Speaker placement? Maybe place your subwoofer on the side walk. If you make tracks using a sub all the time, you might end up with songs that are lacking in the low range. Just a thought.

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Might be speaker placement, but I fear it's worse than that. Sounds to me you suffer from standing waves. And that's a room accoustics problem (lemme guess, you got a pretty standard square/rectangular type of room). You'll have to treat your room to really get rid of this (stuff like Auralex or Primacoustic panels can help). If you're really low on cash, you could try putting some eggcrates (you know the cardboard stuff that goes /\/\/\) on the back wall. That will scatter the sound waves and improve your problem a bit. Try different places to put the crates.

I use headphones to make tracks...

I have a feeling I will never fully rid myself of this unless I move into a symphony playing hall. I don't have the option of putting up sound dampening right now, but I'll keep that in mind for the future.

So are standing waves reverberation? If so, I could redirect the speakers and that should make a signifigant difference. I'll try that right now.

Thanks.

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Standing waves are a result of reflected waves interfering with the direct ones in a bad way. You can easily spot if you have that problem by walking through your room. If you notice that some frequencies get attenuated/lost in some spots then come back in others, you got bad room accoustics. And speaker placement won't solve much, as standing waves are dependent of frequency, not from where the waves come.

Moving into a symphony hall for producing/mixing? That's a big no no. Ideally you'd want a room that colours the sound the least possible (so with decent dampening, and the least possible parallel planes). In pro studio's that spend thousands of dollars on accoustic treatment, even the reflective surface of the mixer can cause problems. Shows you how difficult this topic is. Accoustic engineers get paid big bucks to solve this kind of stuff.

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Originally posted by djglacial My main subwoofer also tends to cancel out the woofers on my speaks when standing really close to it as well. Just pure 500+hz right there! Any speaker placement techniques etc that might help this?

First of all, your subwoofer should have a crossover frequency knob (if it doesnt, then your integrated amp could have a built in one, unless you're using powered monitors). You should generally set the crossover on your sub to just about where your monitors roll off. Meaning, if your monitors have a frequeny response of 50Hz-22K, then you should set your sub crossover frequency to 50Hz. this means that the sub will just continue filling in the frequencies that your monitors can't handle, resulting in no "cancelling out frequencies". Sometimes you need to add a alittle overlap just to round out the sound, but play around with it.

For subwoofer placement, the best thing to do is put your sub directly where your seat would normally go. then, crawl around the room listening for the place where the bass is most refined and accurate (not too boomy, but still has some punch). then, put your sub directly in that location. This in theory should be the optimal placement for your sub.

For monitor placement, basically position them with their tweeters directly at ear level, toed in slightly to your listening angle. Make sure there is not too much reflection going on in the room. If you have alot of hard flat surfaces, try putting up some foam on the walls, or some other kind of cloth or fabric to absorb the sound. If your monitors have ports on the back, be sure to keep them several inches away from walls or other enclosures.

Hope this helps!

just an idea of what can be used as really inexpensive dampening material...bed pads you can get at any local store like a target or something. they are /\/\/\ like egg cartons, a nice soft fabric (pretty good absorbtion) and you get a good deal of it cheap...without having to buy a bunch of eggs hehehe...

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Originally posted by Dj Thy f you're really low on cash, you could try putting some eggcrates (you know the cardboard stuff that goes /\/\/\) on the back wall. That will scatter the sound waves and improve your problem a bit. Try different places to put the crates.

Beat ya

Yah, I fogot about the crossover frequency knob when I was first checking it out, so that has since been solved.

The problem still exists for the other freqs though, and it sounds like y'all are right: flat surfaces, square, smallish room.

I think I'll go with thick curtains, and if that is not sufficient, thick curtains with bed foam on the back. I don't have full reign of the room so I can't just go nuts with produce containers.

Thanks alot for the help!

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Just one important fact...never mix your tracks with your headphones. That's a rule when trying to create a good mix.
Design

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entranced

I have read alot, for and against this.

Once I started using headphones my mastering improved quite a bit actually, as I could clearly hear the entire range of the song. Once finished, I test the track on my computer setup (which sucks) and my livingroom setup.

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