Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 814)

Chapter 2 Setting Up Audio Equipment 27
I
Setting Up a Proper Audio Monitoring Environment
Room shape and material are just as important as the quality of the speakers
themselves. Every surface in a room potentially reflects sound, and these reflections
mix together with the sound originating from the speakers. Rooms with parallel walls
can create standing waves, which are mostly low-frequency sound waves that reinforce
and cancel each other as they bounce back and forth.
Standing waves cause some frequencies to be emphasized or attenuated more than
others, depending on your listening position. When you mix in a room that creates
standing waves, you may adjust certain frequencies more than necessary. However, you
may not notice until you play back your audio in a different listening environment, in
which those frequencies may sound overbearing or nonexistent.
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Tip: A much cheaper alternative to building new walls is to mount angled pieces of
material to the existing walls to eliminate parallel surfaces.
If the material in a room is very reflective, the room sounds “brighter” because high
frequencies are easily reflected. Mounting absorbing material (such as acoustic foam)
on the walls can reduce the brightness of a room. A “dead room” is one that has very
little reflection (or reverberation). Try to cover any reflective surfaces in your
monitoring environment.
Speaker Placement and Listening Position
Most video editing suites use nearfield monitors, which are speakers designed to be
listened to at fairly close range. Speakers should be at least a foot or two away from
any walls to prevent early reflections of sound which combine with and muddy up the
original sound.
Position the speakers as far from your listening position as they are from each other
(forming an equilateral triangle). For example, if the distance between the speakers is
six feet, you should place yourself six feet from each speaker. The apparent width of the
sound stage, or stereo image, increases as the distance between the speakers increases.
However, if the two speakers get too far apart, sound information appearing in the
center (between both speakers) starts to disappear.
Using Headphones
Many people use headphones as an alternative to critical monitoring speakers.
Headphones can help you identify sounds that may not be obvious in your speakers.
However, you shouldn’t rely solely on headphones for mixing because many viewers
don’t listen to movies with headphones.