how to eq/master bass heavy tracks?

Okay, so, recently I am really into having a lot of complexity on the low end of my tracks, and sometimes I will even have 2 or 3 bass instruments/instruments with subs + complex kick drum patterns, and obviously with no EQing, it tends to do some clashing, and the heavy bass makes it so that the tracks seem pretty quiet when it's actually maxing out/just below max volume. I can only get it to sound the way I want it to if I turn my speaker/headphone volume way up, and obviously this isn't a solution, as there's nothing more obnoxious than telling people to "play it loud!" when you post tracks. Are there any particular tricks to making this work with creative EQing, etc. and make it still have powerful bass without sounding muddy?

I don't know a whole lot about mastering in general, so if this is unrealistic, I will not be surprised.

Well, the way to have clear and defined bass is to not have too many things happening at once. When you clutter up your low end with lots of things in the same frequency range, it causes each one to clash with the others. Each different part is fighting for attention so actually none of the parts end up coming through very clear. It's also important to remember that bass is naturally louder than treble from the standpoint of decibels, but treble has a perceived louder volume to the ears. This means that lots of activity in the bass can cause loud peaks in the low end, and your track can't get louder without clipping.

Ways to get around this are: paying attention to where you are placing bass in your song writing, sound selection, and frequency mix. Find out what frequency your kicks are hitting at, and either place them higher or lower than your basslines frequency in the mix. If they are hitting at the same place, this could be your problem... also... EQ! EQ! EQ! If you look at your tracks in a spectrum analyzer you'll notice that there are tons of low frequencies present in all of your sounds that you didn't even intend. Even things like hihats can sometimes have a weird volume bump in the low frequencies. EQ that kinda crap out. This gives your track room to breath, and the volume can actually come up louder because you've cleared up space! Things will come through clearer, and your speakers won't have to work as hard. Removing frequencies from sounds, getting those EQ carvings right up against where the core of the sound is will allow more space for other sounds to come through.

Being mindful of where you're placing two bassy sounds can make a difference too. Waiting a beat after your kick to place your bassnote for example lets each note come through clearly....

And then of course, there is side-chain compression. Are you familiar with that concept? In short, it basically causes sounds to duck out of the way for other sounds to happen. Careful applications of this can allow you to have more complexities in the same frequency range, and still have things ring through clear, but this needs the right settings or it can do some really weird things to your track. Some good, some not so good haha!

EQ out the bass from all other instruments. Kill the bass on the kicks a bit, use the kicks to gate the bass if you want the kicks to be prominent.

^this

good tips. Someone needs to do a detailed walk through of using EQ on a track well. This is still quite a mystery to me.

It's simple. Route all instrument channels that DON'T need bass into one group channel and kill all the sub on that channel. Sometimes you can even kill up to around 100-120hz. Leave the bass channels untouched and mono, kill the very lowest sub if you want and possibly high end you don't need. Using the kicks to gate the basslines is a great way to get some "pumping" action and still retaining the punch from the kicks. You don't have to gate it from 100% to 0%, but just a soft duck is better than nothing.

If you don't need any bass from the kicks, only from the basslines then simply kill all bass on the kicks and only use the high harmonics to emphasize the rhythm. It's not magic :)

  On 4/16/2012 at 12:12 PM, impakt said:

It's simple. Route all instrument channels that DON'T need bass into one group channel and kill all the sub on that channel. Sometimes you can even kill up to around 100-120hz. Leave the bass channels untouched and mono, kill the very lowest sub if you want and possibly high end you don't need. Using the kicks to gate the basslines is a great way to get some "pumping" action and still retaining the punch from the kicks. You don't have to gate it from 100% to 0%, but just a soft duck is better than nothing.

 

If you don't need any bass from the kicks, only from the basslines then simply kill all bass on the kicks and only use the high harmonics to emphasize the rhythm. It's not magic :)

thanks for the excellent tips on EQ! i just tried those and they work great!

  On 4/16/2012 at 12:12 PM, impakt said:

It's not magic :)

but it could be emagic

how are you about making your mixing decisions? headphones? monitors?

if monitors,

you can eq the direct signals, yes - but within a bounded acoustical space you CANNOT EQ non-minimum phase issues to address speaker-room interactions as the response at the listening position is simply the summation (superposition) of the direct and indirect signals that will cause constructive and destructive interference. we are dealing with local areas of variable pressure with respect to the ambient noise floor. so, not only are you contending with frequency response anomalies due to superposition, SBIR, room modes, etc, but you are also going to have long LF decay times of which is also destructive - as the LF notes will be percevied as muddy and "running together". 800ms decay times in a typical small acoustical space within the modal region is quite common.

there are ways to address this.

Always work with the direct signal and assume best conditions - unless you're making pop music :)

there's some really solid advice in here, thanks so much guys. I will definitely be trying that method impakt. I had a feeling I had to do something along those lines, but that method seems particularly simple & effective. will give it a shot on a few tracks asap.

Yeah, that's the fast way. The best way is of course individual EQ on every channel :)

Some excellent advices here !

My 2 cents : grab Sonimus Satson (it's quite cheap). Thanks to it I've learnt that proper gain staging in a DAW is essential and makes mixing easier, faster and much more rewarding. Headroom is key, and let all the low frequencies breath.

Try also to set all your faders from the kick to the bass to the other tracks, from the loudest individual tracks to the other with less low frequencies.

Also try EQing your bass and kick without solo'ing them but by playing them together, so that you make them both work together.

sidechain