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[bert]

hey all,

i am experiencing some problems with "positioning" the kick and the bass in a mix, how they are placed compared to eachother. i've recorded the kick with two mics, a beta91 and a d112, the bass done with a d112 and for some songs with an oktava 319.

is it just a matter of eq'ing? cutting "the essential frequencies from the other track"? or a matter of compression?what frequencies should i try... i'm busy with it for a few days right now and really getting confused bout it.

[j.hall]

you first have a balance issue.

you want the kick drum (in most cases) to be louder then the bass....i'm not talking a huge amount.  but you want the kick drum to really hit, to be known.  the bass should tuck up right under that and fill out the mix with lo-mids and lows.  it shouldn't over power the kick drum and wash it out, but it needs to be heard and felt.

think of it as the kick drum being a quick bolt of lightning and the bass being the thunder that continues rumble....

EQ and compression are like salt and peper for this specific relationship.

i avoid EQing bass guitar unless i'm just boosting a tiny bit of lowend (usually a shelf and usually only a few DB)

william wittman posted detailed thoughts on this somewhere in the forum (i think the thread was called Sans Amp RBI)

i totally agree with his thoughts.

kick drums.....i ruthless with them....i make them do what i want.

[drumsound]

It's a combo of what you mentioned and then some.  Make decisions like which instrument gets the lowest end of the spectrum, do they need to blend or oppose, things like that.

Sometimes cutting one in instrument at the same frequency your boosting the other helps.  You can try to run them to the same parallel compressor.  Maybe something needs to be re-tracked.  Sometimes a severe screwing with is in order.

[takeout]

j.hall wrote on Mon, 01 August 2005 18:37

...you want the kick drum (in most cases) to be louder then the bass...

Spoken like a drummer.

I swear to god, one of these days I'm gonna force you into a band where you play bass...

[j.hall]

takeout wrote on Mon, 01 August 2005 14:39

Spoken like a drummer. I swear to god, one of these days I'm gonna force you into a band where you play bass...

spoken like a true tracking engineer that plays bass..........

the transient and sustain of a drum (in most cases) is so fast that having it loud in a mix is almost required to actually hear it.

in a lot of cases (for rock music) the kick and snare can easily be as loud, or louder then the lead vocal.....it just happens so fast that it's not distracting.

if you watch any politely mastered record on a VU meter you'll (universal you) will see what i'm talking about.

shudder to think pony express record is a great example.

that reacord has great clarity in all the instrument.....the kick drum hits a good 5 dB hotter then everything else in the mix.  the meters just spike way up every time he hits the kick drum

or should i say, the kick drum triggers the sample.

[CCC]

bert wrote on Mon, 01 August 2005 17:28

hey all, i am experiencing some problems with "positioning" the kick and the bass in a mix, how they are placed compared to eachother. i've recorded the kick with two mics, a beta91 and a d112, the bass done with a d112 and for some songs with an oktava 319. is it just a matter of eq'ing? cutting "the essential frequencies from the other track"? or a matter of compression?what frequencies should i try... i'm busy with it for a few days right now and really getting confused bout it.

Hi Bert,

Naturally we don't know what you've got on tape, or what you are trying to achieve, so these two ideas are just shots in the dark and maybe are off base. They aren't exactly earthshattering, but hey, maybe its info you could put to use (?)...

(1) adding high end to a kick will make it cut in a mix, and certainly cut through the bass guitar. A low Q bump at 3-5k ish might be something you could try. Also a top octave bump - like a 12k shelf on the kick to add "clickiness". Certainly too much of this might veer you into the frightening world of speed metal. Please, try not to sacrifice a goat in the middle of a pentagram in the process of dialing in your kick.

(2) put the bass through an expander and key it with the kick. The KEY to this trick is to set the range control on the expander to only -3db. Set the bass to some approximately appropriate level. The result? Each kick hit bumps the bass up 3db. Maybe it's not a solution for your particular issue, but it's kind of good sometimes.

[RolandK]

Do you guys feel that adding some distortion to the bass can help differentiate it from the kick a bit? I'm not a pro or anything but I've been experimenting and it seems that way.

[lord]

RolandK wrote on Mon, 01 August 2005 19:51

Do you guys feel that adding some distortion to the bass can help differentiate it from the kick a bit? I'm not a pro or anything but I've been experimenting and it seems that way.

The answer is yes

[bert]

John Sorensen wrote on Tue, 02 August 2005 00:55

(1) adding high end to a kick will make it cut in a mix, and certainly cut through the bass guitar. A low Q bump at 3-5k ish might be something you could try. Also a top octave bump - like a 12k shelf on the kick to add "clickiness". Certainly too much of this might veer you into the frightening world of speed metal. Please, try not to sacrifice a goat in the middle of a pentagram in the process of dialing in your kick. (2) put the bass through an expander and key it with the kick. The KEY to this trick is to set the range control on the expander to only -3db. Set the bass to some approximately appropriate level. The result? Each kick hit bumps the bass up 3db. Maybe it's not a solution for your particular issue, but it's kind of good sometimes.

thanks alot i'm gonna try out some of these things. i already tried to add some high end, but turned out too clicky rather fast. i used the beta91 for the kick which i think has a rather dry fast attack for the kick, so adding high end wasn't really necessary.

what do you exactly mean by expanding the bass while keying it with the kick?

[CCC]

bert wrote on Tue, 02 August 2005 09:43

what do you exactly mean by expanding the bass while keying it with the kick?

Oh, sorry, I didn't clarify. So run the bass through an expander/gate. But, as you know, most dynamics processors have a key input (perhaps called 'sidechain input' in compressors), so the kick drum track would plug into that.

(for those people who don't do much expanding/gating/compressing/whatever then "normally" the functioning of a dynamics processor is governed by the audio that you are running through it - ie. the "detector" is in the audio path. When you use the key input the functioning of the processor is governed by what is fed to the that input - ie. the audio in the audio path is acted upon by the audio in the key input since the key input is activating the detector circuit).

Parameters; attack - fast; release - work it out to be appropriate musically/in time with the music; ratio - whatever works; range would be minus 3 db. Set the device to key input mode.

The idea is that each kick hit opens the expander up to full gain. Since the bass is in the audio path of the expander it gets a 3db bump for each kick hit. Wheee!

[takeout]

j.hall wrote on Mon, 01 August 2005 21:11

spoken like a true tracking engineer that plays bass.......... the transient and sustain of a drum (in most cases) is so fast that having it loud in a mix is almost required to actually hear it. in a lot of cases (for rock music) the kick and snare can easily be as loud, or louder then the lead vocal.....it just happens so fast that it's not distracting. if you watch any politely mastered record on a VU meter you'll (universal you) will see what i'm talking about. shudder to think pony express record is a great example. that reacord has great clarity in all the instrument.....the kick drum hits a good 5 dB hotter then everything else in the mix.  the meters just spike way up every time he hits the kick drum or should i say, the kick drum triggers the sample.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.  Some of my favorite rock records break every rule listed above.

[lord]

That keying the bass to the kick shit has just never worked for me.

But I guess you might have to do it to make the rhythm section move together again, after you've slapped 20db of compression on the bass, and beat detectived the kick into the next zipcode.

[j.hall]

takeout wrote on Tue, 02 August 2005 08:05

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.  Some of my favorite rock records break every rule listed above.

what are some examples you have?

[CCC]

lord wrote on Tue, 02 August 2005 14:38

That keying the bass to the kick shit has just never worked for me. But I guess you might have to do it to make the rhythm section move together again, after you've slapped 20db of compression on the bass, and beat detectived the kick into the next zipcode.

Here in Canada we call 'em postal codes, not zipcodes. And we call compressors "magic squisher boxes", eh? And we power them with beer. And when we've done lots of beer powered magic bass squishing then we use the keyed gate to make the music dynamic again, so that the bottom end sounds like a puck hitting a goalie pad, eh?

[lord]

It's so nice to meet people from far-away lands on the internet. In Boston, we call that compressor fuel "Beeah" and it is made from piss, not to be confused with a "pissa" which is what each mixdown is supposed to be.  Actually, we fuel guitarists with Beeah too, on a regular basis.