Hi everyone,

I was recently catching up with the latest releases from various labels, when I heard a particular sound and, thinking about it ''production'' wise, couldn't explain it well...

Here are the tracks that caught my attention:

Track #1

Track #2

In track #1 from Riva Starr there's a bass hit on the second kick of the beat (the one which usually has a clap on in 4x4 tracks) that lasts for the whole beat's duration.
In track #2 from David Gtronic the bass and the kick interact with each other but never seem to interfere (although I can hear little to no sidechain going on).

Going straight to the question: in both tracks there's a bass that doesn't stop when the kick and other percussions hit as it's normal in other tech-house/techno tracks, and no sidechaining is going on (or am I just deaf and there's a bunch of sidechain? I never say never... )
When I tried to reproduce the sound in my DAW, it came out as a rumbling mess with the bass frequencies clashing and producing a rumble throughout the beat, I couldn't manage to get to the reference sound even with compression/EQing/etc...
Any idea on how to get there? Any info would be really appreciated!!

Cheers!

 

Would say a pure sinus sub bass with that frequency left free in the kick or just a steep hipass on the kick at ~20-30Hz depending on the note(s) the bass is playing and kick sample you're using.
especially in the 2nd track you can hear the sub bass suddenly disappearing at about 1:02

 

I think that frequency-wise, kick & bass have there own place in the mix -like they should-. The kicks also have a higher component at maybe 200 hz, while the bass has a slower attack, which both helps to give each there own place. Checking these tracks in a Spectrum analyzer will give a good idea of where the elements are..

 

Yeah, you can go a long way with just a sine (or a simple FM bass). Notch filter can also be your friend.

 

Most heavy bass producers nowadays layer their basses. Low end on one channel and mid/hi on another. This way you can q the bass to sit beside the bass instead of step on it. It can be simple as bounce out your basslines with filters to single out the bands but I find it much easier to do this while you are making your bassline. There are also tons of multiband eqs that can tighten up the selected freqs.

Lets say you are using NI Massive.
When ever I make bass patch in Massive I have one instance for bass and another for hi.
The mix slider was made just for this purpose. You can put you hi osc (12.00 and up) on F1 and your bass osc (-12 and under) on F2 on use the mix slider to mod in between the two filters accordingly. There's really tons of ways to layer your synths. Anyway you choose, it will make it SO much easier to eq with your drums down the stretch when you are hunting for more headroom for other sounds.

Also layer your drums (instead of rocking with one kick sample, use there for each particular band). Not only do layered drums sound better in a mix. They also make it alot easier to eq along side your synths. You can pick certain parts just so they won't interferer with you synths. Picking a sub for your kick that doesn't occupy the same bass frq as your bassline will solve a HUDGE mixing headache for you down the stretch, same with your snare, etc... This same method can be applied to all other drum layers alike.

Yup.