80 Hz Low End

[skillz007]

Hi There!

First of let me say what a wonderful and refreshing site this is, with a lot of useful information and tips from its members.

I have a question about the low end in dance music production.

I know a kick drum resides in the 80Hz area and bass roughly in the 100Hz. So to improve the kick low end boost at 80Hz and boost bass at about 100Hz so the frequencies dont overlap with eq.

I usually have my kick and bass on different channels and then route them together as a subgroup. Can the kick and bass have the same frequency boosted at 80Hz or would that muddy the mix to much. In a lot of dance music you hear this low end working very well together and making the kick and bass function as a unit.

I have tried to boost my kick and bass together at 80 Hz and it made a significant improvement in the low end by fattening it up and making the 2 instruments work together. It sounds way better together, but is it wrong of me to boost them both at 80Hz?

I would appreciate any advice and tips from other users

And again great forum and even greater people!

Peace

 

[Egopanic]

Welcome on FP Skillz!


It always depends on what kick and bass you have. I can`t tell you that your wrong with boosting both at 80Hz. If it sounds good it`s good! Listen to it on different monitors and on a car system if you don`t know your speakers well. In producing music there is never a right or wrong, always remember that! That`s it, I can`t give you more advice.

 

[selector waxx]

you need some hardknee compression on the subgroup to make it pumping

most danceproducers i know use a (lo fi) behringer composer for it, soe the bass and beat are melted toghetter

 

[moses]

Hi!

basicaly, there's no right or wrong in making music, but in my opinion using a behringer comp is definitively wrong.

don't boost the bass at some freq, simply raise its volume. the reason is: The harmonic content is what makes a bass or kick sound great! and with boosting at 80Hz you will only lower the harmonics content in your bass. you follow me? the tone/harmonics balance is changing.

try to avoid any kind of filtering (eqing) at all...

 

[skillz007]

Hi There!

Thanks for all the useful information so far. What I mean by boosting the kick and bass together at 80Hz is to have the kick and bass on its own channel then grouping them together on a bus and boosting them both at 80Hz. Then compare the kick and bass and eq out the frequencies that clash together on the kick and bass channel so nothing clash with one another. I am mixing in Nuendo and with wave plugins so eveything is software based at the moment.

Is this the wrong way of going about it to get that fat bottom that is lacking?

Or should I boost only the bass and not both together, I mean 80Hz in dance music makes you really feel the low end. What about putting a high pass filter on afterwards if it sounded to bassy? What about sidechain compression to duck the bass when the kick is playing?

Again any advice and tips are appreciated!

 

[D_A_N_G_E_R_R_U_S]

If you are using a kick at 80hz and the bass drum around 100hz. I would try to play them both on seperate channels. Run a spectrum analyzer on each track to see where the frequencies or at in each one. And eq each one separetly, until you can hear that they both fit ok in the same frequency range.
Since one is at 80hz and the other at 100hz they will probably be fighting over frequency range and would cause phase cancellation and drop outs of one of the two.
The best thing "i Think" to do is to put both in seperate "Mono" tracks. Run them both on a Spectrum Analyzer to see what frequency they are using. And after you do that, try to use the eq to lower some of the frequencies that they both are using. It should help out a good bit without changing the sound up too much.
I've actually done this a few time and low frequencies like bass is the hardest to work with in my opinion.
Sidechaing one of them could possibly help some. That way you would be able to set one of them to duck/get compressed when the other one hits. That would also be good idea.
I would try both and see what one works best for you.

So I hope this helps out alittle.

Peace,

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