Question about basslines and highs

T

thecomedian

New member
Hello all,
I'm a bit new to making beats and producing (I've been doing so for about 5 months) and I've noticed that there's a problem that keeps on happening. Anyways, the problem is when I start off a song with some high synths (5th octave or so), when the bassline comes in, it sorta "eats up" the sound of those synths, and the result is the whole track starts to sound very "muddy", if that makes any sense. This doesn't happen on my monitors, it just happens on my "normal" computer speakers. Anyways, I was just wondering if there was anything I could do about that to kind of "separate" the sounds. I'm not too familiar with mixing and I've looked at some tutorials, but yeah, I'm stuck!
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks!

Oh and I'm currently using Pro-Tools M-Powered.
 
this problem occurs because there are crossover frequencies that are inhibited by both your bass and synth sound, which occur in the mid-freq range of your track.....in more simple terms the two instruments are fighting for the same spot on the record.....the solution is to EQ......you need to find the essence of both the sounds.....start with the bass, oad up an EQ plugin and boost differnet frequencies to find where the sound you want to keep resides....do the same with the synth.....those are your "keeper" frequencies....once you find them make sure to cut those frequencies from the other instrument....after that check for any problematic frequencies that remain in each instrument and cut those as well.....essentially you want to use the EQ to clean up your track and provide a separation between sounds that try to occupy the same frequencies.....
 
Thanks for your help guys. That makes a whole lotta sense, I just have ONE very basic question that I need your help on. First of all, when you say "cut", do you mean lowering the volume of that particular frequency? I have EQIII 7-Band, which is a plug-in included in Pro Tools, and there are a bunch of dots that I can drag around or control via knobs, so I'm assuming "cutting" would mean turning the knob of a frequency down, right?

But anyways, thanks again for the help! I'm doing this ASAP.
 
Basically if you have an eq... lower the mid range where u want the bass to be on the synth and vice versa for the bass. give each sound it's own space so they're not fighting...

It doesn't mean you have to cut if off completely just lower it until it's not in the way of the other sound anymore.

Other things you can do: higher the synth an octave, and pan it other than center.

Also use high pass filters for lower basslines....


-KS1 Beats
 
somtimes you dont have to eq. just pan the two instruments away form each other.
 
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