Mar 09, 2005 02:02 pm the album i'm dooin' i have the kick below the bass, so on the bass i rolled off -14db at around 80hz and i got pretty good seperation with that.
kick drum/bass guitar super-heavyweight match of 2005
Posted on Mar 09, 2005 01:53 pm
wontdieinPA
Member Since: Apr 27, 2002
these bad boys are fighting and they are fighting hard...it seems they both want to win the title of "the most predominant low-end instrument in every damn mix i make"...but for real...ive read article after article...tip after tip...interview after interview...and i thought i knew exactly how to make these two instruments go together...and the truth is...i did, in theory...now in practice...thats another story...i see the EQ bands in my sleep, i memorized the frequencies and techniques...im going NUTS...does anyone have any tips or know of anywhere where i can try read more about it myself...
also...i roll off everything below 100Hz on my guitar tracks...and then cut out around 250Hz to clear up some-mud...but is rolling off below 100Hz too much? or should i keep some of that low-end and roll-off around 80Hz instead? also...ive found that 2kHz-4kHz seems to be a good place to add presence to guitar tracks...but the problem is...i boost the guitar 1 at around 2kHz, boost guitar 2 at 3kHz...and boost the kick drum at around 2.5kHz or 4kHz (one sounds like a felt beater, while the other sounds more like a wooden beater)...where exactly am i boosting the the high end on the bass to get that fret-noise/clicky sound? i mean, when its soloed...i can do it...put it in the mix and its like the bass isnt even there...
either the bass covers up the kick...or the kick covers up the bass...no happy medium....someone on here has to have some tips for me...
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Mar 09, 2005 02:02 pm the album i'm dooin' i have the kick below the bass, so on the bass i rolled off -14db at around 80hz and i got pretty good seperation with that.
Mar 09, 2005 02:17 pm im not sure i understand...
you want the bass to have the clicky fret sound or no?
i got decent seperation, i think, on my last track, but im still not happy. at least it was much better than earlier attempts. i am going for a 'ghostly' bass. a bass that's plump and boomy, and transparent, with poor pluck definition...so that you feel it bopping around down there in your chest but cant really put your finger on it unless you listen closely. a presence way down low in its own realm, sort of like the bass on nirvana's in utero. i'm not there yet but i came closer by compressing the bass strongly, creating a dark, 'round' patch on my guitar pod, and then giving the bass a peak in the 80 hz range. i assigned the kick to 60 hz. then i took out a very small notch of each instrument, so that the other instrument could shine through at that frequency.
what sound specifically are you going for? can you describe it?
my little notch thing with the peaks is all i know how to do--and im not sure it's even the right way.
Mar 09, 2005 02:27 pm been there before;
try www.recordingproject.com/...e.php?article=5
Morshe Wohl might want you to go study his step by step tutorial on drum mixing including bass guitar and kick collaboration.
The end sound is what we want so just copy his drums with bass .wav file into your mixing program and try to get your kick and bass EQued the same way he did it.
You may be surprised.
Mar 09, 2005 02:36 pm First off, be careful how much boosting you do in your mixes. You can get in a big mess in a hurry. try cutting frequencies when possible and you'll have a much easier time with clipping and distortion in your mix.
the bass guitar has a lot of it's definition in the 200Hz range, so you might try cutting competing instruments in that range, especially the guitar. I don't think that there's much more than mud in a guitar at or below 200Hz, so maybe try to start the rolloff there to make way for some definition in the bass. that may make the guitar sound like *** on its own, but remember that you're creating a mix of many instruments, not a showcase of any one instrument.
Mar 09, 2005 02:45 pm Yeah, I usually try and have the kick at a lower freq than the bass (I switch it up once in a while). So, I usually have the kick most prominent from about 60-80/90 and have the bass going from 80/90 to about 150 or 180. I don't work with a lot of guitar so I can't say where I'd put that, but somewhere above the bass.
Mar 09, 2005 03:35 pm what do you guys recommend for notching frequencies out for other instruments? Graphic, or Parametric?
Mar 09, 2005 03:36 pm parametric...I use parametric for everything...I can't even think of the last time I used a graphic EQ...
parametric has adjustable Q for more precise notching...
Mar 09, 2005 03:37 pm parametric, these days graphic eq's don't get alotta use in my setup. heck i don't even know if i have one lol
Mar 09, 2005 03:51 pm Kick - up on 60Hz, down on ~200Hz, up somewhere above 1KHz (according how it is in the mix), bass - roll of below 80Hz (or even 100Hz), down or up somewhere else (according how it is in the mix), both to submix and compress it hardly. Or put kick sidechain compression on bass.
Mar 09, 2005 04:15 pm heres a related question....
you people who roll off guitars a lot...i understand you're makinga mix of instruments. but what happens at those times in a song where, say, the bass and drums cut out and you have just a guitar? if the guitar sounds like crap on its own because of your rolloff, wouldnt this little solo area be a problem? i'd hate to automate the EQ just for short sections like that, bringing up the full spectrum of the guitar just for a moment. or is that's how it's done? maybe with a seperate, fuller track for that guitar-only moment?
Mar 09, 2005 04:18 pm I haven't really encountered that problem any a huge degree at all. While the instrument may not sound optimal by themselves, when EQ'd to fit within the context of the mix, I have never had to EQ them to the point of being "crap". Also, the guitar sound changing from time to time would sound worse, in my opinion, than the moment of solo instruments...
Mar 09, 2005 04:18 pm i hafta admit, audomation came to mind when i was reading, bot both ideas seem viable...there's a part like that that i'm workin' on and i'm leavin' the guitars alone....i like the bass-less sound then when the music kicks back in, it punches you in the face.
Mar 09, 2005 08:04 pm My biggest problem with kick and bass guitar is if I roll too much off the bass guitar when I am mixing. The Sub sounds like boom from the kick not changing keys in the sub. So if try to get the kick sit behind the bass guitar and bring the click out in the kick. I get what I am after...noticeable key change in the sub and a noticeable kick sound in the mix. I haven't really tried a song where the kick and bass were not firing at the same time. Today mixes and mixes from the 80s are so different. Nobody wanted the sub to go Boom. If you had noticeable bass in the 6x9 in your rear deck of the car it was a good mix. Again just my 2 cents worth.
Mar 10, 2005 10:53 am One thing to consider that took me a while to accept...
I used to like having my kick drum mainly in the 50-60 Hz zone so it sounded big and deep...I use a shure SM91 PZM mic inside the drum which is the best i've found yet to capture low end.
What I came to realize is that a lot of good kick drum sound comes from this EQ area but not a lot of power. The power comes from the second octave...100 Hz. This is the area that I spend most of my time perfecting for the kick and the bass guitar. How much for each and the width of the Q are important.
If you check the specs on most stereos (car or home), the bass adjustment is usually ALWAYS
100 Hz. So if the bass adjustment on a stereo is 100 Hz (it's not just co-incidence, this IS where the POWER comes from), that would be the area to concentrate on to make your mixes translate well to the majority of listening environments.
Something to think about...
CHEERZ
Mar 10, 2005 12:28 pm edvo - so you suggest i send the kick and bass to their own sub mix? im not gonna lie, i dont know to do that, but i can give it a shot,...i use Cubase SX, so i cant be hard...and then i compress it to taste? that sounds like a noble concept, im definitely gonna try it...
also...what is this octave business concerning EQ? is there like, a mathematical way to find what these "octaves" are? cause im trying to discern between them all, and i cant for the life of me...
Mar 10, 2005 01:31 pm This is a great thread, but what the heck is the difference between parametric and graphic EQs? I honestly have never heard of parametric.
Mar 10, 2005 01:47 pm octives in frequency are easy, just doubble the number 50hz to 100hz is one octive 100-200 another octive 500-1khz is one octive ect.
Mar 10, 2005 02:25 pm that seems very straight-forward...but are there SET octaves? like...20-40 is the first one...40-80 is the second one...80-160 is the third? etc...etc...?? and i always hear things about boosting by the octave? or something like that? anyone ever hear of that?
Mar 10, 2005 02:40 pm well, not really. you can create an octave for your own purposes from any starting frequency. everything doubles. but you can see how for the purposes of most devices it would start with tens.
200-400 hz is an octave, and many pieces of equipment would directly call it so.
400-800 too.
or 800-1.6 khz (400-1600 hz)
BUT
how bout: 405-810 hz.
or 816-1632 hz
still octaves? yes. but there's no earthly reason why a device or piece of equipment would use such an idiosyncratic labeling scheme. the principle is just that an octave is a doubling, from any starting freq.
Mar 10, 2005 02:44 pm wait i mighta screwed up. i cant visualize the common octave labeling scheme right now. if anyone wants to fix my post, go ahead: i messed it up somehow im sure.
Mar 10, 2005 03:09 pm well they usually are devided into 'orders'
first order harmonics are 1-100hz
second 100-200
third 200-400
fourth 400-800
fifth 800-1.6k
sixth 1.6-3.2k
seventh 3.2-6.8k
eighth 6.8-13.6
ect.
Mar 11, 2005 12:36 pm ok i got those numbers f***ed up
first to tenth order harmonics are grouped as follows
1-31Hz
31-62
62-125
125-250
250-500
500-1k
1k-2k
2k-4k
4k-8k
8k-16k
Mar 11, 2005 02:13 pm that makes sense. i now remember seeing them 125's and 250's and weirdo numbers all over the place.
nice page db--thats great. you could use that calculator along with, say, your bass, right? like record a bass part, then use a graphic display to find the fundamental of that particular bass. then use this calculator to find the harmonics, and try boosting some of them, eh? only problem is...which ones?
question two: you could artificially create a peak--say at 80 hz for your bass--and then focus on the fundamentals of this enhanced region?
Mar 11, 2005 02:51 pm I dunno forty, I never put that much thought into it, I've said it before, I'll say it again, I just plugin, rock out, mix it, and master it. I don't overthink anything...just ask my wife. Hell, I am 37 with a body thats falling apart and just spontaneously sign up for Kenpo and Kickboxing classes...nobody can accuse me of putting too much thought into anything :-D
That said, the artifical peaks and enhancing the sound with that type of processing is, as I understand it, what plugs like Waves MaxxBass does.
Mar 11, 2005 03:54 pm wontdieinPA
<edvo - so you suggest i send the kick and bass to their own sub mix? im not gonna lie, i dont know to do that, but i can give it a shot,...i use Cubase SX, so i cant be hard...and then i compress it to taste? that sounds like a noble concept, im definitely gonna try it...>
Ja, you are right, add new track - group channel in SX, and assign out's of bass and kick tracks to this track. When play with compression on this track, I concern this like extracting kick from the bass enviroment. Not a new concept. Sometimes people use compression and when limiter on it.
Mar 12, 2005 01:00 am but do i keep the original bass and kick track in the mix as well, along with the other simultaneously compressed track? i dont think so...but im just clarifying
Mar 12, 2005 01:04 am but also...does anybody even know the purpos or reason why we even care about all of those order harmonics? like...do they matter? does it help in mixing to know these? cause its pretty straight forward...you just multiply the first frequency by 2 to get the 1st order ...then by the 3 for the 2nd order, and then by 4 for the 3rd order...etc...etc..
Mar 12, 2005 02:32 pm This months issue of Music Tech Magazine has an article on psychoacoustics. Forty and others into this sort of thing is probably interested in the psychoacoustic topic as well...
Mar 12, 2005 02:55 pm i will check that out...that looked like a good issue when i skimmed it the other day.
db: yeah thats generally a good philosophy. i'm on that wavelength too. i just wanted to know if i should be doing something like that to bring out pick sounds.
Mar 12, 2005 03:02 pm well, any specific characteristic can be brought out if you know the right frequency. When needing to do that myself I generally know an approximate starting point, then just use a parametric EQ boost or cut at that point with a thin Q then kinda sweep back and forth until I find it :-)
Mar 12, 2005 10:26 pm yeah but some articles said to boost the overtones of your fundamental for a more interesting and fuller sound. i think that relates to octave stuff, no?
where in music tech this month does it get into psychoacoustic stuff? i glanced at it again today but dinna see it.
Mar 13, 2005 06:13 am through out that bass guitar and get a good synth is what i reccomend ;)
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