I need to hear bass, want to buy a SUB, please help

[jonsug]

hi

I use tannoy active reveal monitors.
HATE their sound.
NO BASS.
Music does not sound good to listen to on them.

Digital village said i could add a sub.
But thats llike 3 to £400 for the sub.

Any suggestions?
I will mainly make music on the speakers. And general listening for pleasure/dancing.
and most of my mixes are bass heavy and sound distorted on the bass freq ranges in car etc...

Shall i sell my tannoys, and get a speaker + sub system?
Any mid range cheapish good ones?
My bro has general logictech sub and speaker system hooked to his pc, and damn it sounds good.
(and all its for is using internet and itunes) i want that pleasure of good bass.

thanks for any advice.

what shall i do?

Logitech website have good sub and speaker systems for computer, my bro has one, costs £60 and the bass is huge huge huge.....so i maybe will get something from logictech.
Good choice??

thanks.

[Steve Hill]

For most relative beginners, and I guess you are, a sub can only make your mixes worse. They can be hard to set up correctly avoiding phase issues and being placed in the room in a place where some frequencies are amplified or nulled, especially in a room which does not have effective acoustic treatment.

For most purposes you'd be better off buying a pair of better monitors.

If you do need to go down the sub route, go for a system which is specifically matched to your monitors. I'd think about say a Tannoy TS10 or TS12.

Logitech make many useful computer peripherals but this is the first time I have seen them suggested in a serious monitoring context...

[jayzed]

I don't know which model Logictech you are talking about but I do understand where you are coming from.

However, the bass put out from multimedia type speaker systems, in particular those with subs, is not really representative of the music going in, neither does it extend as low as it seems.

It seems that it does cost to get deep, accurate bass unfortunately.

I would guess that the deep bass you are hearing from the Logitechs you mention would be largely a psychoacoustic phenomenon whereby higher harmonics trick the ear into thinking that a deeper fundamental is being heard. There are plugins that use this phenomenon so your music will sound fuller on limited bass extension speakers, various distortions in the way the speakers are made could well be duplicating this. You would probably also find that the bass on this system was limited to a small range, if you played a scale of bass notes on a synth, for example, some notes would significantly stand out louder than others. Think of those boom-box filled cars that resonate at one note, it may excite the car owners but I would guess that the people making the music in the first place would rather hear everything that's going on so they can make decisions. If all those cars resonated at the same frequency then everyone could make their music using the same system. Unfortunately music is usually intended to be played on different setups and an accurate system is the best way to judge what is going to sound the best in the largest number of situations.

However, if you just want to add some vibe to your playing and recording and you didn't expect music you have made to translate that well (without making some serious allowances in your mixing) then you could just get a Logitech type system and have fun.

Bear in mind that, either sucessfully or not, the Tannoys you have are made for the purpose of monitoring and judging the content of your sound. Something like the Logitechs are designed to make stuff sound impressive for the lowest cost.

[Zukan]

I have a feeling this is a 'untreated room' problem and not really sub related as so many people with untreated rooms suffer from this.

If the room is acoustically treated then you will hear the frequency ranges as they are and a sub will only bring out better clarity and referncing for the low frequencies.
If the room isn't treated then it will add to your problems exponentially.

[The Elf]

and most of my mixes are bass heavy and sound distorted on the bass freq ranges in car etc...

That’s because you are over-compensating for the bass you aren’t hearing as loudly as you’d like. If you aren’t hearing it accurately then you’re in a no-win situation by adding more of it that you still can’t hear properly.

Logitech website have good sub and speaker systems for computer, my bro has one, costs £60 and the bass is huge huge huge.....so i maybe will get something from logictech.

As has been mentioned, this is unlikely to get you what you want. You will mix for those speakers and then find it sounds awful on anything else. You will be in no better a situation than with your Reveals – in fact, probably worse. The best balanced mixes will sound awesome on just about anything you throw them at.

What have you listened to on the Logitech speakers? If you are talking about commercial mixes then it is hardly surprising they sound good because those tracks have been mixed and mastered to sound as good as possible on as wide a range of speakers as possible. At the moment you are trying to mix to sound good on your Tannoy Reveals only and are not taking any other speakers into account.

The first thing I’d suggest (and this is a MUST) is to check your mixes on at least three systems in completely different environments. For me that is my studio, my car and my MP3 player. Once your mix is sounding good (but likely not perfect) on ALL THREE systems you will be getting close.

And stop chasing the bass. If you get a well-balanced mix then the bass will come to you effortlessly. It’s a bit like learning to drive a racing car – the trick is not to try to go fast, but to drive smoothly – the speed comes as a by-product of smooth-ness.

HTH!

[onesecondglance]

The first thing I’d suggest (and this is a MUST) is to check your mixes on at least three systems in completely different environments. For me that is my studio, my car and my MP3 player. Once your mix is sounding good (but likely not perfect) on ALL THREE systems you will be getting close.

i've emboldened what i think is the really important bit here. if your room is untreated, take the mix out of the room to see how it *actually* sounds!

[ROLO46]

I have a Volt 18" sub with a 300w amp

You don't realise its there untill you mute it

However I would not reccomend mixing with it

Reveiwing yes

Mine can stop clocks

[Evie McCreevie]

Two years ago I got a Mackie Tapco active sub. Cheapish (about £150 IIRC), beautifully made, loads of connectivity and set-up controls, does the job brilliantly.

Takes the LF load off my Genelec 1030s, and can add as much or as little bass as required. Couldn't recommend it more highly.

PS Guys, whenever there's a query re monitoring equipment, can we please lay off the "get room treatment" mantra. Just for a bit? It's getting really boring... It also pre-supposes the poster hasn't got / doesn't know about treatment. The advice may be sound and well-intentioned, but it doesn't directly answer the question.

[Aural Reject]

PS Guys, whenever there's a query re monitoring equipment, can we please lay off the "get room treatment" mantra. Just for a bit? It's getting really boring... It also pre-supposes the poster hasn't got / doesn't know about treatment. The advice may be sound and well-intentioned, but it doesn't directly answer the question.

hi, i have Tannoy Active Reveal monitors and do NOT enjoy making music on these. Too mid rangy, with little bass.
And so when making music, i need to EQ the low end up alot to really hear the bass, and when i hear the mix on normal hi fi settings or in car, the bass is too much, overpowering everything. So these damn speakers are not working for me. Chart music i listen to does not sound good on them either, i feel.

Ive even considered selling them and making music on hi fi speakers.

But someone suggested buying a sub.
I need help. Can i buy a sub and use it in addition to my current set up? Or would i need to buy a monitoring and sub all in one system?

And i need headphones. I dont like making music when people are around, i get incredibly self conscious and cant be free to jam and try things. So i need headphones which are, ideally:
- good to hear bass frequency (enjoyable to listen to music on)
- very comfortable when using for long periods (not fatigue inducing heavy things)
- i just wanna be able to use headphones to make beats/tracks etc, which have good all round sound, and especially decent in the bass range.

Any help or tips or recommendations would be most helpful.

Someone said Beyer DT770 are good for me.

Thankyou.

The Reveal's ain't so bad in my experience.

If you are applying loads of bass whilst mixing, then finding your mixes too bass heavy on other systems, it suggests that the bass is there all along - just you don't hear it. What's your room like? There's a good chance your set up is preventing a true representation of the bass in your mixes.

Sennheiser also make some cheaper open-backed headphones which work fine.

cheers...my room is thin plater walls...speakers are facing me, behind me is a flat plaster wall....not ideal i think, but i cant to anything about it. Moving out soon.

today i turned the bass eq down on a mix, and it sounded better in my car...its like when i mix, i have to turn UP the mid and high freq stuff which sounds too high in tannoys, to make the mix sound ok in norm speakers, and vice verse for lower end.......i hate this......its like a game you have to play.... frustrating and difficult as hell.

It's been asked before

[Steve Hill]

PS Guys, whenever there's a query re monitoring equipment, can we please lay off the "get room treatment" mantra. Just for a bit? It's getting really boring... It also pre-supposes the poster hasn't got / doesn't know about treatment. The advice may be sound and well-intentioned, but it doesn't directly answer the question.

Why? If mixes are translating bass-heavy, it's almost certain to be a lack of room treatment.

There's no reason why decent mixes can't be made on Tannoy reveals (I have some, amongst other systems) just as many great mixes have been made on Yamaha NS10s.

Feel free to go through the back catalogue of Studio SOS articles to see how often room treatment is an issue, and how happy the clients are after it's been done for them. I can't recall an article where it has NOT been an issue.

[IvanSC]

quote="Evie McCreevie"]Two years ago I got a Mackie Tapco active sub. Cheapish (about £150 IIRC), beautifully made, loads of connectivity and set-up controls, does the job brilliantly.

Takes the LF load off my Genelec 1030s, and can add as much or as little bass as required. Couldn't recommend it more highly.

PS Guys, whenever there's a query re monitoring equipment, can we please lay off the "get room treatment" mantra. Just for a bit? It's getting really boring... It also pre-supposes the poster hasn't got / doesn't know about treatment. The advice may be sound and well-intentioned, but it doesn't directly answer the question. [/quote]

RegaRDLESS of how bored you may be with this, the fact remains that 90% of the problems with too little or too much bass etc are down to room nodes which can be fixed by treating the room - often a LOT cheaper than faking it up.

[jaminem]

a few slabs of rockwool is a lot cheaper than a sub, BUT its not a spangly new piece of kit, and therefore less attractive.

FACT; 6 rockwool slabs, some plywood and a decorators dustsheet fashioned into some bass traps made my Mackie HR824's bass end sound 200 times better than they did before. It took me several purchases of sexy new kit that didn't solve the problem to get there, but I got there....

we've all been there...

[Evie McCreevie]

quote="Evie McCreevie"]...

PS Guys, whenever there's a query re monitoring equipment, can we please lay off the "get room treatment" mantra. Just for a bit? It's getting really boring...

RegaRDLESS of how bored you may be with this, the fact remains that 90% of the problems with too little or too much bass etc are down to room nodes which can be fixed by treating the room... [/quote]

Yeah, I knew I'd get dissed for that remark!

But most users even half-serious about mixing will have an idea about room treatment. In this case, the guy wants "more bass" and recommendations for a cheapish sub. So that's what I gave him.

If X wants brighter strings, do you advise hime to get his guitar set up, change his pickups / pick / amp etc etc? Or just suggest some brighter strings?

If Y wants to upgrade his tyres, do you tell him to check his suspension, tracking etc? Or just suggest some better tyres?

I know the room treatment advice is sound and well-meant, but it doesn't directly answer the question. The guy may well know about / have room treatment already (it's slightly patronising to instantly assume he doesn't).

OTOH he may not care about it, or how his mixes translate...

He just wants more bass, so let him have it.

[Mixedup]

Just to add to the sage advice above about room treatment, and checking on decent systems... a decent set of headphones can help a lot on the bass end. You won't get the chest thumping feeling, obviously, but if you know what commercial stuff sounds like on them, at least you know the room isn't a factor. Also, a good frequency analyser is a help too - helps you spot unwanted sub-bass that just eats into speaker headroom and that you can happily remove.

Also, a couple of relevant SOS articles on bass and subwoofers...

All you wanted to know about subwoofers

and

Better Bass

[Keefey boy]

There must be some bass in the Tannoy's but the reason it cannot be heard is the lack of good room acoustics. Just saying "get more bass" is ridiculous. You could buy 20 subs and still not hear bass levels correctly. THE most important thing to have in your mixing/recording room is acoustic treatment and of course a kettle.

[Evie McCreevie]

...Just saying "get more bass" is ridiculous. You could buy 20 subs and still not hear bass levels correctly. THE most important thing to have in your mixing/recording room is acoustic treatment...

Here we go again... Yet more 'sage advice', and the room treatment mantra.

Sure, treat your room if you're serious about your mixes translating into the real world. But the poster just wants to get off on his music, increase his listening / creative vibe, and add some beef to his monitoring - what's the problem?

Not everyone can or wants to start hacking into the walls of their bedroom / rented apartment making bass traps and acoustic treatment.

The guy wants an inexpensive sub - can you recommend one?

[oggyb]

[...]Also, a couple of relevant SOS articles on bass and subwoofers...

All you wanted to know about subwoofers

and

Better Bass

"There is a similar situation with our perception of pitch. As the sound pressure level increases, we perceive a slight drop in pitch that varies with frequency: the higher the level, and the lower the frequency of a sound, the greater the perceived drop in pitch."

From here: Better Bass

Is it me, or is the above statement the wrong way round.

I have been taught (and have read, and have experienced first hand) an increase in perceived frequency at high levels. So much so that the fadeout on a song can appear to travel back downwards in pitch if I've been abusing my ears too much.

I don't want to hijack a useful thread, but had to ask.

[forumuser695516]

I think Evie made a fair point. The standard factory issue "Get room treatment!" waffle does get banded about a hell of lot the very nano second someone mentions monitors. And yes, it got old long ago.

So if you have the time to read, then i'll take the time to explain why:
If someone is enquiring about budget monitors (as we have here), I really can't see them contemplating spending many times what their monitors cost in order to make an appreciable difference to the quality of their rooms acoustics.
Whether the monitors cost £200, or £20'000, the room is exactly the same regardless and it's still going to take a comparable investment to get the room acoustics in good order.
On top of that, you can't just chuck a load of acoustic foam into the room willy nilly to get the acoustics sorted out. It needs the right material in the right quantities putting in the right places. How is the kind of person that spent £200 on monitors expected to manage that without consulting a professional acoustician? Thats just getting way out of hand, not just for bedroom hobbyists, but probably a fair number of semi pro's as well.
Indeed some well known full on professional musicians do cracking work and have precisely sod all by way of acoustic treatment. Not so much as a lone cardboard egg carton on the wall. That isn't to say it's right, or that acoustic treatment is of no benefit. But like it or not, it makes a valid point.
I don't think any amount of money spent on room acoustics is going to get a pair of Tannoy Reveals to sound like a £60 set of Logitechs. Odd though that may seem, that is the gist of what the OP is after.

I don't know where you might draw the line and say "Well you spent X amount on monitors, so now its time for some room treatment" But whatever it is, I don't think we can apply it here.
Particularly as the OP doesn't appear to be the sort to be recording carefully mic'd jazz ensembles in his room where the acoustics would be of more importance (as you wouldn't particularly want the coloured room sound getting into the mics).

The OP also made a reference to the great bass output on his brothers £60 Logitechs. Is that because his brother spent a couple of grand on a visit from a qualified acoustician and had some professionally fitted room treatment? This is just a guess here, but I highly doubt it. The difference is because they are different speakers with different intended uses and thus have very different characteristics.
Are the Tannoy Reveals going to suddenly improve their bass output in the room that the OP's brothers cheapo Logitechs are in? Again, I doubt it! They will still sound recognisably like the very same monitors (Reasonable positioning allowing of course)

But to get a little more on topic, I would expect that although the cheapo Logitechs appear to dish out more bass. The fidelity of the more modest bass output from the Tannoys is likely far superior. IE, what bass you do hear from the Tannoys likely sounds far more like the actual bass sound that went into them in the first place. Rather than what i'd imagine is a rather falsely inflated and flabby woofle that the Logitechs chuck out.

So what to do about the lack of bass? I rather think that if you like the sound of the Sub + satellite setup of the Logitechs, but want to retain some quality and clarity, then you might prefer something that works in a similar way to the Logitechs, but are simply a better quality interpretation of that theme. I'd certainly check out some of the BlueSky range (Exo's and Media Desks spring to mind). They are well regarded, and inexpensive for what they are. Plus many of them have a nifty level control for the sub. So you can tune the sound much more to your liking.

Just my 2 bits of foams worth

Paul

[IvanSC]

So we have two plonkers on here now.

Filling a couple of old pillowcases with rockwool & stacking them up in a couple of your listening room corners isn`t exactly major building work, it is way cheaper than new monitors or even a sub, and of course if the OP still has a problem he can go from there.
Amazingly, the majority of users on here are not old hands & usually haven`t even thought about room treatment as a possible cure for imbalances.
Now how about both of you wind your necks in and try to be a little more objective?
This is really not helping the discussion one iota & is part of the reason I regularly need to take a break from this forum.
Perhaps it is that time of year again, come to think of it.

[Steve Hill]

For the record, I did also recommend a reasonably priced sub (Tannoy TS10 - about £299) which will partner the Reveals pretty well if the OP wants to go down that route...

There's not a lot of rocket science, or building work, in room treatment. Yet again I commend anyone to read a few Studio SOS articles on this site, familiarise themselves with mirror points, check out some of the threads on the studio design and acoustics forum etc.

You know if you walk into an empty house e.g. if you're househunting? And how different it sounds when you've got a carpet and sofas and curtains in it? That's basically all we're talking about, but with a bit of science applied to lower frequencies.

As someone above said, you can get half a dozen 1200mm x 600mm traps knocked up with rockwool from Wickes, some planed timber, a few screws and connecting blocks/brackets etc and some decorators' dust sheets to cover them up. Less than a day's work and change out of £100, probably.

[A Non O Miss]

This is really not helping the discussion one iota & is part of the reason I regularly need to take a break from this forum.
Perhaps it is that time of year again, come to think of it.

Funny I was going to say this is why I love this place. Rarely a simple question/answer, sometimes confusing conflicting thoughts, really hits home with me.

A simple sub question becomes a debate on room acoustics from a poster who probably could care less about room acoustics but also probably could desperately use some and find that the bass is better.

Beautiful.

Acoustics would help. I wouldn't trade the Tannoy's for something worse. If you don't want to spend $300 on a sub, keep the Tannoy's and get a consumer desktop speaker sub combo for cheap. It will give you some bass when you need it, another reference system, and allow you to keep your Tannoy's as a little more accurate option.

If you want to plunge into acoustic treatment, start reading.

[Zukan]

This is a technical forum and we are here to be as helpful as we can.

Like with any problem finding issues you start with the fundamentals and in this instance room acoustics is where you start. Recommending a sub simply adds to the problem and does not alleviate it.

We might chime the acoustic treatment subject a lot around these parts but it is exactly where you start with a problem like this and it would be amiss and unprofessional not to do so.

The OP's question is about perception of frequencies in an environment. You'd have to be Paris Hilton to not explore the acoustic treatment subject and advise on compounding an existing problem.

[jayzed]

I was thowing out some old magazines recently (not SOS of course) and from 2003 several of them were talking about acoustic treatment as being the 'silent killer', or some such, of our audio.
It's interesting how the zeitgeist changes to the point that people are now (understandably I suppose) sick of hearing about this!

It was only five or so years ago that this acoustic treatment in a home studio stuff hit the radar really, and yes - I know there have been people like Ethan W and certain SOS writers who have been banging on about this for years if not decades but it was around then that that subject was making the front page of the 'geezer' audio technology magazines. You know, the ones with a picture of a synth on the front, occasionally with a female model.

I'd used bookshelves and duvets for ages but it was about that time that I bought my four realtraps from Ethan. Fantastic, if a lot more expensive that some of the great suggestions here. I even use them as gobos on the odd occasion I need to record more than one thing at my gaff and they really do help the sound of my sub.

[James Perrett]

Even if you don't want to try room treatment, repositioning your speakers may help. I have one pair of speakers that don't sound great bass wise when set up as normal monitors but sound fine in a typical hifi position around 10 inches above the floor and a few inches from a wall. If you really like bass then try putting your speakers in the corner of your room.

Cheers

James.

[Evie McCreevie]

So we have two plonkers on here now.

...
This is really not helping the discussion one iota & is part of the reason I regularly need to take a break from this forum.

Woo... that's some cross you have to bear!

Calling people plonkers really 'helps the discussion', dunnit? Nobody dissed you personally, so back off. Or treat yourself to one of your hard-earned breaks from this forum.