Studio monitors or amps??

[Rohai]

Hola bros,

need your advice. Im considering getting a studio monitor to use at home for practise becasue its probably the most unbiased and doest color ur tone. All my effects come from my pedal board. Question is how do i connect to the studio monitor? Im not sure how this works.

On the other hand i also dont mind sticking to an amp which is plain simple and doesnt have any effects etc etc.. Just need something which is very good clean and can handle gain pedals well also..

Any advice?

 

[zesn]

If by studio monitors you mean those $100-$300 ones. Don't bother. They're coloured.

Anything studio monitors above $500 is generally better. Well, most monitors will colour the tone in a certain way we have to get used to.

You need an audio interface to connect to these speakers.

I use the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. It's cheap, good enough, and portable. Goes for like 200+ at Sinamex or Luthermusic.

So you can see, your guitar will go into instrument input at the front.
And the studio monitors will be plugged into the back panel with line outputs.
This thing is self powered on USB.

Anyway back to the question, the sound of a guitar plugged straight to monitors is generally not favourable. We always want amps to colour our signal a little. That's why we got the Fender/Vox Chime, Marshall-typed tones, Boogie-typed tones. You get it.

Usually, connecting your guitar and board straight to monitors will result in a fizzy and gnarly sterile sound. So people usually put it through a software amp simulator, or a hardware Eleven Rack or Axe FX, then into the monitors.

 

[Rohai]

ahh ok.. understand what u mean bro. Thanks for the advice

 

[adamqlw]

I generally agree with zesn's advice but would flag out a few things

Active monitors accept line level inputs. You don't necessarily need a soundcard to do this. A dedicated preamp would get the job done. Indeed, the soundcard (and also a mixer) would work because it has a built in preamp. Uncolored/flat response speakers are important for high fidelity (i.e. it reproduces the source signal with minimal distortion and evenly across the frequency spectrum). This is generally a good idea, but if you are budget strapped, it's not the end of the world... Your ear will tell you whether you find the coloration objectionable, and in some cases you can use EQ to "flatten" out any coloration (provided it is not too extreme)

A guitar amp colors the tone in three ways:

The preamp typically has a tone shaping circuit (treble/mid/bass) and preamp gain. Preamp gain is typically more "buzzy"/"raspy" and also commonly found in higher gain settings through the use of multiple gain stages.

Power amp distortion happens when you drive the power section of an amp into non-linear operational territory. Non-master volume amps don't have a preamp gain knob, like old Marshalls. The only way to get them to distort is to play them.. Loud! This type of gain is typically more flubby/bassy.

The last stage is the speaker. Guitar speakers are NOT flat response, and contribute a significant chunk to the final tone. They are also not full range, and taper off sharply beyond 10 kHz.

The point of all this? Liking your pedal rig only answers 1/2 the question. The final sound you hear is heavily dependent on the last part of your chain. If you go with monitor speakers, you are going to need to simulate, at the very least, the speaker effect. You can do this with computer impulse response plugins. You can also use amp simulation software to get some preamp/poweramp colouring, even if you keep gain and EQ knobs at relatively modest settings. The upside to this is consistent tone at any volume (adjusting for Fletcher-Munson effects, that is). You can accomplish the software side of this with hardware like a Pod.

Otherwise, you might want to look at a small amp.

Personally I like monitor speaker + software/hardware solution. I find it far more flexible.

 

[Ang3L]

Hi adamqlw,

Am switching to the above-kind set up as well. (Soon, I hope after clearing my doubts!!! Hehe..)

Ok, means to say if am using a BOSS GT-10 which has a built-in pre-amp, can be directly connected to the Monitors? No audio interface or alikes required in between?

Thanks thanks to Mr. Rohai for bringing this up.

GOD bless.

 

[adamqlw]

Yes you can go GT10 direct to a monitor speaker (or as one would say, a full-range speaker. Flat response optional ) Make sure you set out output correctly to LINE/PHONES.

Personally I am not a big fan of Boss' COSM simulation though... but other people have managed to get solid results. You might want to check out some Alex Hutchings videos, he does some great demos for Boss.

 

[Ang3L]

Yes you can go GT10 direct to a monitor speaker (or as one would say, a full-range speaker. Flat response optional ) Make sure you set out output correctly to LINE/PHONES.

Personally I am not a big fan of Boss' COSM simulation though... but other people have managed to get solid results. You might want to check out some Alex Hutchings videos, he does some great demos for Boss.

Cheers, Bro. Yup, flat-sounding speakers.

 

[Rohai]

Hey cool for the responses.. like u guys im also exploring other options besides getting an amp ..so its good that we all can learn from others here..thanks for the responses so far!

Next question is for those of u using monitor speakers, what speakers do you use?

 

[zesn]

I'm using the Yamaha HS80.

Like bro adamqlw said, mine are active monitors and you can actually plug a guitar/iphone/line signal into it and it will play it. But the audio interface helps you control the volume easier and allows you to record your playing into a software and monitor it.

The GT-10 should work. Generally Line6 Pods are not bad. And software speaker simulation could work out fine as well. Nothing beats the speakers pushing some air of course.

 

[adamqlw]

I use a QSC k10 for "live" monitoring, krk rokit 5s on my desktop and shure 420s on headphones. Which I feel pretty much covers me for all situations. Regular amps are pretty much dead to me, I must confess.