Bass monitoring hacks on a budget

If you’re not in a position to deck out a custom-built studio with acres of acoustic treatment and £20k of monitor speakers, don’t worry – there are several tried-and-tested methods that can help you overcome room deficiencies and get a grip on your bass monitoring.

Firstly, a great pair of headphones are invaluable, as they aren’t room-dependent – take them to any studio and use them as a reference point to judge bass balance. And we assume you’re all comparing mixes against pro commercial tracks, right? Take this further by low-passing your entire mix and the reference, then flick between the two to assess how low-end parts are working together.

Other bass monitoring tricks include: walking out of the room for a bigger perspective; touching your speaker’s woofer to feel the vibrations; and heavily limiting your master buss to see how the mix’s lows fare against the strain of ‘mastering’. Finally, if your bass sounds polished on a car stereo system, it’ll sound awesome in the club!