Why do my own kicks cause my room to echo?

[2latuile]

I fail to spot exactly what makes the first kick to trigger your room's resonance when the last one doesn't :-/ - but that's part of the joy of small rooms acoustics... If you can find out exactly which frequency (or frequency range) the issue happens at (a low tone sweep can help here) you could use this tool to check if it matches one of your room's mode...

Questions: Does the issue happens the same way everywhere in the room ? What if you move around ? And what if you move your monitors ? Are your monitors on stands or directly over a reflexive surface ?

[Plyphon]

Yeah I guess the main thing that I wanted to understand was why I rarely/never hear the same reflections/poppyness on released/mastered tracks. It was less about trying to make a working studio out of my room (which is my lounge... so impossible).

That audio file is the same kick sample with different EQ/processing. If they all sound good elsewhere maybe I should trust my headphones more and just forget it with the room.

[Críoch]

Think with a lot of things in life; when you find something that works, ride it for along as you can.

It's hard to nail stuff down sometimes, but when you find out how to do something right, you must actually remember to do it the next time. Totally incorporate it.

I'm guilty of not doing that sometimes. My approach to making kick drums is often more based on vibe & tone, rather than dynamics. I'm making an effort now to make it a consideration right from the beginning & not leave it for something I intend to fix later.. but never actually do.

Can't complain if we're guilty!

Developing Art.. 10k hrs.
Learn a new skill.. 20hrs. Apparently.

Discipline is needed to develop new habits.

[2latuile]

Yeah I guess the main thing that I wanted to understand was why I rarely/never hear the same reflections/poppyness on released/mastered tracks. It was less about trying to make a working studio out of my room (which is my lounge... so impossible).

That audio file is the same kick sample with different EQ/processing. If they all sound good elsewhere maybe I should trust my headphones more and just forget it with the room.

I have to say I'd too like to understand why you get this issue with your own kicks but not with kicks from other prods... There's certainly something to learn here.

Now wrt/ speaker/listener position, small acoustic treatment etc, the point wasn't to "make a working studio", just to try and attenuate the worst issues. Sometimes very little moves can yield great rewards - in my case, just moving my speakers (and listening position) 4 inches up already solved quite a few problems.

[Lost to the Void]

So here's a quick export of some kicks -

https://soundcloud.com/humanfutures/kikcz/s-knDYWiIBSUK

4 beats per kick, goes through 6 kicks as I've been duplicating and tweaking, listening back on monitors, tweaking again, etc.

I started with the kick at the beginning and the kick at the end is where I've gotten too - the final kick rings a tiny bit in my room but no where near as bad as the first one does.

The final kick is more balanced, has a -5db scoop at 500hz with a fairly wide Q reaching down to 200 and up to around 900hz. Also a bit of a dip at 50hz and a small boost at the top end. Less saturation/fuckery on it, too.

What gets me is on my headphones the first kick sounds fine - sure its a muffled low-fi aesthetic but it sounds good and fits the vibe. But on my monitors it sounds really poppy and boxy, and sets the room off. The final kick whilst not having such the same aesthetic doesn't set the room off but still fits the track.

I tried compressing but couldn't really get the room to stop, and it introduced more poppyness as the transients were compressed I guess. Admittedly I'm not the best with compressors - so this could be user error.

I can't emphasise enough how bad this room is, though - which means I really need to learn the cans and 'learn to hear' this stuff in the headphones. If I turn the volume right down you begin to hear the poppyness in the kicks. If I turn the master down to -24 the first kick sounds super poppy without much body, and the last kick still sounds reasonably balanced. But at full/normal volume both sound passable. Idk if this is related or a tangent.

Finally had a listen.
I don`t hear anything particularly wrong with these kicks. They are quite dynamic and have a lot of low end in them.
I`ll have another listen in the mastering room 2morro, but I don`t detect any erroneous weirdness.

[Plyphon]

Ah thanks dude - well thats good to know at least. What a mystery.

What it has taught me though is to ensure I listen to kicks as quietly as possible to see if they still sound balanced. If the sonic character doesn't change as you turn up the volume then it's good to go.