Need help with mixing kick and bass!!!!

[TomAusProducer]

So occasionally I'll do it right, without any eqing just sound selection, where the kick and bass just work together very well, ill have the bass end of the kick shine through and the actual bassline will play really well with it. The only problem is i haven't pinpointed exactly why this happens. When there's a time where i can't get them to both work well together i'll try and remove frequencies from the low end of the bass or simply move it up or down the piano roll. I've had times where the bass is REALLY low on the spectrum and it works perfectly, and had other times where it's been fairly high up and it works really well. I use that kjaearhous master limiter (wrong spelling) and it's awesome, its honestly the greatest plugin ever in my opinion. So the way I have it, is i'll always have the kick's volume all the way up (on the patterns and on the mixer, I use FL studio) I do this because the kick is supposed to be the loudest thing in the mix, and when everything is surrounding it, it sounds amazing (really full and nice). If i were to turn it down it will immediately get buried or just lose its power (at any stage, even if i were to tweak it in the mastering stage). If someone experienced could give me some eqing techniques and tell me exactly why kicks sometimes sound too hard with the bass and sometimes why they sound perfect (without me eqing anything) i'd really appreciate it

P.S yes I sidechain

Heres two tracks I made AGES ago, both i got lucky and managed to mix the kick and the other sounds OK... the evenescence remix is better mixed though. One that one i was much more inexperienced so I didn't substantially mix anything. Just selected sounds I liked. The selena Gomez one isn't as good, the kick sounds a bit worse (I think I used a different kick for that one) again that one isn't mix either, just sound selection. Thanks again for anyone that can help!!

Selena Gomez - "Selena Gomez - Forget Forever (Tom Lee Remix) by TomLeeMusic - Hear the world’s sounds"

Evenescence - "Evanescence - Bring Me Back To Life (Tom Lee Remix) by TomLeeMusic - Hear the world’s sounds"

 

[Wapiti]

The volume you refer to in the pattern is not volume, it is velocity. And a good pattern will have varying velocity on your kick/drums to make it sound real.

As for kick/bass blending it will all vary with your composition. Depending on the scale you choose, melody etc the bass will naturally be more in the lows or higher frequencies, the kickdrum should follow suit and be in tune with your scale, usually the root note of your bass note or chord sounds the best. If it is out of tune you may find the kick stands out more (not in a good way).

You say kick should be the loudest thing in the mix, this is false and do not let rules overtake your mixing. The ideal mix has everything sitting in it's perfect frequency slot, when you say you turn down the kick you lose it, this means you are losing the kick with overlapping frequencies from other things in your mi. Make sure the kick is in Mono (along with your bass as well), next analyze what other instrumentation you are using in your mix, perhaps there is some other lows getting in the way. Most often in electronic music all instruments have a bunch of low end rumble crap that is not part of the sound but gets in the way. Run a spectrum analyzer on all of your tracks individually and you can learn which instruments have unecesary frequencies get in the way, EQ those out and slowly your ear will develop overtime to learn this.

Listening to your remixes you do not have much of a stereo spectrum, try to turn your stereoizer effects down and add more instrumentation to fill the frequency spectrum and alter panning. this combined with EQing will give you a fuller effect and more clarity.

I have never used that master limiter you speak of, but I truly question your thoughts on why you think it is the best ever. You never need a master plug-in for anything in production unless it is for effects, it sounds like it just increases your loudness and squashes dynamics however; not ideal save the mastering stage for the master.

Finally you very briefyl mentioned yes you sidechain, just because you sidechain does not mean it's done well, mess around with sidechaining with varying tweaks to really pull out the transients and make sure you have the compressorkick track turned off.

Beyond that just practice you get better

 

[Rekordhead]

forget side chaining, you don't need it. Your problem is your frequencies. If turning the kick down buries it in the mix then that means it is fighting with a lot of stuff in the low end. A good place to start would be to hipass anything that isn't the kick or the snare to 150-200hzish . Getting the kick and bass to work together is one of the toughest parts of mixing. You're on the right track with sound selection, that is very key to getting it to work, some sounds just won't work together no matter how many effects you put on them. Basically just figure out at what range you want the kick to sit, and what range you want the bass. Boost/cut each to get them out of the way of each other while hipassing everything else to take them out of the equation.

A lot of things come into play to make a kick stand out, volume is just one. The punch is gonna be the important part, and thats something you can achieve through EQ, compression, saturation, or a slew of other effects. That way you can have your kick stand out without being over bearing.

 

[Killa-G]

Get your Kick threw EQ, compression, add a lil reverb to your kick , it will sound nice!

 

[gjfukit]

I second what Rekordhead said.

I also just posted this link as an answer to another thread but it's also relevant here. Check out this youtube tutorial and I GUARANTEE you'll be able to make your kicks and bass (and any other tracks sit better with each other) You gotta sweep the EQ and find the sweet spot for each track then subtract un-needed frequencies.