Too much bass

I'd like to discuss something with all of you.

What are your methods for solving too much bass -more specifically, when there is a kick drum at the same time as the bassline?

I like to slightly side-chain the bassline to the to the kick drum but the only problem is that if the bassline has a high range, you are side-chaining the high end as well as the low end.

...This is why I thought I would turn to you guys. Is there a better way?

I tend to just EQ in notches... generally I like my kicks to sit slightly higher than basslines because I like the bassline to boom and marinate all over everything and the kick to punch. Then again, I'm not really very good at this either.

  ten fingers ten toes said:

I tend to just EQ in notches... generally I like my kicks to sit slightly higher than basslines because I like the bassline to boom and marinate all over everything and the kick to punch. Then again, I'm not really very good at this either.

Thanks for your reply :smiling:

Are you saying that you EQ out some of the shared frequencies between the kick drum and the bassline?

P.S

Another thing I have been toying around with lately (even thought its a pain) is making two copies of the synth. On one, I EQ out the first half of frequencies (Bass-Mid) then on the other I EQ out the second half. (Mid-High)

This way, I can side-chain only the bass. It seems to work nicely but unfortunately sometimes I cant make two copies of things.

yah, I tend to cut some of the "sub bass" part of the kick drum (around like 50hz) and cut the bassline out of the "punchy bass" area (around 100hz).

Interesting... I use an 18 band EQ:

and usually pull the first two bands right down for kick drums.

I'm not sure if this is a good idea because I cant really hear much difference on my speakers.

As well as all the ordinary EQing techniques and stuff:

You can do some clever things using sidechain compression, with heavy EQing on the sidechained signal (not the one you actually hear).. There's a proper name for this technique, but I can't remember. It's basically like making 1 band of multiband compressor. It means the compressor will only do it's 'ducking' trick on the frequencies that you haven't filtered out.. Can be used subtle-y or not so.

Experiment!

just a random thought - bass isn't terribly stereo, maybe try some fun stuff like... left channel 2/3 bass 1/3 kick, right channel 2/3 kick 1/3 bass....

i dunno. i always look at mixing like... the trunk of a car. you want to pack as much in as you can, distribute the weight evenly, not leave any pockets of wasted space....

  Dr. Elemeno von Hat X: PhD said:

just a random thought - bass isn't terribly stereo, maybe try some fun stuff like... left channel 2/3 bass 1/3 kick, right channel 2/3 kick 1/3 bass....

 

 

i dunno. i always look at mixing like... the trunk of a car. you want to pack as much in as you can, distribute the weight evenly, not leave any pockets of wasted space....

That's a good way to look at it.

I usually pan anything that's a melodic part, and for kick and snare, I leave them centered, and then pan all of the other little hihats and noises.

If you want to get really specific, you can go into each instrument for eq and cut out all of the unnecessary shite. Like if you have an acoustic guitar, you can cut out a fair amount of low end because you won't hear it in the recording while it's being played with everything else. Cut the highs on the bass, etc.

Thank you so much for the replies. they are really helpful

So esquimaw, that thing that you were talking about:

  Quote

It means the compressor will only do it's 'ducking' trick on the frequencies that you haven't filtered out.

...is this basically the same as what I have been doing or should I do it a different way?

thank you :shade:

Get a nice parametric EQ, they're really great for tweaking around with specifics like you mentioned.

NWEQ: http://www.wwaym.com/nweq.html - this one can get heavy on the cpu if you use a lot of copies, but I still use this one all the time, it's very responsive.

IIEQ: http://ddmf.eu/freeware.html

NoNameEQ: http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/VST/NonameEQ.zip

If things get heavy on the bass end, I put in an EQ, turn down the dB's on the low shelf all the way and then dial in the frequency that sounds about right. After that I add back the low shelf until there's enough bass. Basic stuff, but it works very well. After you have that set you can experiment by adding (or substracting) narrow bands of higher frequencies to make it sound punchy or whatever.

  Dr. Elemeno von Hat X: PhD said:

just a random thought - bass isn't terribly stereo, maybe try some fun stuff like... left channel 2/3 bass 1/3 kick, right channel 2/3 kick 1/3 bass....

 

 

i dunno. i always look at mixing like... the trunk of a car. you want to pack as much in as you can, distribute the weight evenly, not leave any pockets of wasted space....

as soon as you press that to vinyl, you've got problems.

  loganfive said:

as soon as you press that to vinyl, you've got problems.

explain

EQ your kick and bass as you like

then use sidechain compression. with fast attack and fast release.

kick controls the bass compression.

or choose a different kick sound or a different bass sound

  meneedit said:

  loganfive said:

as soon as you press that to vinyl, you've got problems.

 

explain

if your bass end signal is off centre, it tends to cause the needle to pop out of the groove on a shallow cut vinyl.

ideally, you want your bass and your kick centred, mono, or perfectly in phase. (for vinyl).

do what the fuck you like for cd or wav.