My mixes are always too bassy

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

… but I never notice it on my headphones, which are AKG K240s, and don’t even really notice it that much on my monitors (Kali L6s in a poorly treated 11’x15’ish room*).

Either way, the mix off the Model 12 sounds great. Then I listen back on my stereo or laptop or phone (via bluetooth headphones) and if there’s an issue, it’s always the same one—overwhelmingly bassy, almost like moving-blanket bassey.

Seems to happen most often with Elektron equipment; my Korg stuff always sounds too harsh and trebly, which is easy to hear and fix in the mix; Roland stuff usually sounds fine with some low-end shelving.

Electric guitars and basses can be too boomy but really, it’s mostly the DT and AR where I wonder if someone put a moving blanket over my mix.

Do I just need to assume there’s more bass in the mix I’m not hearing and shelve aggressively on that assumption?

Is the room I’m mixing in just too small / would finishing my half-complete sound treatment project address this?

Please don’t tell me I need to buy some expensive headphones.

*with a hilariously low ceiling. In one corner it’s almost under 6 feet.

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#2

It’s possible, and probably likely that your monitors just don’t go down to that range of bass, a lot of them don’t. I think my monitors only go down to 49hz. You could get a sub to help out with that.

Another tool is something like Sonarworks. I use it, especially on my headphones. You select the profile of your headphone and it makes and adjustment EQ curve in the plugin to give a flatter response, and to help translate better.

You can also use Sonarworks for your monitors, by using a certain mic and running a calibration routine in your room.

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#3

AKG K240s…

I’ve been there, not having a well treated room and trying to mix bass on those was the problem.

Get a new pair of cans that can reproduce bass well (some planars maybe) get accustomed to them and your bass mixing decisions will get better for sure.

Also if your monitors have a way to cut the low end response I’ll do that too, and only rely on them for frequencies above 70/80hz, anything lower on a good pair of headphones.

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#4

Yeah I originally got them for tracking a podcast with some light music mixing, which they did just fine for. I’m probably asking too much of them now.

#5

I know you asked not to suggest you getting some expensive headphones, but you really have to, those K240 are not intended for mixing modern (full bandwidth) music.

As I said I’ve been in your very same situation with K240s… they were lying to me!

#6

Do you apply basics when mixing?

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#7

Well, I said don’t recommend expensive headphones . . . which is of course subjective but I meant don’t recommend something that’s far beyond the actual needs I’m describing.

I didn’t want this to become a “recommend me the studio best headphones” thread because those exist aplenty. It’s more like “how can I fix this common problem without redoing my whole setup or needing to involve a laptop.”

#8

Agree that the bass is difficult to dial in on the K240s. Those are my main phones too. Given that your room is awkward and untreated, I’d probably recommend against a sub. That could set you up with a bunch of weird resonant peaks that are just going to make things even more difficult. Some new phones or even a Subpac could help you out. The Subpac changed everything for me, I love it. Sonarworks seems like a good suggestion too (in theory; I haven’t tried it).

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#9

Get comfortable throwing a frequency analyzer into each track to see what’s taking up energy (I just use EQ8 in Ableton). This will help you understand where there are things taking up energy but that you may not be able to hear well. I’m personally pretty liberal with rolling off the low end of any track that should not be taking up energy in the low end. Obviously there’s more to mixing than this, but it’s sort of “good mixing hygiene” regardless of how you’re monitoring.

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#10

I’m not entirely sure what that means… In the words of Captain Stede Bonnet, “It would seem that my basics are a bit more… basic… than your basics.”

The Model 12 has a low shelf and a high shelf, and a parametric mid, and I make heavy use of them, along with a Boss EQ-200 for post-processing when needed, which is most of the time, at least a little bit, and try to use reference mixes, although I get lazy with that.

(The EQ-200’s low and high ends are not shelves, which is dumb.)

But for the most part I try to go by my ears and not do anything out of habit if I don’t hear it in the air.

#11

I remember when I had K240s and 8" monitors in a bad sounding non treated room, I was keeping one hand on the cone of my speakers to feel the bass energy and that was my way of knowing if I was overdoing it.

It did help me a bit but felt like driving with my eyes closed!

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#12

My mixing improved greatly when I switched from the K240s to my Dt-770s. Not sure if those count as expensive or not. Before switching I would probably do 3-4 mixes before getting an ok (but not great) balance on a track, and I had to check those on 3 other speakers/ headphones, go back and make adjustments, etc. Massive pain.

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#13

That’s great. I can kind of do the same thing… there’s a little plastic figurine on my left speaker and I’ve noticed that if I hear that little guy rattling then the bass is too loud even though I can’t hear it.

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#14

Massdrop 58x headphones are $150 right now, and I use them to mix all the time (I’m a pro mixer and producer as my full-time gig). They are incredible value for money and very accurate across the frequency spectrum. My two cents.

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#15

It’s always hard to mix on headphones because they compress the sound in a very pleasant and satisfying way as the volume is pushed but unfortunately what sounds great in your cans sounds very different through your speakers. I have a pair of AKG K240s and they are bass-light which adds to the problem. It matters less with dub techno and bass heavy techno styles but is a problem with mainstream genres. Decent monitors is the answer, maybeKRKs.

#16

The K240 has a very old headphone design - basically it does nothing below 100Hz or so. Here are some measurements: AKG K240 55 Ohm Review (Headphone) | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

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#17

Advice that isn’t just “better headphones:” reference tracks! Find a song you know well which is mixed how you envision your music. Try to make your sound levels match that song. This should help if you can’t or don’t want to buy new stuff.

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#18

Proper monitoring (i.e. headphones), reference tracks and frequency spectrum analyzers would be the three things I used the most when getting a handle on low end mixing for sure

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#19

Really trying to get better with this. I’ve definitely noticed that most professionally produced music sounds pretty harsh and trebly on my mixing setup compared to what you might expect. Which I guess is the room.

So maybe I do just have to really get comfortable with a mix that always sounds too “thin” and clacky while I’m mixing it.

Like, there’s no way I can treat a ceiling this low that would leave enough room to actually stand in.

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#20

FWIW I don’t consider under $200 expensive for headphones; that seems pretty reasonable for the thing you’ll be listening to every single sound you produce through.

I meant more into the $500-$1000 range. I don’t want to start a fight, but I really feel like nobody actually needs headphones that nice.

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