What's happening with the Sub here?

I got these new (to me) Rokit 6's with a 10" sub. for my 10 x 10 room. Finally some decent monitors.
I put the 6's on the desk in about an equilateral triangle with my head and the sub under the counter, slightly to the right of my feet, about the same distance away.
I balanced the sub level and it sounds great but then I start to walk out of the room, the bass gets quite a bit louder as I get to the door in the rear corner.
Of course outside, the bass remains about just as loud as the monitors fade which I understand due to the longer wave length going thru walls and the shorter ones being absorbed, but I don't get it with the position in the room. (Not great for my wife who is hearing mostly bass in the next room - Sounds like a boom box car going by. Lol)
1.How do I work this so the right level is at my sitting position?
2.Does it matter IOW am I not hearing the true mix where I sit?
3.Is this about having no bass traps in corners?
I'm concerned I'll mix with too much bass as a result of not hear the "real" levels.

A square room is ripe for growing standing waves.
Here's an online calculator that I used to check room modes: http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm

I had similar problems with my 12x12x8 basement room that I converted to a project studio. What was worse was the flutter echos in the mid range. I had to cover most of the exposed walls with sound absorbing foam of differing weights to get rid of them. I tried hanging carpet, blankets, etc. but the foam worked the best.

You may want to try moving the subwoofer around the room to see if you get better performance with the sub at a different location.

Your room is acting like its own bass cabinet .you need a bunch of room acoustics and bass traps

M_Glenn_M


Your concern in #3 about not mixing the right bass levels is a valid one and probably causes more frustration than any other single thing. This is also a reason many of the folks here who are doing this have invested into ARC.  I can hear a difference as soon as I move more then a few feet from the sweet spot.  ARC is something you should look into if you are more than a hobbiest in home recording.  It sure beats guessing, burning a CD and testing it in the car, the home stereo and a boom box only to discover it's not properly balanced and having to repeat this perhaps multiple times before getting the mix balance right.


This is the main concern. Well put. As I move, it changes radically so then it occurs to me ANY place could be a potential "right" place and they are all different. It seems one would need a lot of trial and error before what you heard was "real". I'll look into ARC. I bet it's expensive. Where Do I look for it?

http://www.sweetwater.com...vJzO8K8CFUdN4AodHV38WQ


It sells for $200 on average and comes with a condenser mic.  The company says the mic is capable of being used for recording things as well so you end up with a usable mic out of the deal. 


I think I've seen people say that they have found ARC for under $200 on sale at a few stores. Many of the big box music stores will also have ARC I would imagine.

SCorey

Guitarhacker


  The company says the mic is capable of being used for recording things as well so you end up with a usable mic out of the deal. 

The ARC mic has significant high frequency roll off. It's not good for recording much of anything.

ARC user manual page 46 last paragraph.


The mic has a flat response. This is stated on the page referenced.  I saw nowhere in the manual that says the mic has significant high frequency roll off. 

 The manual however, says once ARC is set up properly, the mic can be used successfully to record acoustic sources with good results.  

edit: I have a nice Rode NT-2A and use it for my acoustic recording. Next time I record some acoustic source, I will use both mics with the same settings on the software (apples to apples)  and compare the 2 mics. I'll post it too. I'm curious. It might be a week or so ...so if anyone else wants to try this and post the results, be my guest.   

I will not engage in another ARC debate, but ARC is not going to be able to significantly mitigate this problem. Sadly, in a 10x10 room there is very little that can be done. To adequately trap it you'd end up with a 5x5 room. 

The best you can do is experiment with alternate locations for the sub to find a place where it sounds pretty OK at the mix position. You'll just have to accept that it won't sound the same anywhere else in the room. Get it as far from corners as possible, as far from walls as practical, and don't forget the vertical dimension - try raising it off the floor, too.

Once you've found the best location for the sub, you can then take some measurements to identify the biggest peaks and nulls so that you don't mistakenly compensate for them in your mix. After doing that, if you've got the 200 bucks to blow, ARC can contribute a modest improvement, but don't expect it to level out resonances in a square room.

Glenn, it should. adding furniture and curtains also helps breakup and diffuse the sound. 

The way I see it, ..... my room is 15 x 16 ...carpeted, acoustic tiles on the ceiling and some furniture and shelves. No curtains and bare wood & wallpapered walls. Not the ideal room and certainly not treated acoustically. 

If you look at my web site on the music/recording pages, (scroll down) you will see pictures of the recording corner of the room I use. I have one of my monitors inside a relatively large cabinet space..... from what I hear... a definite "NO NO" in the music world. I currently have little option to move it somewhere else.  I have a sub on the floor. Where the amp with the headphones hanging on it is setting, is where my sub currently sets.... on the floor. 

Given all these things combined, supposedly going against me in this room, I can still produce some fairly decent sounding music ( at least I think so)

I bought ARC and set it up to correct the sweet spot for me..... which is directly on front of the monitors . To me, that's what matter... that I can hear accurately what is happening in the mix in the sweet spot.
  
When I am doing a play back to check a track or an edit and get up form my sweet spot and move across the room to get something, that sound in the rest of the room is as you described. And while it would be nice to hear it in other parts of the room, my main focus is that what I hear when seated and working in the studio is accurate, I can really care less what it sounds like because of the room nodes in the rest of the room. 

I normally work solo, but when I have someone else there, I explain briefly that what they hear is not exactly accurate, and I will take the time to allow them to hear a full playback from the sweet spot. 

As long as what you hear in the sweet spot in front of the monitors is as accurate as is possible given the room and gear, that's all you can ask for. 

If you have an accurate representation sonically so you can make the proper adjustments to the mix..... it will generally sound OK in 99% of all the players and listening environments everywhere. 

It's only when you do not hear the mix accurately (especially the low end) that you run into problems as you take that mix to other players. 

A technique many use is to play a commercial CD that sounds good (as a reference CD) in the DAW to get a feel of where the frequency response of your speakers and room are at. Then by trying to replicate that sound quality in YOUR mix, you can very often get surprisingly close to a mix that works everywhere. 

Unfortunately, if your system has an issue with frequency response, you will not hear that part of the reference mix either. Therefore, you wouldn't even know that you have an issue with your mix as you have nothing to compare to.

You will also need to use an accurate spectrum analyzer to see if what your hearing is matching with what is being output.

Headphones are great for working with the high-mid to high-end, but not for low-end to low-mid. When mixing with headphones, you end up increasing the lows and end up with an exaggerated low-end when you move to speakers because of the fact that lows are felt more than heard.