?Well like any aspiring producer, I was mixing last night. I got hungry so I tossed in some left over pork steak into the microwave. (Like any aspiring producer, the meat was given to me from my mom. Aspiring producers usually eat Ramon noodles or water).

I had a little card table setup behind the mix position that contained a bunch of my guitar pedals, string winders, and the various other junk you have laying around a guitar recording session. I took my arm and carved me out a place to set my pork steak and baked beans. So I was basically sitting about 5 feet back from where I usually mix and probably about 8 feet away from my Mackie HR824 studio monitors.

To bring you up to speed, I was about 90% done with a country pop mix on a song I was producing for Daniel Sexton. I was really starving so I decided to grab a bite to eat and then come back and finish the mix. (I don't mix so well when I rush).

For the hell of it, I hit space bar while I sit down to feed my face. HOLY SHIT!!! The mix changed drastically. In fact, I got up just to make sure the right song was playing. It was the right song and it was the same mix.

Something AMAZINGLY different happened when I backed up 5 feet. It's not like I didn't know that the room sounds drastically different when I walk around. I mean, I walk around the room with every mix I do. This was different. These monitors sounded like they were given me what I needed to really mix.

The thing that really jumped out was the bass guitar. I could clearly hear faults in how it was mixed before. The boominess was clearly saying “fix me!” in a way where I knew how to fix it. Usually, I hear problems and I don't know how to fix them, as if I can't clearly identify what the problem is. Sitting back just 5 feet very clearly identified short comings in my mix.

Without a doubt, I will be buying an extension cable for my keyboard, mouse, and monitor just to do a little remixing in a different part of the room. Ideally, my room would already sound great, but that's an expensive proposition. I have no intention of dropping $3,000 to make it a little better. I want it great and that is going to cost BIG BUCKS! So for now, that will have to wait.

Hearing new problems in mixes, in a way that my mixes typically sound in the real world, inspired me to play with the location of my studio monitors. Currently, I keep my studio monitors very close to me. I try to create a equilateral triangle with my head and the two monitors, but the monitors are usually so close that I just have to lean over a little bit to touch them. (Touching the monitors has helped me judge low end quite a bit over the years). Anyway, I decided to move them back one foot just to see what would happen.

The Results

Holy shit, the difference is enormous!! My mix totally changed. Something in the soundstage totally changed. Overall, there was something there that was missing before. I can't put my finger on whether it's an imaging thing, a frequency thing, or what. Not only did the monitors sound “better” they appeared to make it easier to hear and solve problems while mixing.

I must admit that I've not been very happy with my Mackie HR824s. If I could go back and get something else, I would. However, the difference in moving them back just 12” would have made me think you had blindfolded me and swapped out my speakers. It was that big of difference.

The moral of the story is to mix for a while in one spot and then move just a little bit. Move yourself back a foot or move your monitors back a foot. Either way, speaker placement makes an outrageous difference in the sound of you studio monitors.