sub + kick mastering

im interested in techniques, aside from EQing, for keeping a nice low rumble on your sub and a punchiness in your kick, without the low end becoming to muddy.

at the moment my subs are plain sines, sometimes two (another one octave up). ive experimented with waves RBass and low end EQing but dont bother compressing/limiting. sometimes i cut the very low low end off as ive heard this can be bad on some sound systems. for kicks i tend to notch up harshly, move this along the freq until its at the point at which its nearly passing the sub's range and then edit. sometimes i use a maximiser but usually just compression, although this is where i get frustrated and give up.

problem is, without any proper monitor speakers or headphones i cant really master properly, and alot of my decent and/or drastic mastering has been done after ive played a gig from mental notes. some really amateurish dirty tracks from years ago will also sound shit hot, whilst other ive spent days tweaking will sound like shit. seems so hit or miss.

anyone recommend decent plugins/tutorials/tips?

seriously man, get a set of reasonable flat monitors.

your production will change overnight. you're probably doing all the right things already, just overcompensating for shitty monitoring.

and yeah, a digi compress with an attack set slightly lower than the main freq of your kick... ie for a 60hz kick, set the attack to about 50ms... a short release, a 4 or 5 to one ratio, then adjust the thresh until it FUCKING KICKS.

cool thanks. i figured that because i try and master via plenty of shitty devices itll come out ok becuase not everyone who listens to the music will have £800 monitors of seinhessier headphones. usaully listen through ipod headphones, 'dj' headphones, my own speakers, cars etc.

that said though, could we merge this into a what monitors do you recommend? i wouldnt have too much sterling to dish out but wouldnt want anything too lackluster either. the edirols are pretty cheap?

In the mix stage do you do any sidechaining or ducking? That's a good way to get those bass sounds through.

  scones to die for said:

In the mix stage do you do any sidechaining or ducking? That's a good way to get those bass sounds through.

i don't completely agree with this. (i don't completely disagree either)

ducking comes off as compression artefacts a lot of the time.

it has its place.. mostly on radio when you want the voice to cut through the music. it can be good for pumping or breathing effects though.

  Idrn said:

cool thanks. i figured that because i try and master via plenty of shitty devices itll come out ok becuase not everyone who listens to the music will have £800 monitors of seinhessier headphones. usaully listen through ipod headphones, 'dj' headphones, my own speakers, cars etc.

think the opposite way round. if you master on good monitors, it will sound good on everybodys system.

i use jbl 4208 passives. i like them.

tannoy reveals get a lot of good press.

I second l5 here, I don't even have a great pair of monitors (Behringer Truth 2041a's) but the difference in what I end up hearing when I play it in my car/mp3 player/etc is night and day. My room isn't even set up correctly and I'm sure I'm getting all sorts of mess from the table they are on etc, but even through all of that, the clarity of what you're mixing is just so much better. So much.

nah, i meant your average listeners having amazing headphones that would pick up the subtle nuances of the mix! (ie. sennheisers).

on the issue of sidechaining/ducking though, ive never really bothered to experiment with this other than in trying to get a 'french house' kick. the stuff im mastering at the moment probably wouldnt benefit from it too much but im kicking myself about the soundtracks i recently did for three films (all in which the voices were too quiet through other speakers!).

anyone know a good multiband sidechaining compressor? also, any more monitor recommendations?

  ten fingers ten toes said:

I second l5 here, I don't even have a great pair of monitors (Behringer Truth 2041a's) but the difference in what I end up hearing when I play it in my car/mp3 player/etc is night and day. My room isn't even set up correctly and I'm sure I'm getting all sorts of mess from the table they are on etc, but even through all of that, the clarity of what you're mixing is just so much better. So much.

am eying up these little todgers:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Edirol-MA7A-Desktop-...VQQcmdZViewItem

worth investing in something better?

  tauboo said:

where did you get the idea headphones are good for mastering? esp. sennheiser headphones?

 

i have expensive sennheisers and they're useless for mastering/mixing, they make my shit mixes sound good... monitors let you hear the flaws. i feel an idiot for not buying some.. years ago i messed around in a pro studio and made the best mixed tracks i've made just because of the good monitors they had.

 

i'm worried you'll at some waste your pennies on headphones for the wrong reason, don't buy headphones for mixing/mastering !

Spot on! I've done a couple of tracks using only my headphones and later when I took off my headphones and plugged in my monitors it sounded like shit. The basslines was completely fucked and it the mixing/mastering was total crap.

I don't attempt to even claim I'm a master at this kinda thing at all, but a few small things I do is force all my audio below 250hz to mono, and then i remove everything completely below 40hz. There are quite a few plugins that can do this, personally I use otiumfx basslane cuz its free. Sometimes this removes wild artifacts and phase issues. I will also sometimes use a notch filter or EQ a bus to make room for the kick and run troublesome sounds to it. I can usually see the general place the kick is hitting using a frequency analysis plugin.

  Idrn said:

  ten fingers ten toes said:

I second l5 here, I don't even have a great pair of monitors (Behringer Truth 2041a's) but the difference in what I end up hearing when I play it in my car/mp3 player/etc is night and day. My room isn't even set up correctly and I'm sure I'm getting all sorts of mess from the table they are on etc, but even through all of that, the clarity of what you're mixing is just so much better. So much.

 

am eying up these little todgers:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Edirol-MA7A-Desktop-...VQQcmdZViewItem

 

worth investing in something better?

Im no expert here, I Think it would depend on the size of the room you're monitoring in. Those seem pretty small but that wouldn't really be a problem in a really small setting. In fact, if I had it to do over again I might get a smaller set just because the 2041's move so much air I get ear fatigue pretty quickly (they have 8" drivers). As far as quality goes I mean, Behringer should basically be bottom of the barrel but like I said, the difference in my mixes is so night and day that I can't complain at all.

night and heat, you mean

  tauboo said:

night and heat, you mean

night

heat

  Idrn said:

anyone know a good multiband sidechaining compressor? also, any more monitor recommendations?

I use "Wave Arts" plugins (no, not "Waves"). wave arts website

they have a nice multiband compressor with side chaining. check out the power suite, to get their 5 plugins for a reduced price. also, they have education discount of half I believe.

whats your monitor price range? I have event tr-8 monitors that I love, and cost me 500 for the pair at the time (5 years ago)

Just use bus compression. you can use the bus amount to control which instruments dominate the mix over others. Very handy for the low end especially. Using shit like waves ren bass and bbe sonic maximizer are only useful for sampled sounds that you have limited control over. Fix the source of the problem and you won't need additives. Multiband compression is best for final mixes. I use event 2020bas monitors.

The key is being subtle with shit. it's really easy to muck up your mix by spending hours on it tweaking away. It's always easier to subtract unwanted frequencies in low end shit than it is to add something to what wasn't there in the first place.

Mixing is key. Keeps your instruments/sounds within their ranges. If you have a guitar, synth sound, or whatever that sounds like it has too much low end, eq it out. I don't compress my bass sounds really, but i use a limiter on it then and take the threshold down to the lowest note and put the output at about .5 db instead of 0 just to be on the safe side.

I don't know about your recording program, but I bus everything in cubase to their respective frequencies and mix/eq/compress accordingly.

Keep your bass sounds, bass drums, and snares mono. If you want to add more fullness on top of them with stereo sounds, or copies, thats fine, just cut out the low end on the copies and keep the real eq/compression stage to the true originals.

Cut out the super low range completely and keep your bass sounds below 120hz. Always add a hi end layer or if the sample/sound is able, eq on your bass drums to get a nice punch without compression. If you do compress your bass drum, mess around with compressing the hi end sound with the bass drum, and just compressing the bass drum alone and leaving the hi end alone, and simply adjusting the volume accordingly.

Use your ears. Even on a low quality speaker system, you can still get a good mix done. Burn to a cd and listen on lots of different systems to try to get an overall vibe of what the stuff you're making sounds like.

Try mixing everything to mono and listening and seeing what stands out/ comes through the mix and comparing to the stereo mix and try to make those things that come out smooth in mono, come across that way in stereo.

Don't rely on compression to get a good punch. Granted it can help a lot in certain situations, a good sound at its very basic un-processed will come through just fine and punchy if it has the right characteristics.

Try layering a sine wave (tuned to your snare the best you can) under your snare drums for more punch w/o compression, and if you get too much low end, leave the sine, but eq out the lows until it sounds good and punchy.

Recommended plugins:

Waves c4 multiband compressor- on master mix

Waves L1+ Ultra maximizer - on individual tracks, and last stage of master mix

Any good eq with adjustable slopes so you can completely cut off your super lows (below 60-80 hz).

I shelled out for the waves bundle and understand that not everyone can, but if you can find a some-what equivalent to these at a lower price, or free, by all means, use it :)

One thing to bear in mind is that the improvement people hear when they get some monitors is as a result of more power, not because of 'flat frequency response'. Most standard consumer equipment is underpowered, producing a 'lazy' sound. The drivers actually getting enough power = better timing, better transient response which then produces better clarity and stereo imaging. If you want true flat frequency response be prepared to pay thousands for your monitors and thousands treating a decent sized room. Anything less than this is always a compromise in some way, so the same rules apply (getting to 'know' your speakers, multiple references, audio analysis software etc.)

  acid1 said:

I don't attempt to even claim I'm a master at this kinda thing at all, but a few small things I do is force all my audio below 250hz to mono, and then i remove everything completely below 40hz. There are quite a few plugins that can do this, personally I use otiumfx basslane cuz its free. Sometimes this removes wild artifacts and phase issues. I will also sometimes use a notch filter or EQ a bus to make room for the kick and run troublesome sounds to it. I can usually see the general place the kick is hitting using a frequency analysis plugin.

That's some good advice. So if I use Otiumfx bassline is that a good way to stop clipping if I cut out everything below 40hz which I understand is inaudible anyways? Cheers.

  Promo said:

That's some good advice. So if I use Otiumfx bassline is that a good way to stop clipping if I cut out everything below 40hz which I understand is inaudible anyways? Cheers.

as i understand it, however, if yr track is lossless in a club with nice subs you'd be able to 'hear' 40hz (though its more feel than hear). can you really get away with dropping everything below 60hz even if you're doing something pointedly bassy like dubstep or house or jungle?

  we_kill_soapscum said:

  Promo said:

That's some good advice. So if I use Otiumfx bassline is that a good way to stop clipping if I cut out everything below 40hz which I understand is inaudible anyways? Cheers.

 

as i understand it, however, if yr track is lossless in a club with nice subs you'd be able to 'hear' 40hz (though its more feel than hear). can you really get away with dropping everything below 60hz even if you're doing something pointedly bassy like dubstep or house or jungle?

Yeah, that's a good point. Certainly as I understand anything below 40/30hz cannot be heard although more likely felt. Although I'm now reading its actually 20hz that cannot be heard. All said if this is gonna stop clipping so I can maximize my sound then its potentially a quick fix to a problem that's bugged me for years.

Anymore thoughts on this subject are totally welcome.