DON'T DO THIS WITH NEARFIELD MONITORS!

So here we are with a super basic set of near field monitors. These are Adam ones, which are all right. We use them, so I thought I’d bring it in here to show you. I also got these keys here that I use. These may look like near fields, but they are my main monitors in the studio.

Let’s get on with what you shouldn’t do with your near fields. So you’ve got these near fields, and you’re wondering if you can get them to sound better. Here are some tips that you can try to do that.

First off, it’s elementary, but I still see a lot of people do it in their studios, and it just makes me cringe every time. When you’ve got them on a desk, you’re going to get resonance through the desk. So what you want to do is get yourself a speaker stand because they’re going to sound better. You can get them in different shapes and sizes, and what you want is these placed behind your desk. These here are very nice looking and are only about £60.

This one here is great. You can fill it with either silver sand 🏖 or lead shots, or something to get it heavier. You want it, so it’s rock-solid on the bottom and not moving. You can put some spikes on their bottoms so that they’re a bit detached from the floor, or else they’re going to resonate through it. The stand should be beautiful and solid, or you’ve got it on concrete. You have to have something between the speaker and the stand wherever you’ve got it.

Ideally, the speakers should be like an anechoic chamber, with the stands holding them in the air, so they touch nothing. There are some things called “parks” that you can get there underneath, like little IsoAcoustics. The weight of the speaker should match up with the weight of the stands because they move backwards and forwards with the weight of the speaker. With IsoAcoustics, their names should be at the front because they move backwards and forwards in that direction.

So what happens there is you get some great separation in your speaker, and you’re getting the speakers working exactly how they need to. You want it, so it’s just sitting on top, totally detached from the rest of the stand.