Bass-ics

When you're mixing, how do you handle bass?

Here are some points I go by. Someone, please tell me if I'm spot-on, nuts, k-rad, whatever.

I generally EQ as follows:

- Cut the low-low stuff that you don't hear anyways via a low shelf

- There's an area around 200 hz which boosting seems to add clarity to the notes. I either...

- Cut below and above the area (holding to the rule i was given that, less EQ is better, and better to cut freqs than add) OR

- Boost the area itself.

- Take a bit out of stuff above that clarity area

- Boost around 1-2kHz, depending on instrument

- Cut all high freqs that aren't needed.

Is that the right idea?

Mixing:

Would it help if I sent all the bass tracks to a group track, and mixed that in special? Currently, I just send everything to the master/stereo out and just EQ the tracks individually.

Maybe I should do both, and cut all freqs above 1kHz for the bass group...

Compression:

I'm a total compressor whore. It's bad. I won't even talk about what I do; it's embarrassing. Instead, I'll just ask: What's your compression policy on bass?

General questions:

- Do you ever do bass instruments that have NO real low bass, just kind of mid-low?

- How do you approach cleaning up a 'muddy' sound?

- How does mixdown/mp3ing/vinyl pressing/burning to a CD effect bass?

- What's the bess way to monitor for bass?

i mix stuff depending of the ambience i want to create, for the bass usually i boost around 80Hz and around 30-40Hz for the sub, whatever frequency i boost on the bass i take away from the kick drum and viceversa, unless i want a subby kik and a more thin bass then i do the opposite, i compress stuff depending on what type of sound im looking for

i think the best way to monitor stuff is to listen to it on as many different systems as you can, diff. headphones, diff. cars, stereo systems, boom boxes whatever, cuz the thing is to make it sound good on as many places as possible not just in your room/studio...

  Dr. Elemeno von Hat X: PhD said:

- What's the bess way to monitor for bass?

loud; trust your stomach when mixing bass, its all about pressure

Stomach, huh?

Any particular place? If there's one tactic I know I can handle, it's "crank the volume and make this area of the body resonate..."

check this out:

1: the BOOM area is 50hz. thats like 808 BOOM. 60 is like trance kicks and up to around 100 is your bass, 40 should be your high-cut cause anything bellow that will take too much energy and shit. be sure that every instrument got it's place in the mix.

snare should hit you in the forehead, kick around your sternum.

ahh, nice and direct, thanks. i'll try that.

now... why? how did you figure that out? experience? is there any logic behind why they hit where they do?

i'm not just interested in answers. i'm also interested in techniques used to get answers. other than, of course, asking on message boards.

ok man electronic music is my lifre and i spend all my free time in my studio. you must understand that it is only through experiments that you will come to the conclusions which i have so far. If you want something really generic, check some sites ike DOA or future producers. the thing is, whatever u read, u are not in the same room as the guy who wrote it. my first advice is to listen t osome commercial hip hop cds or even download so britney spears ,whatever, but listen to alot of music in your room and speakers. ifd you do this alot, or have already done it alot, try to keep the same setup, and youl see that you will recognize when your bass isnt right. make a-b comparisons and stuff.

the key to everything is time and effort. you will become a frequency god if you train yourself, youl go into a club and say lol this bass drum is 55 hz! and then youl be like hmm if i had mixed that snare blabla...

download some frequency analysers too, look at your favorite tunes and how they manage to fill the spectrum.

and the reason why they hit were they do, well, is that they make certain parts of your body resonate more than others at certain frequencies becasue of their shape etc.

go to dogs on acid, theyre the bass kings over there and have like one bass topic everyday or something

i just spend pissload of times making the kick drum and bass fit well together. i love sitting for hours tweaking EQ and analysing the spectrum with different instruments. i rarely give the bass much mid-upper room unless its like a raw saw wave or something. i love the feeling of sub bass

the secret to EQ'ing is just going with what fits in an individual track, i find it kinda stuipd to go like "oh you should always boost the 1KHZ range"

http://www.em411.com/show/blog/79

EQ tips / voodoo

http://www.modcam.com/emusic/Frequency_ranges.pdf

visual guide from that blog

Seems a lot of people like to cut the 1000 range actually on the master. The quickest dirtiest way to add more room on the bass is to highpass it, Its hard to let multiple sources have the low-low end sort of conflict, so I try to stick to one at a time but always fail. Im honestly more interested in doing other things most of the time.

voxengo glisseq2

<3