Mixing with a sub? Is it really working?

[gammalord]

Definitely a good question and one I didn't understand up until recently.

I think of it like this:

Imagine that instead of a subwoofer and 2 mains, you simply have 2 larger mains with greater low extension. Disregard the fact that you have 2 separate components. (After all, your sub should integrate JUST like that; it should not be it's own driver but rather an extender to your mains).

Now imagine that these 2 large, extended mains have a large bass boost - whether it be in the electronics, the position, the room, whatever. The point is that your ears are hearing more bass than is actually in the mix. The monitors are considered bass heavy.

You mix the track.

Your mix is bass light. uh oh!

The thing is that your listeners will percieve the track as one whole sum - they will not be breaking things down into frequencies. It either slams or it doesnt.

Integrating a sub into your mains is really tough. The mains sound right at one spot, the sub sounds right at a different spot. You need them to both sound right at the same spot. Subs are monophonic and contrary to popular belief, LF is not monophonic until you get really low - near 20Hz. Go ahead and pan a kick drum LR. Plenty of LF there but you'll definitely hear it move across the soundstage. See what I mean. That's one of the reasons why guys make a big deal and spend a lot of money on truly full range monitors or alternatively, use L/R subwoofers.

Room treatment will help flatten out your room response and therefore open up the sweet spot (ideally allowing the sub and mains to reproduce correctly in the same location).

Now - patching your sub in and out is certainly a useful tool to do a rough check on any rogue LF - you're completely correct there - but its risky to keep it in the chain without at least looking at a room response curve to see what its REALLY telling you.

Word?

[bonestar]

Originally Posted by gammalord

Now - patching your sub in and out is certainly a useful tool to do a rough check on any rogue LF - you're completely correct there - but its risky to keep it in the chain without at least looking at a room response curve to see what its REALLY telling you.

I think you and I are on the same frequency (so to speak). I'm essentially just wanting to check for rogue LF. My heavy lifting will always be on my BM6A's alone (without the sub), which I'm currently getting good results with. I might be stricken by lightning for suggesting this, but for my particular purposes I'm not sure a really expensive sub is even necessary. If I could check sub-bass with headphones, that would be perfect but I'm not sure I've ever heard significant sub-bass out of a set of headphones.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by bonestar

I don't think I have a bass trap issue.

They never do.

Seriously, this is why you mis-judge bass frequencies in your mixes. Which mixes are mis-judged depends on the key of the music versus the peak and null frequencies in your room. Adding a sub will not help that as much as you think, and might well make things even worse. Time for some graphs. This is the response in a typical small untreated room with and without bass traps:



You didn't say how big your "larger" room is, but even my 33 by 18 by 12 foot one-room studio had bass problems that required bass traps. The only way you'll know what problems you have is to measure your room using appropriate software:

Room Measuring Primer

You also suggested using headphones to check sub-bass and I asked for a suggestion of headphones that could handle that, since I don't think I've ever had a pair that goes low enough to reveal sub-bass information.

I didn't answer because I'm not up on all the brands and models of headphones available. I never recommend mixing on 'phones, but they're useful to spot serious problems like way too much or too little bass overall.

--Ethan

[bonestar]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Seriously, this is why you mis-judge bass frequencies in your mixes.

Room size is around 36 x 38 x 10. I'm using nearfields and don't typically monitor super-loud. I have furniture, including a couple of couches in there. I really don't think I misjudge bass. I think I misjudge sub-bass. The bass frequencies of my mixes translate well to most systems. Systems that have subs, though, sometimes reveal information in my mixes that I literally didn't hear at all on my Dynaudios.

It just seems counter-intutive to me that adding bass traps would allow me to suddenly hear sub-bass information that I'm not hearing now anywhere in my room when I walk around in it. I'll defer to the experts, though.

[Ethan Winer]

Well, no amount of bass traps will bring out frequencies your mains don't output. But still, 41 Hz from your mains is pretty low. That is a big room though, so adding a sub is not as difficult as in a bedroom. Again I urge you to measure, because otherwise you're just guessing.

--Ethan

[nst7]

Originally Posted by bonestar

It just seems counter-intutive to me that adding bass traps would allow me to suddenly hear sub-bass information that I'm not hearing now anywhere in my room when I walk around in it. I'll defer to the experts, though.

It does seem counter-intuitive, but it really does work this way. What's happening to some of your bass frequencies right now is that their either being cancelled out or hyped in various ways as they bounce around the room or slam into each other.

I have some very minimal treatment in my room and I couldn't believe what a difference even a little bit could make. Not only in hearing more low end, having the low end taken care of also cleans up the higher frequencies. I also use Auralex Mopads with my monitors and they also made a noticeable difference.

[TeamContra]

Get your self some JBL Lsr8 with matching Sub. Worth every penny. They have a built room tuner. Better then any KRK I have ever used.

[Enlightened Hand]

Extremely lame JBLs those are. Homogenized sound, lack of detail. Pretty much par for price level.

[TeamContra]

Originally Posted by Enlightened Hand

Extremely lame JBLs those are. Homogenized sound, lack of detail. Pretty much par for price level.

I guess 1.5k is not good in value for you. But seeing all the awards they have sure says a lot about them. Plus their customer support is great. Awesome mix that ate done by them worth more then most monitors I've worked with.