Bass line VS Kick Drum trouble

E

Ethereal

New member
hey i've been making hip hop and IDM beats using fruityloops and a boss sp505 for about 6 years, and one problem i've always run into is getting a fat bass sound, and a fat kick sound that dont contradict eachother. meaning when the kick and the bass play at the same time they don't sound muddy, or out of tune. anyone else have this problem/concern? i'd like to be able to have a low bass and low kick in the same song with out them getting too bassy. any suddgestions would help!

thanks
ether
 
I have the same problem. I think it's just a matter of not using a kick and bassline in the same frequency. My problem is I always use really low frequency kicks and basslines. They always cancel each other out and I always have to change something. LOL.
 
EQ EQ EQ, try cutting your bass around 120hz and giving a slight boost around 70hz, then with the kick cut at 70hz and boost at 120 hz. play around cause its around these frequencys you should find some good results. also try using a different eq on the kick and the bass.

or duck your kick drum. but a hardware compressor will be needed. unless anyone knows of a software comp that can side chain and duck.

check out this site for ducking, but you will just want to run a bass in and not the whole mix like the article here explains.

http://www.mikekonopka.com/page26.html
 
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from what ive heard its all about what dood said. side-chaining and notch-EQing..... i dont know much about usin side-chaining, but notching the EQs can help a lot.




peace.
 
its when a compressor is set to compress a certain sound, but its ANOTHER sound that actually triggers the compressor to turn on.



peace.
 
so its like if you had a bassline on one channel using a compressor, then also put the bass drum on the same channel, so when the bass drum (which is more transient) hits it turns the compressor on, invariably turning the bassline down too. hmm thats a damn good idea, thanks i'll experiment. i have a multiband compressor, but it takes a lot of CPU usage, so i don't use it much. its called ozone, it does a lot of stuff, and its more for mastering. can anyone suddgest a better multiband compressor that takes less cpu?

thanks for all the post, everyone of them has been helpful.

peace,
ethereal
 
oh yea man, ozone is a mastering 'suite', its not for just compression, although i guess you CAN if you want.

i dont use multiband compressors too much. and im lookin for a vst compressor with a real side chain. i have a waves multiband that is real nice, and for 'regular' compression, i use the sonalksis one. its nice.

--you can fake a side chain compressor with a peak limiter, if you know what im sayin....



peace.




peace.
 
This Will Fix Your Problem. Its Easy To "Duck" With Fruity Loops. Set Your Drums And Bass On Two Different Mixer Channels. Add A Peak Controller Into Your Kick Mixer Channel. Make Sure To Un-Mute Tha Peak Controller Or You Wont Hear Your Drum. Right Click On Tha Slider On Tha Bass Mixer Channel. Click On "Link To Controller". Under "Internal Controllers", Click "Peak ctrl 'mixer name' - peak". Under "Mapping Formula", Click "Inverted". Press OK.

There You Go. When Your Drums Kick, Your Bass Will Move Outta Tha Way, Then Come Right Back Up. Leaving You Wit No Muddiness Or Distortion.
 
InSight-Beats said:
This Will Fix Your Problem. Its Easy To "Duck" With Fruity Loops. Set Your Drums And Bass On Two Different Mixer Channels. Add A Peak Controller Into Your Kick Mixer Channel. Make Sure To Un-Mute Tha Peak Controller Or You Wont Hear Your Drum. Right Click On Tha Slider On Tha Bass Mixer Channel. Click On "Link To Controller". Under "Internal Controllers", Click "Peak ctrl 'mixer name' - peak". Under "Mapping Formula", Click "Inverted". Press OK.

There You Go. When Your Drums Kick, Your Bass Will Move Outta Tha Way, Then Come Right Back Up. Leaving You Wit No Muddiness Or Distortion.
Click to expand...

Thanks you a lot, that is exactly what I'm looking for :)
 
Been using the peak controller for a while but never really thought of using it like that haha good suggestion, except maybe it would be better if you linked the volume knob on the bass channel rather than the bass fader as then you cannot mix using the fader as it will be locked to the peak controller. Just what I would do in that situation.

Also EQ wise I like to cut bass at about 80-90 hz for my kick to squeeze in as i like to have heavy punch here instead of bass drone which i prefer below 80... just my way of doing it find what works best for you
 
I too would like to know how to do this in Cubase. But on a side note:

Try using 2 kicks - one for thump and one for attack. Use a non-traditional hip hop kick for 'attack' purposes, like a live-kit kick, (sometimes toms work if they're in tune with the melody of your track) or anything percussion that may sound like a kick that isn't all bass. Boost at around 5kHz - 7kHz to make your 'attack' kick punch through the mix. This is what I do and I don't have any issues at all with distinguishing my kicks from my basses. I an using Cubase and GigaStudio to do this though. Never used FL so I'm not sure of it's capabilities.

peace
 
The FL Studio peak controller version of side chaining is an EXTREMELY powerful way of controlling the gain on your channels. Since I discovered it a couple of months ago my mixes have sounded so much more professional and punchy. I'll be doing a tutorial extending these ideas with a couple of extra tips and tricks regarding side chain compression, mixing in general and what I like to call "dynamic filtering" pretty soon. Hopefully it'll be of some use to you people.

Ciao,

Dan
 
pretty sure if you google it you will see a web page that shows you how to SC comp in Cubase. there is not any "true" sidechaining yet until Vst 3.0 happens, but these suggestions should work well.

One other obvious tip..on the kick drum, boost 80 and under and 5-7k. cut the mids.gives you that smiley face EQ..that will help with digging out a ton of space for your other tracks, since the mids in a big kick drum will eat your mixes up if not cut. i boost my bass at 100 or so..all depends on the track..I also cut off anything under 20.
 
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