question pertaining to monitor calibration

[particle]

can someone please provide some insight as to how i calibrate a subwoofer with my monitors? the cones on the monitors themselves do not replicate subwoofer frequencies, but for the past year all the tracks i have made have a kick and bass that seems disproportionate to the rest of the levels and i am starting to realize it is probably because my sub is not calibrated with my 2 monitors correctly. is there a technique for calibrating a sub with 2 monitors? the sub is for monitoring too, so its not like i am connecting some giant sub or some tiny computer sub to my adams.

should i turn all the leves down as low as they go and increase them until it all seems even? it seems like when i do this the bass is not even within the channel its coming from, before it even reaches the monitors.... any words of insight would be much appreciated =]

-Ren

[jbodango]

maybe because you are doing your mixdowns with a sub in the first place?
personally, i wouldn't use a sub for primary mixing duties. maybe perhaps as litmus test now and then...


jda

[mojofunk]

Ha ha - I thought this was a photo and color management related question! "Monitor Calibration" - many books have been written on that subject, and I've wasted much of my life trying to get printers to print the right colors . . . Yeh.

[jbodango]

Ha ha... I do the same thing. I have worked with print in the past so I do double takes as well

[3rdordertrauma]

Ren, unfortunately speaker calibration is not as easy as just setting levels so they "seem" even. Of course levels that seem even to you might not seem even to me or the next guy or girl... etc. etc..

There are lots of thing to consider when calibrating speakers, not just levels. You'll need some tools like an SPL meter and tone generator. Then some instructions on how to do it... which can be easily found on the net. I won't even get into a step for step on how to do this... firstly cause I'm no expert on the topic and secondly cause it would be way to long winded and thirdly cause like I said before, much better information can be found on the net... I'll try to find it and repost when I do.

You might want to look at something like this --> http://www.krksys.com/ergo/intro.php I've never used it so I can't speak from experience but it looks pretty nifty. It addresses the issues regarding pour room acoustics and frequency balance as well. So if you're like me and mix in your bedroom with less than perfect acoustics, the Ergo would remedy this (in theory, I still want to see/hear it work). It also probably costs less than a good SPL meter and comes with a measurement mic. But now I'm wondering how or if the Ergo can deal with level differences between the monitors and if it can be used with a sub. I've got some more reading to do I guess.

Good luck!

[marcoskohler]

Better forum to ask this in/search in would be gearslutz.com/board

[Willful]

I have Ik Multimedia's ARC system, which is like the KRK ERGO (but only plugin based). Let me tell you, from having a system of mains and a sub (Yamaha HS50's with a KRK S12), the mixes prior to ARC vs after, amazing! So many fewer mix downs to a finished product.

But here is the kicker, my sub fried itself recently and I have been unable to replace. So, using the ARC profile for my mains only, which I never really used before, my mix downs are still great! I haven't been able to replace the sub yet, but I know I can count on my mixes still.

So, point being, mains+ARC=gold, mains+sub+ARC=platinum. Now I say ARC because I have no personal experience with ERGO, but the concept of having the adjustment outside of the box interests me. But I do like how I can setup different mixing profiles with ARC.

Hope that helps.