Inaccurate Bass on mixes

B

Benreturns

New member
Im not getting a true bass response from my active monitors. Whenever I play my mixes on domestic units or in the car the bass is almost non existant although in the studio it easyly gets over powering and i have to roll it off.

What treatment could I apply to my studio to stop this? Im thinking some kind of acoustic foam wedges behing the monitors?

The monitors in question are Edirol MA10A's by the way... (none of the bass settings are pumped up - they are set to be as flast as possible)

Cheers!
 
Bass traps maybe? I don't know awhole lot about room treatment.
 
Do a search here for "bass traps". There's a ton of stuff about it, even building your own.

If your mixing desk is in a corner of a room, you're also going to get bass heavy mixes. If you are in the corner, move it out to the center of a wall.

Other than that, you could try to learn to compensate...ie, it sounds like this here, so it'll sound like that there.

I'd try the other two ideas first though.

6
 
Yup...treatment.

Bass traps would be the biggest culprit, I would think. Lotsa info here on treatment, tho. Made a world of difference in my mixes.
 
Benreturns said:
Im not getting a true bass response from my active monitors.
Click to expand...
You're not getting a true reproduction of the low end in the monitors from your room. As mentioned, bass trapping. Monitors will only ever sound as good as the room they're in allows them to. Proper placement and proper low end management are some of the most crucial decisions you will ever make when it comes to recording. The quality of *EVERYTHING ELSE* will be dictated to some extent by the strength or weakness of your monitoring chain (including the room, of course).
 
So I've always wondered this, and I guess this is a good place to ask it.

So standing waves cancel each other out, right, and that's why people get bad bass info in their mixes. Bass traps catch the waves so they don't cancel each other out, etc.

Now, with this logic, shouldn't it be that since bass waves are cancelling themselves out, the bass should be OVER exaggerated instead of being non existent in the mixes? Since you'd think you'd be cranking it up too loud?

That's always confused me.
 
There is ALOT of science involved...check out Ethan Winers site http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Bass escapes your monitors in 3D. So, this bass is reflecting of your walls, building up alot in corners, and coming back at your ears.

Depending on the room, this bass reflection could be giving you a masked idea of EVERY frequency. So..you may think theres alot of bass in your mix, and overcompensate with mids, adjust those, now there's a little mud, so roll of some bass,..and so the circle begins.

Start with basstraps in the 4 corners of the room - a friend of mine bought a pack of 3" rockwool and didn't even take the plastic off, just left the bundle in his 4 corners, and his mixes opened wide up..

Anyways...read whats on Ethans site..he's the man..

-LIMiT
 
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Chris. said:
So I've always wondered this, and I guess this is a good place to ask it.

So standing waves cancel each other out, right, and that's why people get bad bass info in their mixes. Bass traps catch the waves so they don't cancel each other out, etc.

Now, with this logic, shouldn't it be that since bass waves are cancelling themselves out, the bass should be OVER exaggerated instead of being non existent in the mixes? Since you'd think you'd be cranking it up too loud?

That's always confused me.
Click to expand...

Some waves cancel, some waves add. It just depends on the physics of the room dimensions, where you stand or sit, where the speakers are located, and the wavelengths involved. Ever hummed in a bathroom stall and noticed at certain resonant notes it gets really loud? Definetely read up on Ethan's site, he's very generous with his considerable knowledge.
 
I think the kicker is that when you're up against a wall, bass is often exaggerated at the listening position so you lower it in the mix. The remedy then would be to move away from the wall.

If you've got bass cancellation in the room, then the bass traps would come in handy. Theoretically, the bass traps would always help because any bass frequencies bouncing over to them would be greatly reduced and wouldn't come back to increase or decrease the amount of bass at the listening position. Your bass would come more from the monitors than the room, which gives you more accuracy across the frequency range.

Or so I'm told :D
 
A little tip here, beyond room treatment. I find that the bass gets a little overpowering in those monitors(I use the same ones). What I normally do, is turn down the bass control on the monitor, and I leave it a little high in the mix. The big thing is, if you can get your bass to sound tight on those monitors, you can crank it pretty high before it gets overpowering on other systems. One the other hand, sloppy bass is sloppy bass, and a crappy room IS a crappy room, but you kinda gotta adjust to those monitors too.


Simon
 
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