I got the HS5's over the KRK's for some reason and I regret it. The KRK's sounded alot better, and the Yamaha's have these grills over the tweeters, so it blocks out high freqs.

If putting just a few plugins on the master bus isn't mastering, I guess I don't really master my tracks. As I said in the "Post your mastering chain!" thread, I only use a Fruity PEQ2 + a LimiterNo6 and sometimes a few other things, and it works for me. So no, mastering isn't always necessary. It depends on what's easy for you, and what you want the final product to sound like.

These two studio monitors are very similar, in price and design, but also in some ways different. Which ones do you prefer, and why? Which do you have (Do you regret your choice?), and which would you recommend?

Note: This thread is only for these two speakers. I find most under this price range are much worse, yet any above these are so much more expensive and usually not affordable. If there are monitors you prefer that aren't these, and they're in this price range, feel free to include them in this discussion!

I didn't think this would really need to be said, but you never know. I say don't even use anything that's not explicitly for monitoring.

Well that's not true. You can reference on unprofessional speakers/headphones, but don't use them while actually modifying anything in the mix.

I travel around fair bit and therefore unfortunately only have a pair of headphones to mix on.

However, I've run into the issue that I can't properly hear the low end of the mix, and the bass or kick often comes out either too muddy or too loud, or too low when played at a club or live venue. I've also noticed in cars that sometimes the bass is at such a frequency that it resonates with the plastic in the car causing it to vibrate.

Just wondering the best way to get the mix to 'work' in the low-end. I've tried using reference tracks and comparing them in Ozone, but my mixes always sound more unrefined, and I've also tried pink noise mixing.


Cheers

It depends on the headphones. If you have anything other than headphones that explicitly state they are for monitoring, then don't take them or the sound they produce seriously. I highly, highly recommend either Sennheiser HD 280 Pros, or ATHM50x's

IMO you should always EQ other things to fit with the kick first, before anything else. if the kick itself sounds terrible with and without everything else, either fix it up with compression and EQ or find a new sample.

It really depends on the track. Actually it's a good idea to always do it, but how much?

Start out with minimum decay and a low mix. Then bring up the mix and decay until it sounds right. If you have each type of instrument (lead, chord, bass, drums, etc) on their own busses, before they go into the master, maybe bus all those into a final two: drums and instruments. Then put separate reverbs on each. A smaller one on drums, and a slightly louder and larger reverb on the instruments.