Help with Low-End Mixing Please

Apostata

New member
Hello guys,

I am new to this forum and there is a problem I have been having for quite a long time.
I mainly produce Drum & Bass and lots of tracks with heavy kicks and bass.

For the past years I have been heavily focusing on mixing skills and improving the sound quality. I think I have become quite good at arranging frequencies and still leaving head room, but I still have the problem that when I listen to one of those tracks loudly, my ears start to get numb, even after mixing and mastering.

Here is one example of what I am talking about. I have worked on this track for quite some time, always made a break before mixing again to get a nice clear crispy sound, but there is still too much low end pressure, even after I mastered it. I think it's always the frequencies around 100-60 Hrz that seem to have this effect on the ears. I would really appreciate some other ears to have a listen to it and tell me, what I could improve to get this damaging frequencies out ( maybe even highs?).

Can anyone please give me feedback and specific advice concerning this example track please:



I would also appreciate any guides, or literature concerning these issues, can you recommend anything specific? I really want to reach the next step in my skills as a producer and I am willing to do whatever is necessary to improve.

Thanks a lot!

I would also appreciate any guides, or literature concerning these issues, can you recommend anything specific? I really want to reach the next step in my skills as a producer and I am willing to do whatever is necessary to improve.

Thanks a lot!
 
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I think you pasted the wrong thing :cool: Since I don't have an audio example, I will be speaking in general.

If you are listening to your track at a really high volume, the feeling of "numbness" is expected. That is how our ears respond to really loud sounds. Try listening at a moderate level. If you are not sure what level is best (ex: you're using headphones) bring in a few professionally mixed & mastered tracks and set your output based on those tracks.

If you feel that a certain frequency range is producing the problem, go back to your mix to adjust levels and EQ. I recommend starting at the source of the issue (sound design, sound selection, or the mix) as opposed to simply slapping an EQ on your entire track to fix the problem.

Also, don't worry too much about mastering for the time being. Mastering a bad mix will not make it substantially better. If you are mixing your own tracks, then your mastering process should primarily entail obtaining a desired level for the release of your track (my own opinion) Assuming that your mastering chain involves a lot of compression (based on the genre you mentioned), try to reduce the amount of compression that you are doing with a simple compressor (one that affects the entire frequency range) or with a limiter. Instead, use a multiband compressor as it would better preserve the frequency balance of a mix.

Again, all of that is general information that may or may not be useful. Post your link when you get the chance so that others can provide feedback to your specific issue. One word of advice that will likely apply to solving your issue was hinted at earlier. Bring in a professionally done reference track. It will provide you a "standard" that you can base your decisions off of. Good luck!
 
so had a quick listen at the start (0:00-0:40) and can say I hear no real issues except that your kicks keep shifting position in the stereo field - seems deliberate as the pitch also changes when it does shift to the left - annoying, idiosyncratic, but seems to work
 
so had a quick listen at the start (0:00-0:40) and can say I hear no real issues except that your kicks keep shifting position in the stereo field - seems deliberate as the pitch also changes when it does shift to the left - annoying, idiosyncratic, but seems to work


Shifting position you say? I wonder how that happened, it shouldn't be doing that.
 
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Thanks for the feedback guys.

Here is another example, where I feel the low end frequencies are too heavy on the ears.
This is an older track however, so the mix is not that good:



(By the way, I still can't post links, that's why you have to get rid of the spaces in the link)
 
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if you are emphasising different freqs then the two drums are pitched differently - 60Hz is roughly B slightly flat, 100Hz (and therefore also 800Hz the triple octave) is roughly G quarter tone sharp

most real drummers do not deliberately detune their batter heads on dual kicks, nor do most tracking/mix engineers typically eq them differently - the shift in panning position is enough to differentiate them usually

perhaps if you panned them more I would find it less annoying - I think the small movement is far more annoying than the change in pitch/tonal characteristics
 
if you are emphasising different freqs then the two drums are pitched differently - 60Hz is roughly B slightly flat, 100Hz (and therefore also 800Hz the triple octave) is roughly G quarter tone sharp

most real drummers do not deliberately detune their batter heads on dual kicks, nor do most tracking/mix engineers typically eq them differently - the shift in panning position is enough to differentiate them usually

perhaps if you panned them more I would find it less annoying - I think the small movement is far more annoying than the change in pitch/tonal characteristics

Ok, thank you for your input, I will play around with it to get a better result!

Edit: By the way, did you listen to more than 40 seconds? Because the second kick comes later in the track.
 
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Shifting position you say? I wonder how that happened, it shouldn't be doing that.

higher kick is slightly to right of center from listeners point of view
lower kick is slightly to left of center from listeners point of view

check your channel panning
- as noted above, moving them further apart would eliminate what I consider to be a conflict in eq'ing
- if you move them both to the center then the conflict will remain as the sound of the kick will change pitch/tonal characteristics too often to be considered novel (i.e. hooky)
- new source of sound/new tonal quality of sound should be heard in a different location regardless of rules like all bass frequencies should be mono in the center of the mix

Ok, thank you for your input, I will play around with it to get a better result!

Edit: By the way, did you listen to more than 40 seconds? Because the second kick comes later in the track.

I actually sat and listened very carefully to the first 40" only
- I heard the kick move position and change pitch in those 40"; so stopped and wrote what I did
- if the rest of the track was similar I would end up being very annoyed and not providing much more fruitful advice/criticisms
- I do the same with my son's mixes
-- I will listen as far as I can and then tell him what I think needs fixing next
- better to get it right quickly than persevere with bad sounds/panning/eq/etc for days on end fixing big picture stuff
-- the big picture will generally clean itself up if the small details are addressed early
 
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higher kick is slightly to right of center from listeners point of view
lower kick is slightly to left of center from listeners point of view

check your channel panning
- as noted above, moving them further apart would eliminate what I consider to be a conflict in eq'ing
- if you move them both to the center then the conflict will remain as the sound of the kick will change pitch/tonal characteristics too often to be considered novel (i.e. hooky)
- new source of sound/new tonal quality of sound should be heard in a different location regardless of rules like all bass frequencies should be mono in the center of the mix



I actually sat and listened very carefully to the first 40" only
- I heard the kick move position and change pitch in those 40"; so stopped and wrote what I did
- if the rest of the track was similar I would end up being very annoyed and not providing much more fruitful advice/criticisms
- I do the same with my son's mixes
-- I will listen as far as I can and then tell him what I think needs fixing next
- better to get it right quickly than persevere with bad sounds/panning/eq/etc for days on end fixing big picture stuff
-- the big picture will generally clean itself up if the small details are addressed early

Thank you again, it's much appreciated.

I will do another mix down tomorrow when I get around it, I would be very much interested in hearing your opinion again, after I try to fix the kicks.
 
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