WMC Sub Bass Aftermath

Back nearly two weeks now. Jetlag’s a killer! Bought a sub-bass unit the first weekend I was back; I had to do something about my monitoring, and sound treatment and sub-bass were the first on my list; and sub-bass is by the the easiest and least expensive so..

I got myself a KRK Rokit RP10S from Digital Village – big, loud and the room shakes when you use it – wicked.

Now, I’m not under any illusions here – I haven’t come back home and gone “my sound’s not good enough, I need a sub-bass unit” – well, ahem, I guess I did actually, but the point is I know that minor miracles can be performed nowadays with the most modest of kit; I just really appreciated in Miami how much goes on in the studio that you simply don’t hear until it gets to the dancefloor, and by then it’s just too late. And for the relatively tiny price of one of these bass units, it’s well worth the cash.

Getting the bass unit has totally changed the sound of my monitors though; as all sounds pass through the unit first, then through a high-pass filter and on to the main stereo monitors, the latter have a lot less work to do; tweeters for tops, 6 inch cone for mids, and then all the bass down in the woofer; previously the bass and mids were sharing a cone, and I was getting a lot of distortion; now they’re so much clearer, and I can hear so much detail in everything I listen to; it’s almost like I’ve got myself a whole new monitoring system for a hundred and forty quid (got a bargain second-hand one as they were out of new ones – makes no difference to me).

So, when you’re in the store buying reference monitors, and the salesman says “you really need the sub-bass unit to do justice to these”, he’s not just trying to make another sale, he’s telling the truth!

I’m now happily going back over my most recent tunes and re-checking the mixes; Blue Nine particularly needs some TLC…