There’s a good chance your studio is lying to you, meaning that it’s adding and removing sound levels at different frequencies due to reflections and room modes. So, if you create music based on the raw audio coming out of your studio monitors, your hearing things other people may not. The purpose of this video is to raise awareness to this issue and discuss different solutions to the problem.

TIMELINE:

0:00 The problem
0:10 Simple test
1:35 Why it happens
2:00 A better test
3:30 Speaker test
4:20 Positioning
5:25 Room treatment
6:30 Headphones
7:05 Correction
7:30 Room EQ Wizard
10:05 Creating filters
12:30 ARC 3, Sonarworks
13:40 Does it work?
17:45 Important!
18:05 Summary

Here are all the tips in the video in a nutshell:
1. Even if you don’t treat your room or apply correction, measure and be aware of the modes (bass resonance) in your room and learn to discount/ignore them.
2. Avoid sitting in the corners – that’s where bass builds up
3. Your studio is lying to you differently in different places. A measurement in one place may not apply somewhere else.
4. If you move things around (speakers, tables, etc) – measure again
5. Speaker bass EQ/attenuation isn’t a fix for bass modes because it will reduce the level of the non-mode frequencies along with the modes.
6. Always attenuate mode frequencies, don’t amplify the non-mode frequencies.
7. Focus your room correction on frequencies under 1000hz.
8. Consider hiring a professional acoustician before buying room treat meant panels and bass traps. You just might save money on buying stuff that doesn’t make a difference.
9. Position yourself and your speakers in the sweet spot: facing the length of the room, an equilateral triangle with you at the 38% spot.
10. Using quality headphones when mixing and mastering your music is way cheaper than getting room treatment done.
11. Room treatment: at the very least treat the first reflection points.
12. Don’t forget to remove any correction plugins before exporting your project!