How do you give mnml tracks that subby-sounding space?

[damagedgoods]

Every room has standing waves but some rooms are worse than others. Play a very slow sine sweep from 20 to 20khz and walk around the room. If you're in an untreated room, at certain frequencies you'll probably notice the sound being massively amplified or almost disappearing.

[AK]

I've tried every trick mentioned on this site, but i can only get it right on my headphones two sinewaves together, one an octave above the other and through a low cut filter etc. The reverbs mentioned in this thread.

It's just that it's very rare that i create a sub bass on my cans that also sounds good on my monitors. Most of the times the bass sounds full on my headphones, but when i listen to my track on my monitors it sounds 'clicky' and bass light. When I do it the other way around my track sounds ok on my monitors, but boomy on my headphones. I know my monitors have a roll off and my environment is not treated (and i suspect full of problems) and i also know my headphones are bass heavy

That's why i was wondering if i should believe my monitors or my headphones when it comes to low bass.

Edit: How low would you go with a pure sinewave bass? What are the notes that you use and which do you avoid? Perhaps this will give me some insight on my problem

Assuming some notes sound better than others in your studio room might indicate an acoustic problem, in my room for example a G1 note sounds suddenly louder and more boomy that the F below it. But anyway, you are aware of this. Some would say the lowest note for bass should be an E1 ( 41hz ) which I think is the lowest note on a Bass Guitar.

Personally, I'm not that keen on just a sine as a bass as there is only the fundamental, I prefer using something which carries a few extra additional harmonics and then I have the option of using a LP filter to acquire a 'smoother' sound. To me it just seems a richer sound. Low frequency sine waves aren't going to be picked up on the majority of domestic systems, so if you can't even hear it on a pair of monitors, you are going to be devoid of any bass on speakers with a higher cut of point.

I'm no expert on this though, I just feel bass needs to have some more upper end energy for it to be appreciated. Try using a richer sound source and then applying a LP filter to get down to the 'subby' element. There's definitely a better richness there.