Studio monitors too close to the wall? That killed my low end for months

I finally measured my room in San Salvador and realized my monitors were 8 inches from the back wall. Bass was all muddy and I kept cranking the volume to hear kicks. Tried pulling them 2 feet out and adding foam pads underneath, now my mix on 'D11-04' actually translates to car speakers. Anyone else fight with room placement when tracking low frequencies?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivers2811h ago

@gavin_clark nailed it man, moving mine from 7 to 20 inches fixed my bass entirely.

gavin_clark13h ago

I read this thing from an old Sound On Sound article where they were talking about the "boundary effect" and how even 6 inches can cause a 15dB boost in the bass range around 80Hz. When I moved my Yamahas from 10 inches out to about 18 inches from the wall in my little room here in Portland, the difference was honestly night and day. I had this problem where my kick drum sounded huge in my studio but then completely disappeared in my car, and I was going crazy trying to figure it out. The foam pads underneath helped a ton with the desk vibrations too, but the distance was the real fix. I've also heard of people using those little measurement mics to actually see the nulls and peaks in their room before moving stuff around, which seems way smarter than my trial and error approach.