"What I have done to help this was to EQ the output of my soundcard so its more or less balanced now."

Give us some specific details about what you did.

i can tell you that 'boosting low shelf' to get weight is the wrong approach.

" I have EQ carefully the soundcard output to help rebalance this response and it seems to help bring up the nulls and bring down the peaks but I'm not confident I'm doing the right thing as I still have bass problems."


What do you mean by this? Are you saying that you have EQ'd the output of your sound card?

If so, that is a procedure that will simply make you do more of what you are trying not to do.

Yes, I am. :-)

The technique you are using is advocated for by many people... but it is also criticized by many as simply causing (if not doubling) the problems.

The crux of the matter is that doing what you are doing is perfectly normal for a playback system while it is absolutely wrong for a monitor for mixing system.

Never the less you will find advocates that swear doing what you are doing helps them mix better and you will find vendors trying to sell you automated room correction technology.

As you can see... it is causing you to second guess your abilities and your mixes aren't satisfying you.

The only practical solution is to continue to treat your room and set up your speakers away from the walls as best you can while you learn to compensate for the anomalies that occur in your room when you mix.

Correcting the playback of your monitor system simply encourages you to continue to overcompensate for the problems so it makes sense to me that you are confused by the results when you take your mix to other listening situations.

You will probably receive all sorts of advice that contradicts what I have just said.

Good Luck!!!

best regards,
mike

moff, a couple thoughts...first of all, your dilemma is not unique, everybody struggles with the same issue. There is no magic bullet. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how to make mixes that translate to other systems. I, for one, am still struggling with it despite years of study, acoustical treatments, equipment upgrades, experimentation and analysis.

The prerequisite is to create a neutral listening environment, which is more difficult than it first appears. Speakers are only a small part of it - your room is messing with you to a far greater extent. That 136Hz anomaly is due to standing waves at one of your room's resonant frequencies. The wavelength of 136Hz is about 7.5 feet, which I'll bet is the height of your ceiling. Your photo doesn't show if you have anything on the ceiling, but you might be able to at least soften the problem with 4" of fiberglass hung a couple inches below the ceiling. Some thick bass traps in the upper corners where the walls meet the ceiling would help a lot.

Equalization can help as long as you understand its limitations. Only use filters for frequencies below 300Hz and only use cuts, no boosts. Use low-Q bandwidths and limit the cuts to around 8db or less, even if measurements indicate larger adjustments are needed. Measure the results at the mix position at ear level -  those measurements will not be valid anywhere else in the room. You can only EQ a small area (the mix position). There no such thing as EQ-ing the whole room; that is a physical impossibility.

Finally, bear in mind that your secondary reference - the car - is a terrible reference. Car stereos are not flat and usually hype bass around 80-100Hz to give the impression of lots of bass even though the system may drop off quickly below 70-80Hz. Car speakers are never optimally placed, with tweeters aimed at windshields and woofers mounted in doors that don't have enough internal volume to properly load the speakers. Cars are subject to resonance like any other enclosed space, but where your studio space might start having issues at 300Hz and below, the much smaller car cabin will starting getting weird at 500 to 700Hz. You think your studio looks bad? Try recording Ethan's test in the driver's seat of your car!

In short, the car is a seriously deficient reference. But it doesn't mean it's completely useless. Get some well-made commercial recordings and play them through your KRKs. Not just for a few seconds, but spend an hour listening. Then take that CD out to the car and listen closely. Concentrate on bass, kick, cymbals and vocals. You'll begin to identify certain instruments that are louder/softer/brighter/clearer in the studio than in the car, and vice versa. No amount of EQ is going to fix that, unless everyone in the world comes to your house and sits in your car to listen to your music.

This, I believe, is the single best thing anyone can do: devote time to seriously listening to well-made commercial recordings in your studio. It costs nothing and can improve your mixes immensely by training your brain to unconsciously compensate for errors in your room. This was a recent epiphany for me, inspired by the excellent book "Sound Reproduction" by Floyd E. Toole, which blends speaker technology, room acoustics and psychoacoustics to explain the apparent impossibility of ever hearing "accurate" audio.

Listening to one of my mixes in the car after FM radio ( with all the stuff they do at the station that's broadcasting ) can be pretty humbling !!!

Guitarhacker


DJ... they don't do all that "stuff" at the station. A station generally plays the CD straight up.

The sound you are referring to is achieved in the studio.  Compression, EQ, Reverb.... it's all done in the studio and mastering house.  The CD you buy in the store is the same one they play at the station.

I wish they would play the music "straight up"! Have you ever noticed that all stations "sound" different. Some louder, some quieter, some brighter, some duller, etc.... Stations do use some outboard gear, as they strive to get an edge on their competitor. The most common is compression. Most FM stations compress a track so much it is almost unbearable - just to sound "louder" when someone dials it in. Some will EQ (I have never heard of a station adding reverb) but certainly compression. The trained ear will prefer the stations that sounds a little quieter, as they have not compressed the track to death!
 
In the genre I have the most experience in (Country Music - please don't laugh, LOL) songs are often re mastered for release to radio. The CD's are mixed pretty loud these days, but because the radio stations add so much compression - they tone that down for the release. The version the radio gets has even more dynamic range than the CD (mixed quieter). Sure, the station may have a CD on hand and play from that - but the singles get released individually as a digital download and they often sound different than the CD.
 
I will agree that the overall mix comes from the song itself. It's more as if the Radio Station does it's own "mastering stage" to a mix. And not a very good one in my point of view.
 
Granted, I'm in Canada not the US, but I'm pretty sure the techniques are the same.
 
EDIT: I'm pretty sure the "radio station" stuff is getting off topic. The OP is actually comparing a commercial CD to his own mix in a car, not to the radio itself.  Great discussion for a new thread though - I'm sure there all all kinds of experiences to be shared.

I Just wanted to make sure that the OP was only comparing against CD's and was aware of the foilbles of comparing to FM Broadcast..... ( which can and are often being processed heavily )
 
 
 
 
 
 

multiband compression, limiting, and clipping. This improves the consistency of

the station’s sound and increasing loudness and definition remarkably, without

producing unpleasant side effects.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://www.orban.com/support/orban/techtopics/Appdx_Radio_Ready_The_Truth_1.3.pdf 
  
  
  
  
 

Very interesting responses here.  Much appreciation to all.  I think some printing is in order   ;>

Any thoughts on where I have positioned the bass traps?