Muddy 808

[EMBY]

Hey peeps,
So im working on this track, and it has a 808 playing in the drop, but instead of making it feel fuller and and bassy it just makes it muddy, any tips?

 

[Adrian-MarQ]

Do you have any other bass sounds playing at the same time? If so, mix the less predominant bass around the 808 so that they don't clash. You can also use distortion to harmonics for the fundamental bass tone while using EQ to cut out areas that make your track sound muddy.

 

[EMBY]

No other basses

Do you have any other bass sounds playing at the same time? If so, mix the less predominant bass around the 808 so that they don't clash. You can also use distortion to harmonics for the fundamental bass tone while using EQ to cut out areas that make your track sound muddy.

I used a sausage fattener to make it sound better but it still is not the way it should be
Also there are no other basses playing and ive tried a distortion like camel crusher, it is better than it was, thanks adrian

 

[Dj Stizz]

If You have Kramer Tape the bass option is beast. It make it fat, take the mud away and adds distortion and you can adjust it to taste.

 

[NSmusic]

Cut out other instruments at the same freq if that's your priority insturment.It's all about the trade-offs. Also, could try panning some of the other instruments so they're not all occupying the same location in the speakers.

 

[vontx2]

if your using fl take the limiter off the master fader. If not then balance it eq and volume wise

 

[loekthuss]

It would help to post a little clip of your track. without hearing it all the answers are just speculation.

 

[wolverinefro]

parallel distortion is my favourite trick to making 808 bass pop. also parallel compression. sometimes a generous SSL eq boost to the highs can work wonders

 

[sleepy]

Most of the above suggestions are probably going to add to the problem. Are people even reading the issue or just regurgitating generic bass drum treatments?

I think the problem is that your monitoring system and environment is not fit to deal with low-end mixing. This leads to overcompensating and can lead to muddiness or general sound issues. Bass drums have a ton of low end energy. Most probably have too much low end. I find that for 90% of bass drums, I'm rolling off most of the low-end to the point where I end up with a good amount of low-mids and some mids. On its own, this can sound sort of thin and eliminate some of the point of the bass drum. I then do some hard limiting on the bass drum and because there's still a good amount of energy in the lows (even after rolling off a significant amount). The limiter is going to squeeze the mids down to the level of the lows and give me a punchy bass drum that has good low-end energy but with mids so that it can be audible on smaller speakers.

In short, you probably have more bass than what you actually need.