Hey guys, hope you're fine

I would like some help on how to deal with the bass notes perceived volume cause I always feel some lack of self confidence when trying to solve issues there. I mean, some notes sound too loud and some sound too quiet, even tho they're in the same peak level.

I can kinda solve the issue adjusting the volumes of the individual notes that are causing the issue, but then, even if they sound controlled to my ears I can clearly see on the peak meters and waveforms they're not on the same peak level and looks like a "little mess" in some cases, what makes me wonder if it will cause issues if the track get's played on a club or festival for instance.

Actually I aways had this doubt and most of the time I avoid using notes out of the range E to G on my basslines but in some genres it's really hard to avoid. So I was wondering how do you guys deal with it, your opinion and experience would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance!

 

This is overkill imo but might help.

 

If certain bass notes are either prominent or lacking you have a problem with your room.

 

I have same issue. On 59Hz my room had earthquake and my ears and chest want explode but on 63Hz or 56Hz is not have enough power to feel it but more like howling cow.

I thought maybe compression of bass will be a solution?

 

Easiest and fastest solution is to mix with a good set of headphones. Always ask your specialist retailer if the headphones have howling cow cancelling built-in.

 

i can help you more if you share bass record part that you've mentioned. The problem could be player based or record based. It's hard to tell without hearing it.

 

I don't think this approach will be of any use. Most home studios are in a room with parallel walls. The result of parallel walls is that bass frequencies will find a spot where they bounce from one wall to another, to another and converge forming what is known as a standing wave. This will resonate with the rooms dimensions and will cause certain frequencies to be prominent. Likewise other frequencies will seem to disappear. It has nothing to do with the source material. The easiest solution is to hang heavy curtains behind the monitors and behind the listener. Then some diffusion on the sides. Correction: pertaining to easiest solution. As I said above.....even easier than that is to use quality headphones for bass balancing. But they must be studio monitoring grade.

 

check out surfer eq if that might help.. eq with notes..

 

Surfer eq may give the impression that you have levelled the bass responses in that room but may sound extremely uneven in another environment. Years ago, before I achieved a balanced room, I had a pair of NS-10's as nearfield monitors and mixed at a fairly low volume with the speakers one metre apart and with me positioned at a point that created a perfectly symmetrical triangle.

 

Man, the technical side of me really felt bad about that amount of nodes doing different stuff so closer from each other in the low range, but I got his point, even tho I would prefer simple volume automations to do the job in a cleaner way, or even better control it with the notes velocity if possible.

 

Use a good pair of headphones like the HD650 to get the sub right. Make sure you don't just focus too much on the sub, it has to work with other sounds too.

 

Yeah, my mainly problem is when I go too high and startin listening my bass instead of just feel that, like an A# for instance, it's always complicated for me cause it's either toohigh or too low.

About the compression, I don't think it can be solved like that cause most the compressors work on peak level, and specially with synthesized basses, they're almost leveled peak wise. In our case it's more about our perception of the volume than the actual volume.

 

We are talking about sub, so 40hz and below, right? You should actually hear almost nothing there. If you hear something there, it is due to your submembrane (distortion), air movement and your room. Orient yourself to peak/rms levels on your analyzer. Is everything balanced there? Good, then don't worry about it anymore!

 

Yeah, I was afraid my room setup could be a possibility, my room is really far from be treated, thanks for point this possibility out, maybe I should start thinking about working on it. By now I will try to check out on headphones and see if it helps.

 

personally I mix my subs with a subpac, this device is super acurate and you don't need to have a perfectly treated room. It changed my life.

 

Actually I don't know if we are talking about sub anymore, and that's what make me struggle to make a decision cause I fear I could actually be making it worse instead of fixing it. Let's take the track I'm currently working on, The bass goes with the chords being A#-F#-G#-F, everything sound controlled except by the initial A# that sound too loud and boomy in a bad way. And if I drop it an octave it sound too low and ugly.

And, just in case, do you recommend using the peak or RMS meter to balance the bass? I don't know if I have a RMS meter here actually, do you recommend one?

 

I would love to try that out, but for now it's out of my budget, maybe in the future. Since I do a lot of mixing on headphones I think it could be a good helper.

 

Same here, I wouldn't know what to do without mine, I recommended it to literally everyone I know that does any style with a lot of low end.

 

Yes, absolutely. Either a conventional rms meter or vu. Helps a lot when it comes to level automations.

 

isn´t Bass Rider the thing you looking for?

https://www.waves.com/plugins/bass-rider