Scary Sub And Bass

Production
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I started off making bass music on KRK Rokit 8’s and went to Focal CMS 65’s 3 years later. As I got more into sound design I began to make experimental music and began to make sounds I truly like (https://soundcloud.com/dyian/dark3sect016/s-AesCr)

I ended up selling my Focals years ago and after 2 years of mixing on my AKG K712’s I have run into an opportunity to finance a pair of monitors.

After A/Bing with the Focals and Dynaudio’s I decided I liked the sound of Dynaudio’s BM5 MKIII.

I got home and set them up, and that’s where things went wrong. Because I’ve gotten so used to headphones, the feeling of sub and bass frequencies in places other than my head began to create a seemingly hostile environment that I don’t think I really like. I thought to myself [I]Well I did pick these over the LYD 7’s because they had better low and and high end[/I], so I tried out multiple artists and genres and discovered that some songs sounded alright and others not so much - [I]Okay this means they are revealing, this is good…[/I]

But then I came back to one of the songs I was working on and decided experiment and so I EQ’d out the frequencies that bothered me. 225Hz and below. I listened to both bands and then realized the lower frequencies were just… Scary.

I felt like I never knew this kind of sub before, my AKG’s sub frequencies were obviously something I never felt anywhere other than my head and I grew to like it. It was safe…

But this… This seemed too much. Startling. I thought to myself [I]I suppose I just have never really heard sub frequencies other than at festivals and shows, but come to think of it I felt this way about my CMS 65’s…[/I]. I turned on both bands and brought down 225Hz and below by 17dB. [I]There I thought.[/I] But then I listened to it on my AKG’s and thought this is ridiculous.

I then thought [I]Maybe I should go down to 5" monitors… I called a few people and did some research and found the KH120’s, which seem to sound the most promising, but I can’t help but feel weary about the fact that there is no sub bass… I mean, I do make bass music so maybe I should embrace my current monitors? Can I work in those frequencies on 5" monitors?[/I]

Come to think of it. I haven’t really finished anything, Im just endlessly designing sounds to build a library of sounds to use in making songs, and I thought having monitors would help me in this whole process, but now I feel I should have just stuck with my headphones… But now it’s too late.

Does anyone make bass music on smaller speakers? Do you think my solution is to get smaller monitors or just force myself to get used to it?

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noice track I fink

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I think working in a sub heavy environment is bad for production. its too tempting to lean on ‘weight’ and come up with lifeless music.

that being said, I’ve got some 5" jbl monitors that I trust for production. I also have a pretty heavy duty sound system I use for DJing/radio. I rarely cross the two together, I dont like it.

I think that you should trust your gut, if you feel like there’s too much bass in the tunes then chop it out. I dont think different speakers are going to change how you feel about the music you are making.

Stop worrying and just make tunes

(i also just listened to your soundcloud clip, very nice stuff in terms of vibe. I get the feeling that a lot of the bass you are talking about is coming from the upper bass area though. That area gets muddy fast and turns a satisfying sub into a cluttered mess as the speaker tries to catch up with everything thats going on with the higher freqs. At least thats what im hearing in your clip)

2 Likes
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This is just what I needed to read. Thank you

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95% of the stuff I’m into has the sub sitting at the same level ±1.5dB or something. I just mix it by eye, and fine tune in the final mixdown (when you somewhat know how hard everything else is going to be pushed). I think the difficulty is at dealing with sub frequencies for stuff like some intro drums or some breakdown FX or something, when the actual sub bass is not playing you know, so you want to have some energy down there so the whole mix doesn’t sound like a high-passed piece of shit.

2 Likes
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I think it just takes time to adjust to and learn your new monitors. It also takes a bit of time of playing material thru new speakers for them to break in and settle to their final tone. Report back after a few weeks on them and see how both their sound and your familiarity/comfort improves.

1 BigUp
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What kind of speakers do you use with your sound system?

Any comments on JBL LSR305 vs LSR308?
308s are waaaaaay less than 305s on Amazon rn

The yamaha HS8 sound good too but I’m not looking for production speakers just house party speakers. maybe the JBLs or Yamaha’s would be enough?

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I have the lsr305’s I quite like them. I’m not sure why they are more expensive than the 8" models. Both models sound great, they have ridiculously good stereo imaging for the price and a wide ‘sweet spot’. The 8"s should be nice for just listening at higher volumes.

on the hi fi side of things Ive got
2x Klipsch Cornwall
2x home loaded 3 way cabs
10" homebuilt sub
and an M&K mx-70

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Nice man, thanks for the input, those Klipsch look killer, bet that M&K mx-70 is destructive

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I actually traded my second copy of loefah - woman/midnight for the mx-70 haha, very happy with the trade