Elektron-Users

Any semi-serious bedroom musician has a pair of decent monitors, but I see a lot of studios lacking a good sub. I've noticed every time I play a funktion one rig that I always have way too much extra bass that I simply can't hear at home, despite the Adam A7's and their good bass response the MD bass in particular goes loud and really really deep...

I'm looking at the Adam Sub8 as the most natural subwoofer to get, but I am blank on the subject and see woofers as cheap as $2-300 and others in the $2000+ range. I'm not looking to create eathquakes, but I'd really like to hear what others are using to mix in deep bass to make it clear and punchy.

What's yer sub?

I have a focal cms sub paired up with the cms50, which to be honest need it as they roll off at 60hz. With A7s im not sure that a sub is needed so much, it might even make things more difficult depending on the room. If you are going to go for it I'd suggest matching up to your speakers- a system desgned to be used together is always going to fair better than a mismatch IMO. Do Adam do a sub to go with the A series? I wouldn't suggest going cheap either; you want someing that sounds as good as your monitors. My focal sounds fantastic, though not at the minute- its currently heading back to them for repair!

Yeah the Adam Sub series are all supposedly made to mach perfectly to the Adam A-series, so it looks like either Sub 7 or Sub 8. Sadly the Sub 10 and over are way out of my price league, but I'd believe both Sub 7 and 8 would do the job well, as they're not too cheap either.

Be worth having a look on gearslutz to see what they say: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/rap-hip-hop-engineering-production/431214-got-a7-need-sub-sub7-sub8.html

Sub7 seems to be designed for the A series, the cone on both look pretty small from the pics though. If you were serious about getting one Id start with looking at the room first- do you have any bass trapping in there, how big is it etc. They can really overpower a room- I had some configuring to do with mine before I got it sounding decent; at first it was literally shaking my whole house on 55hz... turned my walls into resonators! I still work on headphones mainly, though I cross reference and mix on the focals... I have the sub on a switch so I can reference without. Helps the neighbours out...

I have an 18" jbl in my studio, absolutely overkill for sitting in my chair mixing, but it works.

I usually only turn it on when my band is practicing, we have a lot of bass in out music between my electronics and a live bass player, so when we practice, we try and make it really loud like we are at a club, and tweak from there...I dont know if thats the best thing to do, but I've noticed we have been sounding a lot tighter and less muddy lately.

Barefoot MM27's have been making me happy for five years.

Sometimes a subwoofer can create problems especially in a small an untreated room. If you can, try borrowing one for a couple of weeks.

I did some in store comparisons when looking for a sub for my a7's a couple of yrs back. The sub 8 is the matching one. I didn't notice any huge difference to the krk rp10s so ended up saving quite a few $ and went with the krk. The crossover is locked to 80hz but that is around where I wanted to split signal anyhow. I use a foot switch to swap between sub on or bypassed and had no issues. I tend to have the sub turned down to the point where I can feel it but can't pick the direction of the speaker.

Looking at it from a different point of view. When preparing material for your shows, try monitoring thru a specrum analyser. This will show you exactly what's going on in that crucial 27 - 60 Hz area. You'll often see massive low end spikes that are not apparent thru your monitors. Same thing when mastering too!

Incidentally Funktion One enclosures are very 'Boom & Tish' by design meaning you loose a fair bit of midrange. This makes them very popular in dance circles but probably explains why you never see them at concerts/festivals.

^ good practice even when using a sub- I use voxengo span for that when I'm doing more proper stuff. Another thing you might consider is whether your cash would be better spent on a mastering engineer- in my experience a second pair of (good) ears can work wonders on low end. Perhaps spending less on a sub (ie used krk) and saving some master cash is a good compromise.