and chambers. Without being able to do these things I'd be building-by-numbers, and IME that's boring/no fun. Of course I also use my control room and modest live room for recording music and I'm working on a record; when that's done I'll assemble the band and haul it around the clubs (Yay! Clubs are about to re-open here!). One thing that I have learned over the course of many control rooms is that it is a waste of $$ to buy into expensive gear until you can accurately hear what is going on. I used to rebel against that truth, because it was going to be a lot of work to get a room sounding good, new gear is much more fun, messing with compacted fiberglass and Rockwool is no fun, you gotta test-make changes-test again (repeat) and again new gear is FUN. And so, I used the same set of control room monitors since I bought new in 1998. These were the original, MK1, Mackie HR 824's. They are flawed (!)...they have their fans and detractors...but they never blew up, got carried all over the place, were situated in a total of 5 controls rooms over the years, and I got to know them pretty well...and that's important...if you KNOW your speakers you are well advised to carefully consider changing to something else. To this day, I think that a pristine pair of the original MK1 Hr 824's are an excellent choice in the $500-and-under range, for sure. The Neumann KH 310 monitors. As my control room became more-and-more accurate, the Hr 824's sounded better-and-better; but at a certain point I just had to upgrade my monitors and doing so, while not cheap, was necessary (Im never getting rid of the 824's BTW, they are doing excellent duty as echo chamber speakers, one of the few things I have in common gear-wise with Bob Clearmountain). And so, I called Wes Lachot for advice. I was expecting to swing for a pair of ATC SCM25A's. Wes has spec'd those for many of his world-class studio builds. In my mind, I was calling him for confirmation of this presumption. "The ATC25's are really great speakers" said he, " but you ought to check out the Neumann KH310's. We are getting fantastic results with them, I've just ordered a pair for my own use, and they are about 1/2 the price of the ATC's and you really aren't sacrificing anything. They would sound fantastic in your room". I'm like really? Competitive with the ATC 25's? Answer: "absolutely, and especially for your room". Oddly, I hadn't looked at them much. But when I did, they checked all the boxes as follows: - 3 way design -Sealed box - tons of clean power - loads of great reviews (I always take reviews with a grain of salt though) And so, I was able to swing a deal and got a pair. They sound really, REALLY good man. My main onus regarding voicing the control room was to make the mix position (8' x 4') in my room sound right, and I can scoot to-and-fro, front-to-back with these Neumanns and remain in a luscious, deep, wide sound field. In the money spot...an area measuring around 4' x 4'...I cannot tell you how joyous it sounds. Really tight and punchy "PA bass"...hearing things on my ref mixes Ive never heard before...pointing out massive flaws on earlier mixes....more volume horsepower, crystal-clean than I'll ever need...WIDE stereo sound field...etc etc. Whoa.....all that work on the control room paying off! One example being that you can sit in the money spot and slowly pan something left-to-right and clearly place that instrument. Take a hi-hat for example; you can pan a hi-hat slowly and hear every little subdivision of placement, instead of a left-center-right placement with a blurry transition between those three positions. You can walk that hi-hat right across the stereo sound stage. Of course, the work on the room makes that possible, but the Hr 824's...no comparison. The 310's are AWESOME for tracking guitars. They sound fabulous at the rather high volumes I use when monitoring the amps downstairs. Inspirational. They get VERY loud without any strain. You immediately hear any minute change of mic position. Plenty of running up-down the stairs is gonna convince me to buy a couple of robotic mic stands, I'll bet. Mix-wise, dialing-in the various compressors, EQ's, delays, and reverb is a whole new game. You can hear everything, with ease. Moving things front-to-back via ambience is readily heard; any frequencies that step on each other are pretty obvious too. It's actually created more work, since some of my go-to, this-and-that is revealed to be not as good as can be. But tracking good sounds is easier than ever, because you HEAR. I would have thrown plenty of $$$ away to no good use if I hadn't gotten my room right prior to buying the 310's. Ive worked in good control rooms in the past and so had an idea of what worked. Now...finally...I am pleased with my mix position. Buying the 310's would have been a giant waste of money sans the work on the room. They would have been inaccurate in a different way, is all. A view from the money-spot. To answer a question in advance, the little desk is the last UK Midas design (sadly!), the VF24. Highly recommended, the EQ is very usable as are the mic amps, and the 2-bus saturates nicely. Its a total underdog. I'll be hanging on to the Midas until I find the right deal on an Amek Angela (blue face). Tons of routing. Time for me to get top-class converters though! Via the patch bays I can use all of my 42 spaces of analog outboard as I wish.

Serious Poo

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Platinum Supporting Member Joined Jun 9, 2005 Messages 9,029 Reaction score 13,511 Congrats Terry! Agree 100% on learning about and investing in room treatment before spending big money on monitors and such. Also, love using KH310's - they're super transparent monitors to my ears. I just got a matching KH750 sub for mine and will likely hook it up over the holiday weekend.

marmalade cream

Member

Joined Aug 4, 2014 Messages 3,509 Reaction score 5,431 Location Chattanooga, TN Thanks for the write up, sounds like a long but fun journey! I am actually about to start building out a new basement control room in a new house. I've been forced to work on headphones for the last six weeks while I get a bunch of work off my plate so I can start the room, and it makes me miss my monitors (Focal CMS65's) a lot! Glad the Neumann's are working well for you! 56Tweed

56Tweed

Ge Fuzz-o-holic

Gold Supporting Member Joined Aug 18, 2003 Messages 4,580 Reaction score 6,148 Location Cary, NC Really thoughtful writeup @Terry McInturff, thanks for sharing. The bass traps sound huge; 6'x3'x7'? What are you doing with diffusion? Kurt L

Kurt L

Member

Joined Aug 29, 2007 Messages 6,854 Reaction score 23,926 Location Outer Austin, TX Congrats! Sounds like a long, steady process paying off for you! Interesting about the 5 songs and the guitar design process… now I’m wondering if I could envision a dream guitar that way. What would my songs be???