kick and bass volume?

S

StanleySteamer

New member
probably a generic question but do you guys normally let the kick and bass sit at the same volume in a mix with eqs and side chain compression or should the bass be lower than the kick? this is for sample based hip hop style mixing
 
That's a tough one. It really depends on the frequency content and timbre of the sounds. I've done mixes where the bass is just about the same level as the kick and others where the bass is as much as 10db lower than the kick. The latter is probably a more extreme scenario where is was an artistic decision rather than trying to have the heaviest bass line around.
 
I just got finished watching a tutorial from a well known producer, Soundprank, and he was talking about kick/bass levels and basically said bass should be 2-5db below the kick if I remember correctly. Worked great in my track I'm currently working on. Hope this helps!
 
It really depends on the context of the song.

If someone asks how loud should the drums in a song be relative to a pad, that's easy. Since drums are intermittent and the pad is constant, you have the drums loud and the pad quiet. That's the only way to hear everything. If the pad was loud, you wouldn't be able to hear the drums with clarity. And since the drums are intermittent, you hear the pad between beats even when it is much quieter. The foundation of a good mix is to make everything audible, and a big part of that is moving instruments out of the way that don't require much volume to be audible, like pads.

Same goes for kick and bass balance: if the bassline is busy and active, but the kick drum is sparsely played, make sure the kick drum is several dB louder than the bass, maybe more with taste. But if the kick drum is continuously hitting in a very active beat, I'd keep it lower in the mix and turn the bass up higher. And if the kick drum is super busy, I'd even try out rolling off the lows on that kick and adding a second, lower, more sparse kick to add weight to the song. Remember, a wall of bass doesn't make a good song. The bass needs to interact with the song. The bass needs to swell and fade, quickly or slowly according to the song's energy.

Yesterday, I heard a song with virtually no low frequency content. Then, during the chorus, a thunderous kick with a long decay played once every four measures. It anchored the song and brought dimension and texture to it that wouldn't be there if the bass hit constantly. Of course, this wouldn't work with every song. But it's great for a softer song. You can be creative.
 
evanportman said:
I just got finished watching a tutorial from a well known producer, Soundprank, and he was talking about kick/bass levels and basically said bass should be 2-5db below the kick if I remember correctly. Worked great in my track I'm currently working on. Hope this helps!
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Its funny because I am literally debating between -5db below the kick or at the same level. I honestly think it is -5db below cuz now that I am trying it I can still here it in the mix it's just not as overwhelming. Appreciate it bro and everyone else who ggave me advice

Edit: One last question, do you guys mix your bass only in comparison to your kick or your sample as well? For instance, if my sample is like -20db should my bass be like -20db or maybe even -25db?
 
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StanleySteamer said:
One last question, do you guys mix your bass only in comparison to your kick or your sample as well? For instance, if my sample is like -20db should my bass be like -20db or maybe even -25db?
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- It's good that you're not mixing too loud. My session template sets all the tracks to -15 dB. I turn my speakers up loud, always to the same place, then compose and mix each instrument to the volume that sounds right to me. I end up with a quiet, limiter-free mix perfect for mastering.

- As long as your mix has enough headroom (which is helped by turning your speakers or headphones loud before you begin), I encourage you to completely ignore the quantitative volume level of each track:

1) All instruments and samples are going to have subjectively different volume levels.

2) Your processing and effects can make things sound quieter or louder than other tracks anyway.

3) There is no numeric template for a mix. Trying to learn a formula for developing sounds will help you make formulaic songs.​


I encourage you to mix it towards sounding good, not towards checking off a list of technical objectives. If you have good taste, mixing it until it sounds good to you is 2/3rds of the battle. The last 1/3rd is working on transferability (by listening on mutliple systems) and making sure your mix is in-line with your genre (by comparing to reference mixes).



As far as how to compare some elements to others:

- You can hear more detail if you EQ and compress while soloing the track, but then you miss how it fits into the song

- You can balance the levels of two instruments against each other, but then you miss how they fit into the song

I recommend soloing as you need to in order to get an instrument sounding right, and/or sounding right against a similar instrument. But the whole song needs to be the final judge. Always set the final levels while listening to the entire mix.
 
StanleySteamer said:
Hey thanks a lot! Last question, if I mix with my bass down -5db from my kick, is side chain compression still good to use or no?
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Sidechain compression can be used subtly to make your kick seem more powerful. Or it can be used aggressively as an effect. Both are valuable options, whether or not your bass is 5dB quieter than your kick, or any other level. Do what feels right for the song.

If you want, I can listen to the song you're working on to tell you what I think it needs.



I'm not in the habit of sidechaining my bass to my kick in every song. But I think it's something for me to work on, in order to increase the clarity of the low end in my mixes. Nobody is complaining, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be constantly learning how to deliver a better product.

If you are sidechaining for effect, you probably have discovered that sometimes this particular compressor just won't give you the desired volume effect, and that particular compressor does it but introduces audible artifacts. Sometimes it makes more sense to turn to a different style of plugin to bring about that effect. I have at least three in my library:

- Waves MetaFilter is basically all the processing a synth can do, except on whatever audio track or auxiliary you put it on, synth not required. It can be configured to pump rhythmically.
- SoundToys Tremolator can do all sorts of weird volume automation for you, including pumping rhythmically. Get creative.
- Normally one-knob plugins are gimmicky or unnecessary, but the Waves OneKnob Pumper makes it super simple to bring about this effect, and you can select different rhythms too.​


What I have done a couple of times is use two layers of bass synth and sidechain them separately. The low layer is the fundamental, and it ducks out quickly for the kick drum. The high layer is highpassed by EQ, but has the same performance and uses a patch with more high frequency grit and character. I set the higher layer to pump slowly and rhythmically for effect, yet it is still married to the bass synth by performance. Really interesting sound.


Also, consider some songs pump the rhythm of the track with sidechain compression to a kick drum or rhythm that isn't audible, and then they add a different percussion pattern. Very cool effect. Like the song Your New Beloved by Lovelife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBV6l70ww3s
 
Make sure you get a deep punchy sound while tracking and you're 99% of the way there, in my experience. If the kick track is recorded well from the start, it'll cut through nicely.
 
Rule of thumb ============


KICK + 808 ===> Kick should peak at -3db ::808 at -6db mixing stage.

Kick should be squared off at -1db during mastering and 808 at -3db.


 
Appreciate the responses guys. So how would you guys relate your kick to snare ratio in a mix? If you want your bass to be lower should the star eye lower than the kick or the same level as the kick or louder generally speaking?
 
a problem is that the envelope of the sound and the timbre effect too much of how much presence there is so because of that we may want to consider using distortion, compression to bring more presence of the sound

different sound may lead to different decisions: bass guitar, 808 sub , SAW bass , short-pluck bass,

that 3KHZ gives extreme presence of the sound
that sustain gives more presence
and so different sounds may lead to different decisions
 
Laureat Ramadani said:
a problem is that the envelope of the sound and the timbre effect too much of how much presence there is so because of that we may want to consider using distortion, compression to bring more presence of the sound

different sound may lead to different decisions: bass guitar, 808 sub , SAW bass , short-pluck bass,

that 3KHZ gives extreme presence of the sound
that sustain gives more presence
and so different sounds may lead to different decisions
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Hey thanks for the response! Was that answer in response to my question about kick being louder than the snare in the mix or vice versa? Just wondering haha
 
StanleySteamer said:
Hey thanks for the response! Was that answer in response to my question about kick being louder than the snare in the mix or vice versa? Just wondering haha
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not because I don't assume that you or someone else doesn't know what compressor or distortion is and how it effects the presence of the sound because most of you guys here know what compressor is all about

is just that beginners sometimes may become confused , what to do , and is good to bring things up to simplify
 
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but these are sure related to each other

like someone may not feel a kick or a pluck doesn't sound loud enough , but it could be the envelope difficult to make it compete with other sounds ,

so even if you play extreme loud, like -3 db , and you still don't feel is loud enough compared to others, its because it needs to be compressed, distorted to bring more of that

so the question of how loud should my kick sound, it should also consider the anatomy of the sound how does that effect loudness
 
Laureat Ramadani said:
but these are sure related to each other

like someone may not feel a kick or a pluck doesn't sound loud enough , but it could be the envelope difficult to make it compete with other sounds ,

so even if you play extreme loud, like -3 db , and you still don't feel is loud enough compared to others, its because it needs to be compressed, distorted to bring more of that

so the question of how loud should my kick sound, it should also consider the anatomy of the sound how does that effect loudness
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Great response! I definitely see what you mean and I can see where EQ and compression plays a big factor. But generally speaking would you say that for most songs the kick and snare are the same volume or would you say the kick or the snare is louder than the other?
 
StanleySteamer said:
But generally speaking would you say that for most songs the kick and snare are the same volume or would you say the kick or the snare is louder than the other?
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I don't want to complicate the answer but the answer itself is complicated

how can I tell you that my snare is -10 db for example when I master I bring that up to louder level?

compressor brings up whatsoever can be brought up and its unpredictable to tell what it will exactly do to the tracks

1. it can bring up the volume of sound to those that has less volume
2. it can change the EQ of the tracks
3. it can change the envelope of the tracks

so you may say something like I want to reduce some of 300hz for the muddiness like -6 db on one track but if you compress that sound it can bring that up again

now someone think of compressor only to control dynamics but compressor is what it is, it only brings up whatsoever it can bring up

what most of people do most of them over-compress the song on master and have no idea how loud something may be playing
 
It helps to think of these things more broadly in terms of lows, mids, highs across a set of playback systems, then from that perspective dial in the kick and bass balance.

If you mix with the bass guitar muted, you are after some time going to balance the other tracks to fill up some of the frequencies you miss down there. That means there is now less room left for the bass to exist when you un-mute the bass guitar and more low end attack. And if you mute the kick drum and balance the rest of the tracks, then that may produce a situation when you lose touch with the groove too much, so that you are going to add attack from other sound sources in the mix and overdo those. In both of these cases, the low end and the mix as a whole is going to suffer. For this reason it can pay off to initially keep both the lows and highs fairly loud in the mix, then fit the vocals and snare in there so that they sit in between in a good way. Then you bring in the other sound sources present in the mid range that now need to compete with the vocals and snare but so that they don't produce excessive lows and highs. When that is done you can start to lower the sound sources in the lows and highs until the mid range has enough impact which is very important for a good sounding bright enough mix. At some point you are going to be close but might find either the bass guitar or the kick on some speaker systems to be too loud or too quiet. Then when you balance that it will fall into place. All of this is preferably done against a peak limiter on the mix bus so that you are balancing into the final overall loudness.

Side chaining the lows, mids and highs, helps to smooth out the dynamic response across the frequency spectrum to give the mix a rich dynamic contour. But for a mix to be really good sounding you also need to be able to have the mix at the target loudness level dynamically expand and contract across various sections of the song. For this you need to do two stage compression of the lows mids and highs after the side chain. So for instance if you want more impact in the chorus, you might want quite a lot of compression on the second stage of the low end, so that the listener can play the mix with high impact in the chorus without becoming locked up due to the amount of sound pressure required for that impact. Whereas you might want to do the opposite with the second stage of the mids. This can make the vocals deep enough in the chorus even when the vocals have a lot more surrounding frequencies to compete with.

But to succeed with all of this, the key is to check against several playback systems and to hit the master bus limiter at its sweet spot. Keep checking with a loudness meter on the mix bus so that you know that you are achieving the balance you set close to where it needs to be in order to be competitive. Target -6.2 LUFS and make it as great sounding as you can at that loudness. When you gain stage at that loudness, gain issues are quickly being discovered and fixed and not only that but other things are discovered as well, for instance separation issues. If it is a bit too rough at that loudness after the gain staging, then soften it a bit from there until you find it is at an optimum sweetness level.

Keep in mind also that the lows mids and highs you need to control separately in the mid component vs. the side component, this is commonly where you have room for improvement, between recording and mixing. So all in all you have a lot of dynamic stages to balance. Sometimes it might appear like you have issues with the kick, bass, snare, vocals, when it might be the rest of the dynamics where those issues are.

Generally I like to open up the low mid dynamics of the side component in the chorus for two reasons: Make the mix as a whole grow and to maintain softness when the loudness increases. I don't want a lot of competing frequencies in the side component, because it causes ear fatigue. I'm pleased if I have a mellow electric guitar and some soft background vocals there. I find the side needs to be elegant/simple and sweet, with lots of air.
 
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