I need assistance please

Im 18 and started making beats a few months ago and i have this problem. So whenever i make a beat i have my headphones on and there is plenty of bass even without bass oriented headphones. But if i play the same song on my laptop you can barely notice the bass. Why is this? Im concerned that others who hear my music without headphones on are thinking that i don't know what bass is when there is actually ALOT of bass in the majority of my Instrumentals. What should i do? And how will i know what others hear who are not right in front of me?

:monkey:
 
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Well for starters, I can assume your laptop cannot reproduce those low bass sounds. Try playing them on a stereo system with a decent pair of speakers. However saying that, you should be mixing your bass so that you can still hear it on smaller systems.

Are you using a simple sine wave as your bass?
 
Im still learning MIDI and the techniques behind music. right now i just use Garageband. I know i sound like an idiot I'm just really new to this, I'm not even entirely sure what mixing is. I just adjust the different factors that make up my sounds for them to sound better and not crowd each other
 
you should not mix on phones alone, they are for reference only my senns phones are well nice if i mix with them alone, i get some well nice accurate sounds and resonating sounds are well on the ball but the monitors dont sound no where near, but the main reason and only if you making stereo, is that stereo is well off using the cans. There is no way on earth the stereo you hear in cans will sound the same on speakers...... also make sure you have studio like cans some have bass boost IE beats phones. I screw up on my monitors at times as they have bass boost which i turn on to listen to most music but forget to turn it off when mixing and end up with a right screwed mix in terms of bass.
 
That's exactly what mixing is :)

hahahaha Wow

---------- Post added at 02:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:05 PM ----------

you should not mix on phones alone, they are for reference only my senns phones are well nice if i mix with them alone, i get some well nice accurate sounds and resonating sounds are well on the ball but the monitors dont sound no where near, but the main reason and only if you making stereo, is that stereo is well off using the cans. There is no way on earth the stereo you hear in cans will sound the same on speakers...... also make sure you have studio like cans some have bass boost IE beats phones. I screw up on my monitors at times as they have bass boost which i turn on to listen to most music but forget to turn it off when mixing and end up with a right screwed mix in terms of bass.

So i should listen through both Phones and Speakers?
 
If you are interested in taking music production seriously you first definitely need to invest in a descent pair of monitors. I used to have some KRK Rokits back in the day and they did a pretty good job for the price, you can pick them up for less than £200 second hand.

The second and equally as important is the room your working in. Consider buying some acoustic treatment It can make a huge difference. I'm no acoustic specialist but the folks at GIK acoustics are really helpful and I bought materials from them.

As already mentioned avoid headphones as your primary reference point and for the love of God stay away from laptop playback as any type of reference point!
 
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If you are interested in taking music production seriously you first definitely need to invest in a descent pair of monitors. I used to have some KRK Rokits back in the day and they did a pretty good job for the price, you can pick them up for less than £200 second hand.

The second and equally as important is the room your working in. Consider buying some acoustic treatment It can make a huge difference. I'm no acoustic specialist but the folks at GIK acoustics are really helpful and I bought materials from them.

As already mentioned avoid headphones as your primary reference point and for the love of God stay away from laptop playback as any type of reference point!

Thanks, i know i sound like an idiot i just haven't been at this very long
 
dude you dont sound like an idiot at all
either you can get monitor boxes
or listen to your sound on different stereosystems (burned on cd)...
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there are many hit records made today with laptops and headphones only.

one artist just won a couple of grammy's using this exact approach.

there are no rules, just enjoy yourself.
 
Well for starters, I can assume your laptop cannot reproduce those low bass sounds. Try playing them on a stereo system with a decent pair of speakers. However saying that, you should be mixing your bass so that you can still hear it on smaller systems.

Are you using a simple sine wave as your bass?

im not sure how do i find out?
 
A sine wave is simple a pure tone with no harmonics. Modern music tends to use them as the bass to allow more space in the mix and they tend to sit around the 50hz region. Therefore if you are using a sine wave as your bass, you will not hear it on your laptop because I can't think of any laptop capable of reproduced 50hz.

What are you using for your bass track?
 
A sine wave is simple a pure tone with no harmonics. Modern music tends to use them as the bass to allow more space in the mix and they tend to sit around the 50hz region. Therefore if you are using a sine wave as your bass, you will not hear it on your laptop because I can't think of any laptop capable of reproduced 50hz.

What are you using for your bass track?

well i haven't learned sampling yet (I'm self taught in music) so i makes my music from scratch using the software instruments in garageband that come with my mac. What can you tell me about that?
 
So what instrument are you using as your bass? is it a software bass guitar or a synth sound?

The problem with not hearing the bass on laptop speakers comes from a lack of harmonics in the mid range of your bass sound. Try boosting around the 1- 3k region with an EQ to bring the sound of the attack off the bass out more. Also try a bit of distortion to add additional harmonics to the bass sound. And finally, try duplicating your bass track and transposing it an octave up, then blend it in with your main bass.
 
So what instrument are you using as your bass? is it a software bass guitar or a synth sound?

The problem with not hearing the bass on laptop speakers comes from a lack of harmonics in the mid range of your bass sound. Try boosting around the 1- 3k region with an EQ to bring the sound of the attack off the bass out more. Also try a bit of distortion to add additional harmonics to the bass sound. And finally, try duplicating your bass track and transposing it an octave up, then blend it in with your main bass.

The best sounding heavy bass on the program is in a hip hop drum kit it has drum kits for different types of music. i tried the guitar and synth basses and they either do not sound right or cannot be heard over other sounds
 
Aside from headphones and monitors, it's also a good idea to reference audio in your vehicle if you have a decent audio system. After I master a track I take it out to the car and see how it sounds.
 
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