You moved the desk
to the middle of the room,
because it looked right.
Speakers even.
Walls even.
You in the centre.
That week
every mix came out
with a bass guitar
that rattled car doors
everywhere else.
In the room it sounded thin,
so you turned it up.
The room was lying to you,
and it was lying
in a way you can calculate.
Low notes
have long wavelengths.
In a small room
they bounce
between two parallel walls
and meet themselves
coming back.
At some places in the room
the waves add up.
At others
they cancel out.
The first of these,
between front and back walls,
sits at the speed of sound
divided by twice the room length.
A four metre room
puts it near
forty three hertz.
The open low E
on a bass guitar
is forty one.
And for that first mode,
the cancellation
sits exactly halfway
between the walls.
The middle of the room.
Your chair.
Walk to the back wall
and the same note booms.
Walk back to the chair
and it nearly vanishes.
This is why the fix never held.
You boosted the bass
to fill a hole
that only existed
where your head was.
Every other room
got the boost
and none of the hole.
The playing was fine.
The seat was not.
So stop sitting
on the line of symmetry
front to back.
A common starting point
is about thirty eight percent
of the way in
from the front wall.
Then play a slow bass line
and move your head
forward and back
until the notes
come out even.
Put thick absorbers
in the corners
if you can,
because corners
are where bass piles up.
And before you trust the low end,
check it on headphones,
which have no room to lie with.
You were not mixing badly.
You were mixing
the one spot
where the room takes the bass away.
Move the chair
before you move the fader.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
