Dealing with bass resonances in room

[sambaji]

In most parts of the room, I really like the low end of my current mix. However, there is a certain position where the low end sounds too tubby/boomy, much so than my professional reference tracks. I get a poorer bass/kick response in my mix in the problematic part of my room. Part of the issue is that I am using an African Calabash/guard drum sample which has a less fat low end and more of a resonant peak around 85hz than the thick kicks played in these reference tracks. Any suggestions on how to deal with differences? More low-end compression, higher low cut, more calabash resonant ducking the bass? I suspect I really need to tame my subs, even if they may in fact be on average less than my main reference track, and compress them way more than I am now with a dynamic EQ.

One idea I had was to record my mix and my main reference from a good and bad spot in my room, do an EQ match and comparison, and identify which frequencies are problematic in my mix. These types of issues that come up with home production really highlight the degree of expertise, typically years of experience, it takes to mix and master tracks that sound great fairly universally. My hat goes off to all the professional mastering/mixing engineers. They are artists in their own right.

[sambaji]

Upon further analysis, I think I need to go back to the drawing board in terms of how I am EQing the bass--maybe less sub and more mid/low highs--to create the sense bass more psychoacoustically with less sub information.

[lobanov]

Short answer: don't mix when listening from problematic spots. If you're sure that a good spot is really good one.

Don't complicate your life. There is only one right position. In front of your monitors. Triangle, you know it. There is no need to listen from different places. You can listen from different places or even from a neighbor room but it's just to refresh your ears and your vision of a mix. It doesn't determine your essential decisions.

Why do you want to change your mix depending on your position? In an acoustically good room you just mix, in a bad room you changes something (room itself, your monitors' frequency response) but NOT your mix. Your mix in any case must stay unchanged, any correction affects MONITORING or ROOM ACOUSTICS only. Analysis? Comparison? I think you won't see anything. You'll just create additional mess in your head.

But the best way is to treat your room.

May be, try this: RoomEQ

Or: Sonarworks

Or: ARC System

[thecontrolcentre]

Mixing from a bad sounding spot in your room is not advisable. Presumably your current mixing position sounds good, yeah? what sort of monitoring are you using? Setting bass levels correctly can be difficult in an untreated room. I used to listen from outside the room too ... do you use a sub bass monitor?

[sambaji]

Thanks for your replies. I just have a medium-quality sony stereo speaker system--no sub. I am a low-budget home-recording musician kind of guy. I understand the necessity of mixing from the ideal triangulated position between the speakers. My inquiry was about why my mixes sound worse in the low end than my references in the non-ideal positions in my room? It seems to me what's more important than what position I am listening to in my room is how does my mix compare with my professionally mixed reference tracks regardless of where I am listening from.

[thecontrolcentre]

The pro reference tracks will have been mixed on good monitors in a good room by an experienced professional, while yours have not. That's why your mixes sound wrong in comparison. Accurate monitoring is key to better mixes.

[willeverettlovesu]

+1 for Sonarworks... that's a great way to help acoustic issues in your room. you'll need a reference mic (and I'd suggest using their own, not a 3rd party one). but there's really no substitute for good ol bass traps placed in the right spots.

[snjegi]

I don't get it. You talk about problems in your mix although you're unable to judge the quality of your mix. The acoustics in your room are far from ideal. But just because specific frequencies are intensified or attenuated in your room doesn't allow any conclusion as to the quality of the mix. That just means that listening to your mix in your room won't allow for an accurate assessment. You simple can't tell whether you need to change your mix or not. Try to find ways to crosscheck. Find another place to listen to the mix. Or use an EQ to push a narrow frequency band and sweep across the spectrum to find the specific frequencies that sound bad in your room, then check whether these frequencies are too dominant in your mix or just fine.

What you also can do is use an EQ profile to adjust the output while you're monitoring in your room. Tools like Sonarworks SoundID help you do that. It's not what you proposed though, measuring good and bad spots (how do you know which spot in your room is neutral? maybe none). The idea is to measure the deviation from a neutral sound at your exact listening position and then create an EQ curve to counter the imbalance. But again, only while monitoring. This adjustment must not go in to the mix. Of course, if you are listening to your mix with this more or less neutralized sound profile you might identify problems that you want to address in the mix. But even a perfect mix might sound bad in other spots of your room.