Anyone use a sub most/all the time for main monitors?

I've read several things (admittedly mostly on forums) where you should only use a sub to check your mix occasionally. Well, happy birthday to me, I got one (KRK 10s) and got it set up tonight.  I set it up using this article from SOS: 
 
http://www.soundonsound.c...rticles/subwoofers.asp
 
I think, if I read the article right that the goal is to have the sub on most of the time. I still plan on checking my mixes with the sub off and I also have one of those Behritone Auratone clones for mono and small speaker checking.
 
Does anyone here use a sub most/all the time?

Thanks Leadfoot. I've been listening to varied musical genres since I got it going to get used to how things sound with it and I'm really liking how everything sounds. 
 
It's kinda funny, I first set up the sub from the KRK manual and their website where you download test tones and use an SPL meter to set levels. After dong this, the sub was WAYYYYY too loud.  I then followed the SOS article (above) subjective way to dial it in and that worked much, much better.

All the time. After my first couple of mixes with it, I had the sub level set to where I can barely hear it most of the time, but it's there. If I start to really hear it, I know I've gone too far with the bass/kick in the mix, unless that's what I want.
 
Regards,
Dan

Same here. The sub's on all the time. I rely on alternate speakers and headphones to hear what it sounds like without that low end help.
 
But it took me awhile to get the sub placed and adjusted right. There is a natural tendency to turn it up too loud. I'd recommend recording a stepped or swept sine wave series to check levels and, more important, to identify your worst low-frequency room modes. The sub is going to excite problem frequencies that might not have been noticeable before.
 
Another tip: where you put the sub relative to the mix position is very important. As you're experimenting with different locations, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be directly on the floor and it doesn't have to be midway between your main speakers.
 
Depending on the type of floor (e.g. hollow space beneath vs. solid concrete) it can benefit you to raise the speaker off the floor and/or add some vibration dampeners underneath it.
 
Moving it off-center can help by changing the resonant peaks such that they're not reinforcing harmonics from your mains. For example, I have a 70 Hz resonance in my room, which means it's also problematic for multiples of 70 Hz (140, 210, 280 Hz, etc.), which my mains contribute to. Moving the sub to one side I found a spot where 70 Hz is not peaking at the mix position, so even though the mains are still resonating at least they're not conspiring with the sub to make it worse.
 
Set your crossover as low as possible. Figure out where your mains start to wimp out and set the crossover just above that and no higher. You might think that setting the crossover higher will help by taking some load off the mains, but in practice it's not going to be as smooth that way. My main speakers' -3dB point is about 50 Hz, so my crossover is set to about 55 Hz. Originally I had it up around 70 Hz but heard an immediate improvement after lowering it.
 
As with any new speakers, listening to commercial music and training your ears is the best preparation. It's a tough assignment: kick back and listen to your favorite tunes through your new setup, for as long as possible. After a hundred hours or so, all the technical stuff won't matter because your brain will just know what it's supposed to sound like.

i never use a sub.
 

bitflipper
As with any new speakers, listening to commercial music and training your ears is the best preparation. It's a tough assignment: kick back and listen to your favorite tunes through your new setup, for as long as possible. After a hundred hours or so, all the technical stuff won't matter because your brain will just know what it's supposed to sound like.

 
There you go.... I agree 100% with this.  Dave nails it.

I leave mine on at all times as well and have a sub for each system I use. The KRK 10 is awesome....I have one of those as well. The key is to not use too much. You want to hear a little low end but you don't want to FEEL much of it.
 
Put on a CD that you know really well and just turn up the sub until it sounds good to you. If you can feel it, you're using too much. From there try a few mixes and see how you fair. If you are bass light when you listen back on other systems, lower your sub and try again.
 
If you are bass heavy on other systems, turn up your sub and mix again. The hardest thing about the sub is deciding what frequencies you want need to accentuate. At my home studio, I'm pushing 85 Hz as that's what my room needed. At my real studio, 70 Hz is what we needed. You'll need to experiment a bit...but once you dial it in, you will never have to learn anything again.
 
Speaking of that, I've seen "learn your room" or "learn your monitors" posted a few times on these forums. For what it's worth, I have to sorta disagree with that. If you can tune your room and your monitors, there should be no need or reason to learn them really. If you can't, then yeah, I can see that. But keep this in mind...
 
When you have to learn something...a room or a set of monitors, you are forcing yourself to compensate in a sense. That's not how this field is supposed to work. When you tune your room and eq your monitors for flat, the only "learning" you *MAY* need to get used to, is what a flat and uncolored experience is supposed to sound like. If you've spent your life with bass boosters, excessive EQ and 3D enhancement or wideners in your media players or stereo systems, you're in for a rude awakening.
 
That said, when you are in the right room, what you hear should be what you hear. When I was learning to do this stuff, I'd go to a killer studio to listen to the mix I did in my home studio only to hear all the mistakes I made. The reason being? The pricey studio had a tuned room with monitors corrected for flat. When I listened to something I did, any mistakes were blatantly obvious. I wasn't familiar with that room or those monitors. They just sounded great and everything I listened to on them commercially sounded great too. My stuff was a notch above suck to be honest.
 
As soon as I did that tuning and correction to my studio, I was instantly able to hear the right stuff and make the right calls. There was no learning the room for me, honest. I listened, I heard, I made corrections. Those corrections stuck and sounded like the mix I did in my studio everywhere I listened. That's how it should be. This field should never be about learning to where it actually means compensating unless you absolutely have no other choice. My man cave is a 12x12 room. It's nothing to brag about. It sounds as good here and is as consistent as my big studio down the shore that has bass traps and Auralex all over. When I listen to something I did at my house at the real studio, it sounds as it should and vice versa.
 
If you have to compensate, it's probably time to fix your room and your monitors. If you can't....it's like bringing your CD out to your car and taking notes and then bringing the notes back into your studio while trying to make changes you can't even really hear in your studio. We've all been there. You are then forcing yourself to "learn" your room/monitors...which if you think about it, is silly. How can you try to fix something you can't really hear? Ludicrous, don't ya think? That's what "learning your room/monitors" means to me.
 
I'm sure there may be several that disagree with me, so I'll say this. If you are struggling with your mixes, call a studio you trust that has good gear with a tuned room and corrected monitors and ask them to book you a listening session. They'll either charge you nothing if you go on their down time, or a VERY small fee. You'll only need 20 minutes tops. (Heck, come to NJ and hang with me for the price of your gas and travels.) Tell them you just want to listen to the stuff you have recorded and mixed on your system, on their system. Take notes of what you feel you did wrong, and then ask them for their take. If you go in the right room, there is nothing to learn! You just "hear it" and know what is wrong.
 
I don't have any awards other than writing the longest posts on the Sonar forums, but everything I mix and master sounds the same everywhere (good or bad, I'm VERY consistent! LOL) I play it other than on laptops. I've never heard commercial recordings sound good on them either...so I don't feel so bad for striking out there. :)
 
-Danny

Jimbo21

Danny Danzi
Speaking of that, I've seen "learn your room" or "learn your monitors" posted a few times on these forums. For what it's worth, I have to sorta disagree with that. If you can tune your room and your monitors, there should be no need or reason to learn them really. If you can't, then yeah, I can see that.

 
This is partially the reason I finally bought a sub. I'm tired of trying to compensate. My mixes were generally lacking in low mids with tons of kick and bass making the mixes boom way too much. I put up bass traps in the corners and some more sound proofing at the side of the mixing position.  Helped a little. I got  ARC2, did the measurements and found a large dip around 65hz at my listening position, as well as fairly large bumps in the spectrum at around 110 - 250 or so. When I applied ARC, At first I thought it was great, because all that low mid congestion was gone when I played CDs  through it.  Then, I noticed there was this tubby low end sound in some cases, especially my mixes, I think because of ARC having to boost around 65hz to get a flatter response (I'm pretty sure that's a null there, though I'm stuck in that spot pretty much for now).  And yes, I still had problems translating the mixes to other systems just like before ARC, just a different set of problems. Not too long ago I took ARC off and mixed a song and then listened on other playback systems and it was closer. I'm a little disappointed in myself that it took me so long to hear the truth (or my current understanding of it).
 
I intend to setup ARC again with the sub and see what difference, if any, the sub makes.
 
Thanks for your reply and everyone else's as well!

I totally feel your pain....which is why I did the stuff I did as well. Hmm...yeah, you may need to redo your ARC corrections. If anything, it should tighten your low end. Funny thing for me, I have corrections with and without my sub. ARC compensated so well for me, realistically, the corrections made without the sub sound like the sub is on. So if God forbid one of my subs died, I'd still be in good shape.
 
We used ARC 2 for our corrections down at my other studio. I didn't do them this time around and wondered what didn't sound right when I was down there. My other engineer did the correction and totally hosed the procedure. He was running with ARC totally off because it sounded so bad. I'm still not a fan of ARC 2 like ARC 1. There are things lacking in ARC 2 that are present in ARC 1 that just sound better in my opinion. If you have both of them and used ARC 2, try ARC 1 just to see if it makes a difference.
 
It's not a huge difference on my end....but right now, my mixes are pretty good in the low end area as well as highs. If I use ARC 2, it seems a little brighter and a is missing a little low end...which would make me cut my highs a little and boost my lows a bit.
 
Anyway, I redid the corrections with ARC 1 and it fixed everything and even redid them with ARC 2 (it came out close) because we can't use ARC 1 on our MAC. Just make sure you totally do the procedure right Jimbo or ARC will tank BAD. I have a little document I typed up for it if you feel you need it....pm me and I'll send it to you. It's just the steps I take to get the best correction out of it. So far it's been foolproof for me in all the places I've used it.
 
That said...it has failed for a few people that I know did it the right way. Definitely worth trying it again. If it fails....don't use ARC and maybe get someone to come in and do a room analysis for you where they sound test the room with noise and lock in on an eq that you supply. That method has worked for years in every commercial studio known to man....it will definitely get you a flat response. Most of the guys that attempt to do this on their own don't do it right. They use these programs with mic's that don't give them the right readings.....you went this far, hire a guy to come do it if ARC fails and your second guessing days will hopefully be over. Good luck man!
 
-Danny

Nice analogy, bit.

batsbrew
arc2 just works fine for me

It actually works fine for me too now that I saw there was an update for it and spent the last 2 days re-correcting everything. Whew...major difference for the better compared to ARC 1. It still fails on my NS10's though unless I correct with a sub. Ever try corrections with and without your sub? It did such a good job on all mine, I can barely tell the difference between my "with sub" corrections vs. "without sub". But the old NS10's I use from the 80's...ARC hates them unless I correct with the sub..then they sound fantastic.
 
(Hey Obi if you still read here...have your guys do a few tests on some early model NS10's without a sub to see why ARC fails on them. Even ARC 1 failed...but ARC 2 was way closer.)
 
-Danny