Mixing Bass and Kick Drum Tip?

[albiess]

Hi,

Trying to mixa Trance music song. Having trouble getting the kick/bass to sound good together. Sound muddy, undefine and not punch.

I have uad-1 ultral pak plugins.

Recommend plug-in?
Plug-in order? EQ -> Compressor? or reverse?

EQ setting? Frequency boost/cut?

Generally, should the bass have lower frequency boost then the kick drum? or is it the other way around.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[giles117]

Depends upon the bass sound and the kick sound wether it should be higher lower.

Your sounds will tell you who fills what freq range.

Just remember it is better to cut out what you dont want than to add. IMO Subtractive EQ is the best way to go

 

[cAPSLOCK]

The old rule of thumb for these instruments is to get them out of the way of each other.

Find out where the fundamentals of the kick are, and cut the bass in this area. Then see where the bass is working in the low end and reduce a little in the kick in the same way. This might be a broader cut.

Sometimes choosing a different instrument of patch is a real easy way to get there.

How you compress and what you EQ will have a lot to do with the two tracks.

cAPS

 

[Eurocide]

Sometimes choosing a different instrument of patch is a real easy way to get there.

That's sooo right! Sometimes there are two sounds which fit into each other perfectly and sometimes you want to pull your hair out, beause the sounds themselves make the problem.

It is often hard to leave a sound go we fell in love with, but with another the mix could be perfect without too much tweaking.

 

[albiess]

Thank you all. Great help!

Generally in Dance or Trance or Techno music type.

Do people use effect drum(kick, snare, bass, etc.) to give it some dimension or space? What effect use on bass keyboard, or Kick durm?

any compressor setting to give the kick that breathing low end?

My mix seem really flat, has no deminsion.

I new at this stuff so excuse my dumb questions. Been trying get a good mix but just simply can't. :x


Thank again in advance.

 

[Michael]

The old rule of thumb for these instruments is to get them out of the way of each other.

I couldn't have said this better myself

 

[brian]

The old rule of thumb for these instruments is to get them out of the way of each other.

I couldn't have said this better myself

I couldn't have said this better myself.

Are you on PC? Go to http://www.voxengo.com and check out the demo for LFPunch. This is a processor specifically made for adjusting punch/distortion/compression/phase of basses/kickdrums. Very reasonable price.

 

[uebermann303]

Thank you all. Great help!

Generally in Dance or Trance or Techno music type.

Do people use effect drum(kick, snare, bass, etc.) to give it some dimension or space? What effect use on bass keyboard, or Kick durm?

any compressor setting to give the kick that breathing low end?

My mix seem really flat, has no deminsion.

I new at this stuff so excuse my dumb questions. Been trying get a good mix but just simply can't. :x

Thank again in advance.

I Recommend 1176 on kick to make it more punchy/edgy but it can take away to much bass so it depends on the kick. Sometimes just eq (cambrige to fix problems and /or pultec for fat bass) is enough.
No Dimension-FX (Reverb/Delay) on kick and bass usually.
A small room on Hihat, clap, percussion can work.
Reverb/Hall on the leadsynth gives bigness.


But always remeber that everything you can do is a matter of taste and breaking the rules sometimes sounds great

 

[eyevar]

kick drum / bass ducking

A nice way to get the kick drum and bass pumping in dance music is to use one compressor to control the other (side-chain / ducking) - so that whenever the kick drum is hitting, the volume of the bass is automatically lowered.

To do this, simply insert one compressor on the kick drum channel, and make it \"send\" to a spewcified channel. Also insert a compressor on the bass channel, set to \"recieve\" on the same channel. Then adjust the threshold, attack, release, ratio etc on the bass compressor until it sounds right!

A vst compressor that does this is is the dB-D dynamics processor: http://www.db-audioware.com/dbd-guide.html