One of the biggest problems in India is the Auto-Rickshaw mix. This phenomenon started in the 1980s and has continued till today and has been first documented by Gulshan Kumar from TSeries, when he noticed that whenever autorickshaws played his albums, he could only hear treble ergo hi-hats (for miles) and could not hear any bass. This was curious, because bass frequencies have longer wavelength and should travel further than high frequencies.
This happened because most music studios in India had no bass-trapping or low frequency absorption but had almost total absorption above 1000Hz by covering all the walls and ceiling with 2inches of foam/glasswool and fabric. Consequently the sound engineers always thought there was too much bass in the songs, so they kept putting a high pass filter or chopping low frequencies, and they always thought the songs lacked brightness, so they kept increasing the treble in the mix.
When these mixes emerged into the real world, they usually had little or no bass and too much treble. Even today, many advertising, TV, and movie mixes are too bright. This is because bass absorption in small rooms is not taken seriously by most people who construct studios.
Why are auto rickshaws important for mixes? Why not cars? This may seem like a joke but Auto Rickshaws are a close approximation of a “free field“, which means listening to a song without any modal resonance. The low frequencies escape easily through the open sides and even the canvas. If you ever want to hear how the bass in your mix really sounds, listen to it outdoor. Our Studiopanel room kits focus on low frequency absorption using corner bass traps and solve this problem.