While we recommend purchasing a nice pair of monitors or professional grade headphones for mixing, we admit the need for a subwoofer is one of the more debatable gear purchases.
While a sub can be great for helping you monitor the low ends of your mix, it can also boost the low end too much and cause you to react by mixing your bass too low.
If you’re keen on getting a sub for your studio, here are a few things you should look for first.
Have The Right Monitors to Pair
Any subwoofer is going to dramatically alter the overall response of your monitoring system. Because of this, you’ll want to make sure that your monitors and sub will pair together well. One of the simplest ways to see that your monitors pair together well is to match the make and series. Do your monitors already have a matching subwoofer made by the manufacturer? Often these systems are made to calibrate together well.
Also, if your monitors have seven inches woofers or larger, you may not need a subwoofer. They will likely already give you enough bass that adding a sub could overwhelm your highs. If their woofers are smaller than seven inches, then adding a sub could help you achieve a more accurate low end in your mix.
Make Sure Your Room Is Treated
Because bass frequencies tend to spread out much more prominently, one of the most important things to look out for before you get a sub is how well-treated the acoustics of your mixing room are.
If you don’t have properly controlled acoustics in your mixing room, you could end up with a muddy response when mixing. The best way to prevent this is to treat your room with bass traps in the corners. They’ll will absorb the bass frequencies rather than letting them bounce around your room.
If you don’t meet these two criteria, you may want to pass on picking up a subwoofer for now. If you still would like to hear a little better how your mix sounds in the low end, try demoing it on a bookshelf stereo. Often commercial stereos like those have a natural boost in the low end to make them sound better to consumers. Plus, you can save your money.
Make Pro Songs
There are 6 unique value-points inside the Sage Audio membership, so let’s go over each one so you can decide if it’s the right fit for you.
1. 20 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 20 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You’ll get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
2. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited mixing feedback so you can quickly improve your mixes fast.
- This is highly valuable - giving you access to a thriving community of mixing engineers who can provide you with feedback about what you can improve first before sending your mix to be professionally mastered.
3. Sage Audio University™ (SAU) — (Mixing and Mastering Education Platform)
- SAU is a modern audio engineering education platform that includes in-depth mixing and mastering course curriculums that match the new music industry.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from first-time mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout every course curriculum.
- SAU course curriculums include Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website, social channels, and portfolio for as long as you remain a member.
- Get first access to all future SAU course curriculums to continually build and refine your mixing and mastering skills as the industry evolves.
4. Sage Audio Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers that can provide you with real-world mixing feedback, discussions, mix competitions, networking, collaborations, and more.
5. 700+ In-depth Sage Audio Mixing and Mastering Videos
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into playlists so you can take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your mixing and mastering skills at your own pace.
6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content, Including:
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
- 57 un-mastered mixes spanning multiple genres for mastering practice.
- 62 Recommended Free Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 39 Recommended Paid Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 58 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.