Choosing Studio Monitors: Basic Guide!

Studio monitors, also known as reference speakers, are a set of loud speakers designed for audio work such as music production, radio, TV, and film.

Note: This article will NOT be giving you any advice. Only sharing information. In the end, you can pick what's right for you. If you like the sound coming from the speakers, then it's the right speakers for you!

As a beat maker, you're going to want to have a set of speakers that will give you detail, clarity, and accuraracy when mixing! They are a must have if you want your mixes to translate well on to other systems.

When choosing studio monitors here are some basic features to look for.

Powered and Unpowered Monitors: A Powered monitor is a speaker that has its own internal power, or internal amp. An unpowered monitor needs an external source for power to get it turned on.



Passive and Active:
Similar to the one above, though it has a subtle difference. A passive monitor/s needs to be hook up to an external amplifier to get sound. It does well if you already have a mixer amplifier, and an overall less expensive option, but you'll have to deal with more lines and cables. Active monitors already have a built in amplification system so you won't have to hook it up to an external mixing amp.

Frequency Response:
Sound covers a wide range of frequencies that our ears can detect, ranging from 20 hz to 20,000 hz or 20khz. Generally divided into low, mid, and high frequencies, you'll want to keep these features in mind. For starting off on a steep budget, anywhere from 85hz-22khz is plenty for a lot of music. Though of course, you can go as long as 40hz-22khz if you want to spend more.

The frequency response must be flat across the entire spectrum. Meaning no boosting or cutting in certain areas. In other words, those home theatre systems that sound excellent for movies and games, may not be a wise option for producing and recording music. It will make some areas of your music sound interesting, but its not giving you a true accurate representation of how your mix will sound on other systems (i.e. your car, PA system, Ipod headphones).



Driver Size and Bi-Amplification:
The design of a typical studio monitor speaker is divided into 2 drivers; high-frequency & low-frequency. The high-frequency driver, a.k.a tweeter, reproduces sounds at higher frequencies. The low-frequency driver (woofer) producers frequencies at mid and lower levels. A bi-amplified design has both the woofer and the tweeter built with an amplifier. If you look at the picture on top, the tweeter speaker is the tiny one on top, while the woofer is the large one on the bottom.

When choosing speakers, you're going to find monitors that have a range 4"-8" drivers. Generally, larger drivers handle lower frequencies well, which may help if your into making hip hop beats. That sub-boomy feel your after may give you ideas to invest in a pair of monitors that have large drivers. If you're home studio has limited desktop space where you'll be producing music, then even 4" is more than enough. Especially if you have people living in the house who come knocking on your door when you blast your music.

Important note: bigger isn't always better!

Which brings me to the next point.

How To Position Them:
To get the most out of your studio monitors, you'll need to place them a certain way so that your hear the details and get a good image to hearing them. A basic way to get started is to set them up in what many call an "equalateral triangle". The picture below represents a basic diagram on studio monitor placement.

You also want to get your tweeters lined up with your ear. You can invest in a pair of speaker stands to get them lined up to your ears, but that can come later.

Which speakers will you need?
The type of studio monitors you will need largely depends on your setup, budget, your environment, and the type of music you will be making. Generally in a large setting where you're working in a professional recording studio, a set of large studio monitors will help tremendously if you're not sitting to close with more than one person in the room. But for beat makers, 4" woofers is still plenty!

For a decent pair of speakers you can start around the $150-$300 range, which by most "professional standards" is considered an "entry-level" set. This can be more than enough if you know which ones to choose.

P.S. If you want to get started making your own beats, then click here!

M-Audio Fast Track Pro & Virtual Beat Maker

Why You Need An Audio Interface?

If you're going to start making your own beats, there will come a time when you want to invest in your own gear setup. In my several articles, I will talk about what equipment, both hardware & software, is need for you to get the most out of your production. This applies to all types of producers, not just hip hop, but electronica, pop, rock, and everyone out their who produces their own music. Mind you, this is not a professional review, rather just my 2 cents!
Today we will look at the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. This device, manufactured by M-Audio, is designed to give you the best hi-fidelity recording on a limited budget. It includes 2 microphone preamps as well as other Audio and CD connections that will give you sound quality better than most CD's. On the back it includes MIDI and outputs if you want to hook up your hardware keyboard synthesizer or workstation.


It also has 2 RCA outputs(unbalanced) and 1 TRS output(balanced) and TRS input. This is useful to those who want to hook up their studio monitors to their PC, and most studio monitors are going to include either TRS or RCA, or both. This device, however, does not carry XLR, but it shouldn't be a problem now these days because thanks to companies like radioshack, you have endless types of adapters. Just getting a XLR to TRS converter and you're set.

Beat makers and music producers are not the only ones who benefit from having an audio interface! If you're a DJ and you need to find a way to hook up your decks and mixer to your laptop, then this will help if you want to record your music in a live setting. The old age of vinly is gradually starting to wear out, although there are still veterans out there who will never leave their turntables (which is perfectly fine). Things are becoming digital these days and now DJ's don't need much but a laptop, a DJ midi controller (or any controller, including keyboards), an audio interface, and they're set for gigs.

Here are some quick Specs:

• 4x4 24-bit/96kHz audio interface
  
• Two front panel mic/instrument preamp inputs (XLR)
  
• Two balanced outputs (1/4" TRS)
  
• 4 unbalanced outputs (RCA)
  
• 2x2 S/PDIF digital I/O
  
• 1x1 MIDI I/O with activity LEDs
  
• 1 Headphone output (1/4" TRS)
  
• Mac and PC compatible; class-compliant with Mac OS 10.3.9 and higher

This audio interface is a great addition to home studios, travelling musicians, or DJ's who need to record music straight to their computer with the highest sound quality possible on a budget. Starting at around $199 USD, I say this gives you more than enough for the buck. Cheers to M-Audio!

Get started making your music right away with virtual beat machine!

What Can A Virtual Beat Machine do for DJs?

Beat Thang virtual is one of the hottest beat making tools for hip hop artists to start tapping out their own beats. It isn't, however, limited to just producers and artists. With Beat Thang virtual, even DJ's use this software to rock their clubs. I recently stumbled upon this video of DJ Qbert using Beat Thang Virtual on his DJ laptop. Heres the video:



Hello dear DJ, would you like to skip ableton live and virtual DJ to go for something unique and innovative?

For DJ's, I want you to picture this virtual beat machine into your setup. Imagine, you, the DJ, mixing songs the whole night, but then in the middle of your song, you've decided to do a remix mashup. You may have an accapella playing and then you load up this virtual beat machine to trigger some samples. You have an extra midi controller to tap out your own rythms and grooves along with the acappella and then before your realize it, you have just created your own unique remix of that song. The crowd goes crazy and they absolutely love it. That is how fun and simple this virtual beat machine works!

Hooking up a MIDI controller to this beat production software is also a breeze. If you like sampling MPC style, load up a pad controller and start tapping them out. If you're a keyboard player, hook up your favorite keyboard controller and start adding in some keyboard parts to the song. Of course, you don't even need a midi controller, if you don't have one. Beat Thang Virtual allows you to tap out beats even with just a qwerty keyboard.

This is definitely the ultimate beat production software for beginners and pros alike, but this is how DJ's can amp up their music careers with this tool! As mentioned in the previous articles, this virtual beat machine performs just like a real MPC. You load up your instruments, samples, or drumkits, and create your own music on the fly. I must say, with over 3,000 instruments and drum samples, users will hardly ever get bored! It's full of a variety of sounds for hip hop, rap, but also house, techno, pop, as well as world instruments and many more. All of these soudns are definitely up to date, but some of them are definitely ahead of their time!

In my next article, I'm going to show you how well this software performs with just your computer keyboard. You'll be surprised to find what your missing out on!

Virtual beat maker allows Hip Hop artists and DJ's to compose rythms fast!

Here is a virtual beat making tool that allows hip hop, DJs and rap artists to producer their own beats. Beat Thang Virtual isn't just you're regular beat making software, it's simple, yet powerful interface allows for making beats fun, intuitive, and creative. These are vital in making hot beats.

As an artist, you'll often find many times that inspiration strikes when you least expect it. You'll be in the shower and then a hot beat just strikes your imagination, and then you want to go strait to your music lab and create that beat. Though often times, because of the complexity of the software, you often loose that idea, the process becomes dull and you're end result seems rigid and boring. This is often the case especially if you've worked with Pro Tools or Cubase. That's no fun at all. Making beats should be a fun and enjoyable process, not something that should feel painful.

That's what makes Virtual Beat Thang stand out. It put simplicity back into making music. This virtual beat machine allows you to make music on the go. The key to making your "best" music is by following your inspiration. Inspiration is key, and when you hear something that makes your hair stick up, you need to capture it right there. Beat Thang virtual is loaded with over 3,000 high quality samples and instruments to keepy you inspired. Whenever an idea hits, you just load up your BeatThang Virtual, and tap it out on your qwerty keyboard. That's right, you don't even need a MIDI Keyboard Controller to create your music.

This beat making is not only limited to hip hop and rap artists. With even the minimal specs, even electronic musicians, reggae producers and DJ's love this software for banging out beats. It's loaded with 16-tracks to carry on full sequences and completed beats so you'll bet you can use this for full music production.

Watch as this man gives a quick demo of how Beat Thang Virtual performs:



Check it out if your curious. You can click the banner below to get it for yourself!

Bring The MPC on to your PC! - My Review

What is so Special about BeatThang Virtual?

Don't let the title fool you. This virtual beat making software can do anything that Reason, FL Studio, Cubase, and Pro tools are capable of, but in a smaller package! For those of you that need a point of reference, imagine that $2,000 MPC2500. You know, that complex piece of hardware that confuses a lot of beatmakers who get started. It's a music production program that many people have been talking about for a while.

When I first saw this program I was very skeptical. It seemed like a gimmick, a beatmaking tool I didn't take seriously at all because of how simplistic it was. I thought to myself "many beatmakers are just going to see this as a toy and give up using it after a month." Boy was I in for a shock! This thing proved to be a killer!

When many hip hop artists or producers embark on making their own music, they want to be able to start making their music the way they envision it. Making music can be "expensive", especially if you're paying a producer to create songs for you to lay down your lyrics. You won't have to do that anymore, thanks to Beat Thang Virtual. It's simple interface allows you laying down tracks quick with no thinking. This leads to not only faster productions, but good workflow.


What Are The Features:



Features over 3,000 High-Quality Samples and instruments

Includes a high-quality sampler and wave editor, allowing maximum micro-editing capabitlities for accurate chops.

Includes a Real-time 16 Track Sequencer

Edit sample start and end times. Process samples using features like normalize, reverse and resample.

One octave piano keyboard style pad layout with 8 banks so you can bang out beats or play melodies and chords on the keys.

Mixer with built in FX. Change track, Volume and pan levels and Sequence Pitch Changes and Filter sweeps. Add 24bit reverb, delay, flanger, phaser, pitch shift, old record and many more.

Add BANG with onboard mastering for that perfect Punch.

Export your Songs, Beats or Tracks as .wav files instantly or in Real Time for a DJ Style Mix and export them into your favorite recording program.

Edit Kits in Real Time while the Beat is playing.

And much more included! - Here's a cool video demonstration:



What I like about this software is just like the MPC series, you can create your own drum kits and work from scratch, allowing you to create something unique everytime you sit at your computer! Play with it! It works well with a USB MIDI controller. Just tap out beats on your qwerty keyboard if you'd like.

You don't even have to use this program as just a standalone as well. If you use Fruity Loops, Sonar, or Cubase, you can use this as a VST.

I could honestly see this program 5 years from now, match up to the other higher priced software like Logic Pro 8, FL studio. Only time will tell, we will see. Until then, let's enjoy BeatThang Virtual for what it is now!

You can start making hip hop beats with this thing for free. This hip hop beatmaker has more than enough sounds and samples for artists to get started.

Virtual BeatMaker works just like a real MPC!

Here is a program I was recently introduced to by a producer friend of mine who sought after an MPC2500, but this software quickly changed his mind.

There are plenty of producers out there who want to make beats without spending to much. Imagine having a $2,000 MPC on your computer for FREE!

With Virtual Beat Thang, you have the luxury of having over 3,000 unique sounds and beat samples. The quality and of the instruments are outstanding.

This software is great for sketching out musical ideas on the go, and turning them into complete tracks. You're free to use your mouse, touch pad, or even a midi keyboard controller.

Even if you've never made a beat in your life, I can assure that you'll find yourself having FUN making 5-10 beats a day. It's really that easy, and too much fun!

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the software. This is becoming one of the most popular softwares favored by top seasoned hip hop producers in the U.S. and around the world!