Just got monitors! How do I monitor the kick drum?

A

andycii

New member
Pretty excited because my new monitors just came in today, they're the Mackie CR series (I know, not the best but I feel like this will be good for now until I'm fully committed). The sound on them is pretty impressive. Way better than the Beats headphones I've been using.

Anyway, now that I actually have monitors how do I monitor the kick drum? When I was mixing with headphones it was always too loud when I played it back in my car for example. So do I just find what sounds right on the monitors and hope they'll sound good elsewhere?

Also, has anyone had experience in plugging the rear port on monitors? Due to my room restrictions, my monitors are placed about 2 ft from me on both sides and about 6 inches from the wall. The bass response is a bit much from the wall so does anyone have any advice on how to alleviate this?
 
I don't have monitors and haven't read up on setting up a monitoring system recently, so I can't help much with that. I do have a solution for your bass/kick issue. If you pull in a professionally mixed & mastered song alongside your song. Since the reference track will likely have a balanced frequency range, you can use it to help you determine what will sound good elsewhere.
 
Ya definitely spend some time comparing your tracks with the tracks you worship. You could also grab a good spectrum analyzer like Blue Cats and take a visual look at your songs versus their songs.
 
you can use something like :

1. A/B tracks : this helps to tell "oh so this song i really liked sounded like this." you should analyze both the stereo width and the frequencies
2. Pink Noise mixing : this is for levels. if your kick's too loud, try this tips, it helps a lot

:D
 
Use a good VU meter (I use Klanghelm VUMT).... set it to K14 or K18... do not let the kick go over 0. Do not let anything in your song go over 0.

You now have good levels on your kick drum. Since you are like I was... don't trust your ears until you can trust your ears... trust the VU meter. Your overall mix will be low (this is good!)... so after that, use a bus compressor and limiter on the Master Out to make it loud again so it competes with industry music a little better.
 
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It would really help as well if you got some addictional speakers to your monitoring system But something what is focused on mids. I am using Avantone - frequency response is 90Hz to 17kHz. Over here I am able to hear if my base line or drum kick would be sounding correctly on phone speakers, laptops, kitchen radio etc because it is very honest. Since I have got it, when mixing spending 50% time listining it (I have got 1 only as a mono), 40% is my nearfields and rest is headphones and "normal shelf speakers". Quality of my mixes is better.
You don't need to buy Avantone - you can use some old crap speakers which you may have in your cellar
 
You had beats headphones and mixed the kicks too loud. Were they copies. I found that with using beats the bass was soo exaggerated it was the opposite. Quite some time back now, they were unusable for the job!

andycii said:
Anyway, now that I actually have monitors how do I monitor the kick drum?
Click to expand...

Too answer your question... You solo it. But I think you worded the question a bit weird.

Too much bass might be why you blast your kicks, as you may be simply on about the midrange element of it. As you have exaggerated bass, to make your kick stand out (incomparison to the bass), you are boosting it too much.

Get an analyser, many will disagree, just use your ears etc... No... Get an analyser... it will help you learn which frequencies are causing you problems much faster. You'll begin to 'see' and understand just what it is you are hearing. Eventually it will talk to you like the Matrix. You will have many ohhhh moments when things sink in.
 
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