Flywheel
I agree headphone mixes can be great.
Just a thought, I think anyone with the equipment they have can make a a) bad mix b) an ok mix c) a good mix and d) a excellent mix.
You do not have to have a sub I mean how did they mix without them and subs have been around for a long time.
Major studio's get by Mastering engineers have always gotten by and from what I hear abbey road studio's got by with what they had for those days.
Maybe times have changed but I still am of the persuasion that you can do much with little and little with much, it just depends on how you utilize it and how well your willing to learn and put into it.
I was listening to Floating by Yori Yackin and was amazed at how much bass was lacking from that recording. I was flummoxed to know that it was Cakes staff that had a large hand in it.
Then I read this, please have a listen at the release and see what you think!
Though I would agree with this, "times have changed" is what the problem is, Flywheel. If you go back in time to say...the 50's...bass wasn't something that was prominent at all in those mixes. Enter the 60's, it starts to show it's head a bit on bass guitars. The 70's...pretty much the same. You have to keep in mind, it was rare to hear a kick drum or bass guitar hit in the 50 Hz to 60 Hz ranges back then. Most of the mixes capped off at 65 Hz where they allowed a little activity.
Enter the 80's and bass was pretty stipped out due to the onslaught of metal guitars needing all the space. The pop stuff had some good bass going on, but even there...you needed to pump up your low end on something the second you put it your player if you wanted it to truly "pump".
Enter the 90's and what we saw was pretty much a flashback of the 70's with better gear yet worse players in my opinion. They took the less is more approach...but here, we started hearing kick drums in the 60 Hz range and bass guitar was no longer taking a back-seat. You could set your watch that it would hit at 70 Hz to 80 Hz at all times with a little bit of drive going on.
By 2000, we started hearing sub low rumbles and kick drums and bass guitars that spanned from 50 hz to 80 hz. If they wanted more of a thumping kick, they reversed the logic. This is where we are today and even more low end is coming into the picture. You can hear bass drops at 35 hz and other sub lows flying all over that are prominent up to 40 Hz. Some of this is due to artistic approach, other times...I sincerely believe they are catering to the world of earbuds. We've also expanded our frequency ranges. Meaning, frequencies that once weren't so much in music are now more involved. We have also created gear that can put out these frequencies so people can really hear them now. Listen to an old set of NS 10's then listen to the same song on Dynaudio, Event or Genelecs. Pretty big difference and proof of how much we've evolved. The question one might ask is "yeah but are these new monitors coloring the sound or allowing us to really hear what's there?" I'd say they are allowing us to hear what's really been mixed.
You mention the Cori Yarckin tune...what version do you have? I heard there may be two of them. If you have the later one (which I haven't heard nor do I have any proof it exists) that may be the reason. I have noticed in a few Cake vids that they turned the song into a dance song. I don't even want to hear that version if it exists. LOL! But if that's the one you have, you need to check out the original.
I got the first one that came out with X1. I thought it sounded so good that I created a thread to ask the Bakers that were involved with it, how they went about it. I thought it was an exceptional mix that sounded very professional in a lot of ways. I thought the low end was spot on in my system. My only pet peeve was I wasn't crazy about the drum sound and that to me would have put it over the top. But everything else....I thought they did a wonderful job and pulled out all the stops. I also felt it was an excellent representation of what someone in the rock/pop world could do using Sonar. There is quite a lot going on in that song. However, on all my systems it uses very little system resources or cpu. So to me they did a really good job all across the board.
Anyway, at the end of the day...it's like I said. If you get good mixes without a sub and they sound great everywhere, you're not a guy that needs one. Guys like me, due to our rooms or the monitors we may have selected, definitely need one so it's the better choice for us. :)
-Danny