Some problem to learn my monitors

[::XeS::]

Hi
I've a pair of yamaha hs50 and I love them.
I know they have not too much bass, so I set the bass selector at max (to decently hear the bass frequencies) and during the mixing process I keep the bass a little low to compensate the lack.
The problem is that the mixes I'm doing in my room, often in another stereo don't sound good at all because they have boomy bass and harsh highs..
I have no treatment in my room and I have some questions: how do bass traps work? Do they cut bass frequencies? If they cut more bass I will tend to raise the bass in my mix further, I think.
Can the Auralex MoPads help me a little?
Thank you

 

[dreamcatcher]

Bass traps. Lots of them. GO!

 

[JBroll]

Don't be afraid to just get a subwoofer and have someone who knows what they're doing come in and set them up.

What I would do is spend a few days with reference mixes, going between stereo, car, and recording setup and trying to figure good bass settings out until a more 'professional' solution became available.

Bass traps will compensate for room deficiencies and monitor pads will keep your desk (and, depending on your setup, possibly the room) from having its input in the sound - anything in contact with anything making sound will itself make sound, so those pads are put up to isolate your monitors from everything else.

That should tide you over until someone who knows this stuff better chimes in. For right now try to get a handle on things with reference mixes and see if you can get things done better that way.

Jeff

 

[::XeS::]

Do you think a sub could solve my problems? I think a sub would be a additional piece of gear to set, with all the related problems...I don't know :\

 

[JBroll]

That's why you'd get someone with proper calibration training and tools to come in and set it up.

Jeff

 

[Ice Man]

Do you think a sub could solve my problems? I think a sub would be a additional piece of gear to set, with all the related problems...I don't know :

Well, if low end is already your problem, then I think getting a sub, logically, would be one of the last things you should invest in. If your bass information is cloudy at your mix position, then by adding more low end to what you're hearing, there might even be a chance that then you'd have a problem with too little bass upon translation because you're compensating in the other direction. As stated above, you need bass trapping. Look into GIK Acoustics or Real Traps. Bass traps don't cut your bass frequencies. What they do is flatten the frequency response in your room and the most problematic frequencies are in the low end department. What you're hearing is your low end bouncing around the room, some of the waves are cancelling each other out, others are stacking and creating way too much bass. What bass traps do is allow you to hear the sound coming from your monitors with much fewer trips around the room, so you know exactly what the speakers are telling you the first time, not the translation that an untreated room imparts, which is horrid. Keep in mind, too, it doesn't take away low end, but it will help level things out even into your mid range. Also, I know the boat you're in, too, because learning to reference from a cd with an untreated room is no easy thing. I'd take a guess and say that mastered, national releases even sound strange in your room, because they certainly do in mine. The cd you're playing will sound different in each place you can stand in your room. My recommendation would be search for GIK Acoustics and Real Traps. Both sites have top notch customer service and plenty of information on both how sound interacts in rooms and what bass trapping can do to help. I'd stay away from auralex foam, if you can help it. Bass traps made from 703 rigid fiberglass have much better absorption.

Good luck,
Daniel

 

[JBroll]

If he's having to crank the bass and it's making his entire response inaccurate I'd say that he'd be better off using the sub for lows and having the monitors only reproduce things they're capable of doing accurately. He doesn't need *more* bass, if his mixes are coming out with too much bass and he already has the bass maxed on those monitors (and the highs are harsh, too, implying that the huge bass load is making the entire response out of whack) I'd think it's fairly clear that expecting them to work well on their own is out of the question.

Jeff

 

[Ice Man]

If he's having to crank the bass and it's making his entire response inaccurate I'd say that he'd be better off using the sub for lows and having the monitors only reproduce things they're capable of doing accurately. He doesn't need *more* bass, if his mixes are coming out with too much bass and he already has the bass maxed on those monitors (and the highs are harsh, too, implying that the huge bass load is making the entire response out of whack) I'd think it's fairly clear that expecting them to work well on their own is out of the question.

Jeff

I'm going to have to disagree. Buying a sub seems like a cheap, work-around attempt at cheating the larger problem at hand. The problem is his room. If it's untreated, and worse, if it's small, it's a bass frequency nightmare. Depending on what low frequencies are peaked or nulled, he might not even hear the full effect of the sub anyway. I guarantee that if he put in 4-8 bass traps (4 for wall-to-wall corners or 8 for 4 wall-wall and 4 ceiling-wall corners) he could set his low end on his monitors at unity gain and hear much more particular low end information than he ever would with an untreated room, the bass cranked, and a sub adding a flurry to the low-end cluster fuck. Plus, no matter what, if he takes his mixing the least bit seriously, then he's going to have to treat his room some time anyway. So why not make one of the most beneficial steps sooner than later?

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I'm by no means an expert, or even very knowledgeable of the subject, but I would, too, go with treating the room first, then accompanying the HS50's with a sub. I had a problem with very muddy low-end with my small monitors, but just placing them in a more appropriate spot in the room made a world of difference. Got rid of that big BOOOOOM Cubase seems to put in my mixes.

 

[Metaltastic]

Got rid of that big BOOOOOM Cubase seems to put in my mixes.

Ahahahahahahahaahahhahaha - it's a double-edged sword, to be sure

 

[JBroll]

I won't say he shouldn't get room treatment - that's just a given. I haven't said he shouldn't, and I won't say he shouldn't, but that isn't one of the things I can go into a great deal of detail on so I'm leaving that to others.

But if even after cranking the bass he isn't getting enough of a bass response (and as a result is getting mixes that are boomy on other systems), and he's losing high-end detail, a fairly clear implication would be that he's expecting too much out of the monitors and a sub would take care of the stuff that his monitors couldn't handle.

Suggesting a subwoofer to accompany speakers lacking in low-end is hardly a 'cheap workaround cheat' by any stretch - no treatment of the room will bring out bass that simply doesn't exist. I'd say that cranking the bass on the HS50s is a cheap workaround for not having something designed to take care of low-end response and I can say with all certainty that having to do that is harming his mixes.

Don't misread what I'm saying, I do occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Jeff

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I won't say he shouldn't get room treatment - that's just a given. I haven't said he shouldn't, and I won't say he shouldn't, but that isn't one of the things I can go into a great deal of detail on so I'm leaving that to others.

But if even after cranking the bass he isn't getting enough of a bass response (and as a result is getting mixes that are boomy on other systems), and he's losing high-end detail, a fairly clear implication would be that he's expecting too much out of the monitors and a sub would take care of the stuff that his monitors couldn't handle.

Suggesting a subwoofer to accompany speakers lacking in low-end is hardly a 'cheap workaround cheat' by any stretch - no treatment of the room will bring out bass that simply doesn't exist. I'd say that cranking the bass on the HS50s is a cheap workaround for not having something designed to take care of low-end response and I can say with all certainty that having to do that is harming his mixes.

Don't misread what I'm saying, I do occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Jeff

I didn't misread, mate. I completely agree with you about the lack of low end, since I have a pair of equally small monitors myself and often lose stuff in the low end, resulting in bassy mixes. I just wanted to state that treating the room is (in my humble opinion - as I stated, my knowledge of the subject is very limited) at least equally important. Imagine what would happen if he got a sub and put it in a room with horrible acoustics

 

[Ice Man]

I didn't misread, mate... Imagine what would happen if he got a sub and put it in a room with horrible acoustics

He was talking about me misreading, not you. You're clear! =) You hit the nail on the head with your closing remark, though. Honestly, it isn't a function of how much bass his monitors are churning out, it's a function of what frequencies his room is gobbling up and what frequencies his room is accentuating. His room may very well have a null between 40-60hz in which case he'll never hear accurate bass response at reasonable levels. The fact of the matter is, we can debate on who misread who and who is off their nut (who knows, I often am), but he wants accurate monitor translation. To do that, he needs to clear up the cloudy, erractic low end that his untreated room is giving him. Solution? Room treatment.

 

[JBroll]

Bass traps were already suggested. Further, I gave a brief summary of the use of isolation pads. Finally, given that he's using HS50s and hasn't yet gotten a subwoofer, I'd say it's fairly safe to assume that speaker isolation and bass traps are all he'll really be able to do quickly and easily given the kind of budget that would imply.

If you got a sub and had a bad room, you'd have a bad sound but at least it would be a bad sound up and down the range - it's easier to get used to a shit room than a complete lack of a frequency range.

Jeff

 

[VH100R]

I had the HS50. loved them. but... returned them I got the hs80m.

Got all the bass I need. And I don't have to buy a sub + all the other problems of matching it to the monitors. unless you go with the yamaha sub but that will cost you more than buying the hs80ms.

seriously... save up and get the hs80ms. you won't regret it

 

[Metaltastic]

But they're freakin' HUGE!!

 

[JBroll]

Then get some midget slaves to hold them in position so you don't lose too much desk space.

Or a bigger desk.

Personally, I'd go with midget slaves.

Jeff

 

[dreamcatcher]

Then get some midget slaves to hold them in position so you don't lose too much desk space.

Or a bigger desk.

Personally, I'd go with midget slaves.

Jeff

Certainly less resonance problems with midget slaves. But it takes a lot of beatings to get them to hold the monitors in the perfect spots for any length of time.

EDIT: and I had the same problems of translation. A superchunk bass trap behind me helped a lot, now I'm looking for more places to put more bass traps.

 

[JBroll]

Certainly less resonance problems with midget slaves. But it takes a lot of beatings to get them to hold the monitors in the perfect spots for any length of time.

And this is a problem... how?

Jeff

 

[dreamcatcher]

And this is a problem... how?

Jeff

It's not really something that can be done on the clock, so it's a non-recuperable expense.