The bass in this track I made seems to overpower a lot of things. I am gonna do a record release for this, and I wanna remix/master it. What are some techniques that I can use to place the bass in comfortable place where it is still strong, but not overpowering and does not cause muddiness?

Here is the track:

 

Have a look here:
http://musicproductiontips.net/how-to-mix-a-bass-guitar/

 

Use a 12dB resonant hp filter to reduce the weight on the bottom. Sweep the filter until it has the amount of bottom you want. Then boost the level a little if necessary to match the output peak to what it was before. It will be more audible and coherent across a broader range of speakers instead of only those with a sub woofer.

 

lovely track man. i would compress the hell out of the bass, during mastering definitely use multi-band compression

 

http://subpac.com/

this gives you the ability to hear full detailed low end as clear as highs

or some other way to have ability to hear and feel the bass clearly and accurately

next , have reference tracks of the most successful songs in yer genre to A/B comparison back and forth with your own
put fabfilter pro q 2 spectrum analyzer on your master fader to get visual of frequency response BEFORE it hits speaker playback.( now when to A/B with reference tracks you can see the amount of bass in any area time specific and overall)

when you get to the place where yo know what to adjust and by how much
be careful to use transparent tools that won't destroy the sound of your track .

to fine control your bottom end you need a mastering compressor /eq combo
i suggest plugins ik multimedia t-racks and ik lurssen mastering, ozone
fab-filer pro q 2
or multi-band compression

ultimately for your exact track (fab by the way) the way it is right now, i would go back to stems lower the areas you need to.

(you can use this advice for all your future songs as well/._

 

cut 70hz > fabfilter or dmg
use sidechain method only low freq > lfotools

 

Really solid advice man. I am going to decipher in time what all this means, and apply it to all my tracks. I am just confused a little bit by the A/B comparison. I have fabfilter Pro q 2, but I am not sure how to fully utilize the advice: "put fabfilter pro q 2 spectrum analyzer on your master fader to get visual of frequency response BEFORE it hits speaker playback.( now when to A/B with reference tracks you can see the amount of bass in any area time specific and overall)". Could you elaborate? I use Fruity Loops 11. Thank you.

 

so the A/B just picture
you go back and forth playing a top song in your genre say the best selling single that year .
so you alternate playing that , then pause it playback your song your working on so you can hear how different they are it gives you an idea of how its coming along.

next with the fabfilter pro q 2 if you turn on spectrum analyzer it will show you in realtime you lows al the ways to highs and if there something louder or quieter.( can do it for a finished song you bought to compare to yours just to give you an idea how different yours is form your fav tracks made professionally)




your doin good homey.
your songs are HOT fire, this fine tunings easy if you got molten lava HOT ass fat tracks!

 

Oh okay I understand, thank you. So it is almost tonal shaping? Like the new Izotope Neutron thing, but not put blunt.

 

true that. tiny adjustments so that it comes through even on everyone's stereo and ear buds homie.

 

That is one thing I have always been confused about, should I mix my stuff on computer speakers, earbuds AND monitors until I get a clean sound through each? Or is the reference track pretty much the same thing?

 

you want to do them all. first spectrum like fab filter pro q 2, ( cause its before hits speakers) next your good monitors, when you thinks its all done check on ear buds and reg systems to double check ( they dont have same clarity and they sound different) def want to check reg speakers and ear buds at the end then IF it sounds weird on them go back tweak it.

 

^Now that's a shitty speaker. ;)

OP, remove or reduce bass and low-end in stuff that don't need it. That will make room for the bass and the kick. Then these two can be sculpted further (so that they don't mask/overlap too much). They can also be sent toa shared parallel compression bus to glue them even better.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2017

o dude youre outta your mind. ns-10 delivers flat response

 

I will look into both and see what clicks best for me.

 

The thing to understand about bass is that while it's only a small range of 10hz-250hz or so on the equalizer, it's a whole palette of different sounds/feels. There are unique pressure points in every track, within the range. They are like strings for you to play, musically, with an equalizer. If you grasp this, you can do good things to balance out the bass, even if you don't have an ideal room to listen.

Broad stroke bass adjustment & When to Compress:

- Adjust the overall loudness of your track AND some mastered references you'll be using so that they're all at approximately -18dB RMS (this corresponds to VU meter needle is bouncing around 0 - nothing mysterious there, they just use two different scales like meters/inches). This step is extremely important, we always start here so everything else works smoothly later because it's matched.

- Put on a multiband compressor of your choice, and config it to have 2 bands, the crossover at around 250hz. Roll the thresholds up all the way to 0 so that there's no compression. This lets you solo just the bass, or just the rest of the track. Run some reference tracks you love through that, to prepare your ear and make some notes: "ok, I see on my multiband comp meters, when the bass is soloed on this pop track I like, it's hitting at around -18RMS, and the peaks are bouncing around -12dB. Look at and listen at a couple of references this way, till you get a good feel how the bass in those tracks really sounds in isolation and how loud is it usually (the ballpark). Check the same for the highs.

- Now you know where you want to be, so you flip over to your mix and see how it's performing comparatively. Let's say your bass at -21dB RMS and you see peaks all the way to -6. This tells you two things, your bass is probably low by commercial master standards, and it's also got too much dynamic range by the same standards. What this comes down to is, it's a little difficult to hear in the mix and it sounds "jumpy", out of control. People inherently enjoy a steady, moderately compressed sound for bass and vocals: it makes them think it sounds "tight".

- To take care of the loudness mismatch, adjust the low band gain on the multiband comp, so that your track's bass is in the same range as the references. Easy peasy. Bust out that fine adjustment you thought you'd never use on these plugins with the Shift key or whatever, like a pro. That's the fast and dirty way, it's fine for smaller adjustments, though the better quality way would be to adjust the bass instruments group in the mix itself.

- Use compression on the lows to control the peakiness, if you got that. Slow attack and moderate to fast release settings work good on bass. Tune with the threshold, until the peaks are roughly how they were in the reference.

- Unsolo the bass, but leave it alone now, balance everything else against it by simply using the Gain on the highs band (which isn't compressing anything, remember). The bass is in place, now you see what exact balance feels good relative to it. Will be individual for every track, and the loudness of the highs is not as important for the track, you get a lot more leeway to be creative here, but by all means you can check out what the balance is in the references the same way, and adjust/compress the highs as a whole. Perhaps later on you'll feel like doing 3 bands: bass, mids, highs.

- Changing the crossover point from ~250hz to higher or lower can yield some slightly different sounds, worth checking by sweeping that after everything else is in place and listening to how the balance of things is affected.

That takes care of the balance so you can be pretty confident about it. But now you may notice that your bass doesn't sound like the references, even though they're at the same average volume now. Usually theirs is tight and defined, but ours is all woozy and like a wall of wool.


Bass Detailing with EQ:

- Use an analog type EQ, not linear phase when working on bass. If you compare linear phase EQ vs analog in the bass range, you will easily see why. It just always sounds better there, more natural. Linear phase adjustment in the bass sounds like concrete, vs maybe rubber or velvet with analog style EQ. Which EQ? It doesn't matter, the simpler the better. Pick the one you're used to, should be fast and easy to use and have enough bands available.

- Every filter/band you add for EQ introduces some little change to the overall sound of the track, which isn't a problem if you only have a couple, but if you're doing a ton of processing it could start really affecting what you spent so much time mixing. So now it's not sounding quite how you wanted, it's sounding like EQs. This could be a desired result if you like the sound, but usually it isn't. The game is, "let's get exactly what we want out of the bass with the fewest EQ bands we can get away with".

- Focus in on our small 20-250hz range,try putting in a very conservative 12 or 18db HP filter at around 15hz to start, just to cut out any accumulated super low rumbles in the track (if they are there, on the analyzer or you hear them), and optionally an LP filter if you want, to cut away all the highs from around 250hz and up - so you can listen to isolated bass, just like we did in the multiband comp. After you get used to the process, this step won't be necessary since you can just mentally focus on the bass alone, after some practice.

- The bass range normally contains tons of deadly pressure points, all packed into this tiny span. Put a bell filter with a medium Q (so it's not too sharp and not broad) on it and boost with a ridiculous 8db or more. Sweep it around from 20hz to 250hz, and listen to all the pressure points popping out like veins on Stallone's neck. Just because there's a pressure point doesn't mean you need to remove it or do anything with it, but just listen to all the flavors that are in there, in this particular track.

- If you're thinking to yourself "my bass is kinda boxy and indistinct" as compared to the references, sweep over to the part where that boxiness was heard, carefully adjust the freq and the Q so that you pretty much hug that shit perfectly with the filter (as best you can) and then change the Bell to a cut instead of a boost. Adjust the cut so it's the smallest cut you can get away with, whilst still removing most of that boxiness (or whatever) we didn't like.

- If there's not enough definition or punch or you just don't like the tone of your bass, you can use the same idea and boost certain pressure points you know are in there. A few hz difference, makes a huge difference in sound very often. That's why you might be boosting 50hz quite a lot with a sharp pointy filter bump because in that track that's what brings out the kick clarity best, and then cutting hardcore at 78hz or whatever to get rid of some of the Whoomph Whoomph Woomph. People who mix by the rules won't like that, they think you should never boost, but don't be afraid of breaking the rules when you need to. It's about getting the sound you wanted, one that matches your references closer.

- The HP filter is rolling off lot of lower bass, and it's also slightly rounding all the higher bass too, these filters are "active" well beyond the area the EQ's picture usually shows to you. So you can sweep it around as an extra level of "overall roundness" contol while you work on your exact bass sound. Sometimes I use a big shelf boost on the whole bass area, which on its own would sound terribly boomy, but it's deliberately being pushed into that HP filter, which rounds it out, and together they produce something close to what I wanted.

- When working on isolated bass details it's a good idea to turn your monitors up, listen fairly loud. Otherwise you won't be hearing much of anything.

- If your bass needs hardness and crisp, and you can't get it by using EQ on the pressure points, sometimes using saturation/distortion on the bass frequencies is the ticket. The idea is to duplicate a solo'd bass frequency range on its own track, distort/saturate it to your liking , and then try blending it into the unaffected track in small amounts until the desired crispiness is accomplished. Use a linear phase LP filter for cutting the highs on the duplicate track to be distorted, I think the result is more tight that way compared to analog style LP.

- Sometimes the roudness that HP filter gives you is wrong for the track, or you can't get it to sit right, it either eats too much or too little. You can try different HP slopes to see if they work better, or use a trick - move a bell filter all the way down to 0hz, give it a huge cut to make a hole, and by adjusting the Q get your own "custom HP slope". Sounds weird but it really works great sometimes, gives a different type of sound compared to the standard HP, for some reason.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2017

Lol.