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.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding 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 each course.
- Each SAU course includes 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 and social channels.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You 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 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.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 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).
- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily 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 skills at your own pace.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
