Hello, I’m having big problems mixing through my monitors.
I have Yamaha hs5’s and and I end up mixing my bass levels waaaaay too loud because what I’m hearing through the monitors is not the sound that is being recorded.
I’d like advice on whether it would be smarter to purchase a Yamaha subwoofer to accompany them or to ditch the speakers (3+years old with some transformer whine) and invest in some better near field monitors.
I know speaker placement and room treatment are important for getting accurate bass, but my assumption is that I will have a greater improvement margin by making one of the changes above.
If I’m honest, I haven’t been able to figure out how to do proper speaker placement.
Any help is much appreciated.
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Beside good or bad speakers you have to learn how your rooms sounds. Load some reference tracks in your daw or sampler and listen in your mixing position. Over time you will get to know your speakers system.
I wouldn’t add a sub to the room. Instead go for some linear headphones. So you can check the bass without your room.
It’s also good to have some basic knowledge about frequencies etc. I learned a lot with the book “Mixing Secrets” by Mike Senior. Of course every other book or online course will do it aswell.
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I have MSP-5. Added a Presonus Temblor Sub and it did help a lot.
I also have 2 sets of headphones.
I use these 3 (monitors/Sub and the 2 sets of headphones) and go from one to another to keep my mix in check.
Although I have to say the best (for me) remains the Bose headphones. Not sure why, maybe the fact they accentuate low frequencies and therefore I tend to be more careful with these frequencies.
NS10 were (and still are) a reference in terms of monitoring: if you manage getting a good mix balance on these, you are gold.
I believe Yamaha have a tendency to this 
What has helped me a lot as well is stopping from trying to get the same sound as X or Y, paying more attention to the sound that I want to achieve.
Hope this helps.
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