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Bass cancelling out?

Forgive me, I am a newbie DJ...

I was just screwing around trying to improve my beatmatching skills, well when I mixed a record into the one I was currently playing, the beats seemed lined up pretty much right, however, the bass from kick went away. It was weird. Does anyone know why this would have happened? The bass came back when I killed the bass on the other deck.

It's completely normal. When the beats are matched in a certain way the 2 bass beats cancel each other out.

quote:

Originally posted by colombian raver It's completely normal. When the beats are matched in a certain way the 2 bass beats cancel each other out.

hehe cool thanks!

theres a thread on this.

if that happens, be more careful with ur eqs, cuz it doesnt sound very pleasant, u can semi avoid it.

sometimes if you turn the bass down from one of the tracks it will fix it

check your Eqs and make sure the bass isnt set at the same levels on both channels...

its called destructive interference - chances are you have the beats matched, but do you have the phrasing matched? your speakers can only kick a certain frequency in a certain way - to be very simplistic, think of a see-saw when you sit on one end the other goes up, think of each bass kick as you sitting on the see-saw, if the kicks arent matched correctly its like trying to match a down/up with an up/down which leaves you with a flat line...


shitty explanation but its somewhere along those lines, im sure somone else can clear it up, im somewhat not sober at the moment

quote:

Originally posted by Exodus17 check your Eqs and make sure the bass isnt set at the same levels on both channels... its called destructive interference - chances are you have the beats matched, but do you have the phrasing matched? your speakers can only kick a certain frequency in a certain way - to be very simplistic, think of a see-saw when you sit on one end the other goes up, think of each bass kick as you sitting on the see-saw, if the kicks arent matched correctly its like trying to match a down/up with an up/down which leaves you with a flat line... shitty explanation but its somewhere along those lines, im sure somone else can clear it up, im somewhat not sober at the moment

actually that was a good analogy haha. yeah thats basically waht happened because sometimes you'd hear a kick then it would go away come back in, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Exodus17 think of a see-saw when you sit on one end the other goes up, think of each bass kick as you sitting on the see-saw, if the kicks arent matched correctly its like trying to match a down/up with an up/down which leaves you with a flat line...

props on the drunken analogy.

to prevent, just EQ a bass in/bass out. a good place to do this is during those 16-32 bar small breaks where the bass is cut. when the bass is supposed to come back in on the original track, cut into the new bassline. its my standard way if im too lazy to be creative, but sounds great with keyed tracks

razzi.

quote:

Originally posted by razzi props on the drunken analogy. to prevent, just EQ a bass in/bass out. a good place to do this is during those 16-32 bar small breaks where the bass is cut. when the bass is supposed to come back in on the original track, cut into the new bassline. its my standard way if im too lazy to be creative, but sounds great with keyed tracks razzi.

Cool. Thanks!

Also, sometimes I will have track matched up, but it will go out of synch after 10-15 seconds. And its never the same thing, I have to keep speeding it up and slowing it down. Could this be because the record is warped? Most of the time when I get two tracks beatmatched I don't have to keep fucking with the record.

quote:

its called destructive interference

interesting analogy. but just to clear things up - its called destructive phasing. destructive interference is something completely different.

as a general rule you want to eliminate destructive phasing as much as possible. destructive phasing only occurs when a frequency exists in phase and in anti phase. the sound just cancels out. using certain effects such as reverb alter the phase of the effected sound. kick drums typically phase destructively because they have alot of bass presence and theres very little difference in between songs with regards to the frequency band they tend to occupy. its mostly 50 to 150 hz. having 2 kicks go off in the mix together often causes phasing problems.

killing the bass on one tune is one solution to this problem. although its not too subtle. if you have a mixer with a filter you can close the filter of the outgoing track to minimize the amount of destructive phasing. in some cases if you mix tunes where the kicks sit in different frequency bands (i.e. a track with a subby, loooow bass drum mixed into a pvd tune where the kicks are more low mid rangey and harder) then you wont get so much phasing problems.

one way you can minimize this even further is to limit the use of phase modulation effects on 1 of the tunes (this includes reverbs, delays, tape echoes, chorus/flangers and phasers) if you do it on both channels at the same time it wont cause additional problems.

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative interesting analogy. but just to clear things up - its called destructive phasing. destructive interference is something completely different. as a general rule you want to eliminate destructive phasing as much as possible. destructive phasing only occurs when a frequency exists in phase and in anti phase. the sound just cancels out. using certain effects such as reverb alter the phase of the effected sound. kick drums typically phase destructively because they have alot of bass presence and theres very little difference in between songs with regards to the frequency band they tend to occupy. its mostly 50 to 150 hz. having 2 kicks go off in the mix together often causes phasing problems. killing the bass on one tune is one solution to this problem. although its not too subtle. if you have a mixer with a filter you can close the filter of the outgoing track to minimize the amount of destructive phasing. in some cases if you mix tunes where the kicks sit in different frequency bands (i.e. a track with a subby, loooow bass drum mixed into a pvd tune where the kicks are more low mid rangey and harder) then you wont get so much phasing problems. one way you can minimize this even further is to limit the use of phase modulation effects on 1 of the tunes (this includes reverbs, delays, tape echoes, chorus/flangers and phasers) if you do it on both channels at the same time it wont cause additional problems.

Interesting...no I dont use any effects. I have a pretty low end mixer

search my posts for more in depth explanations of what phasing is and how to minimise destructive phasing. ive got about 800 posts but at least 3 or 4 of those are essay length explanations on the subject. i think the one i did here was a bit a shit.

It could be that the two kicks are 180 degreees out of phase with each other. If this is the case, you can't just up that bass on both to fix it, that'll just make it cancel more. you need to choose which kick you want to use one at a time. Or if you're using cds you could take all your songs into an audio editor program, and make sure all the kicks start off with a positive compressing(up on the graph) so they'll add instead of cancel.

or you could just live with the interesting sound of cancelation/coloration

My brother is doing an applied physics course and i remember talkin to him about stuff like this. It is all to confussing, when you look at exactly what happens (or atleast for me)

quote:

Originally posted by Exodus17 check your Eqs and make sure the bass isnt set at the same levels on both channels... its called destructive interference -

Or more comonly known as Phase Cancelation.
Basically what you have is that the waves in the kick from each track or going exactly opposite from each other thus cancelling each other out and all you have left are the frequencies that aren't cancelled out.
In an ideal world you would be able to solve this by reversing the polarity of one of the kicks but you would have to be able access the sound source for that.

There is also a common misconception that if your kicks are cancelling it means that you have your tracks perfectly matched. This is horse poo as it means nothing of the sort. It just means that you have the wave form matched in a particular way.

This effect can usually be sorted however by a quick adjustment on the pitch control (if you ride the pitch) or nudge on the platter if you are a deck plate molestor (and I know some of you are he he )

The other weapon you have to deal with this is your EQs as stated previously. Although you should be working to try and get your tracks matched in such a way that you don't experience this (it is possible).

Cheers
Nem

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative its called destructive phasing. destructive interference is something completely different.

knew it was destructive something or other

quote:

Originally posted by Nemesis44 Or more comonly known as Phase Cancelation. Basically what you have is that the waves in the kick from each track or going exactly opposite from each other thus cancelling each other out and all you have left are the frequencies that aren't cancelled out. In an ideal world you would be able to solve this by reversing the polarity of one of the kicks but you would have to be able access the sound source for that. There is also a common misconception that if your kicks are cancelling it means that you have your tracks perfectly matched. This is horse poo as it means nothing of the sort. It just means that you have the wave form matched in a particular way. This effect can usually be sorted however by a quick adjustment on the pitch control (if you ride the pitch) or nudge on the platter if you are a deck plate molestor (and I know some of you are he he ) The other weapon you have to deal with this is your EQs as stated previously. Although you should be working to try and get your tracks matched in such a way that you don't experience this (it is possible). Cheers Nem

Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, I figured they weren't matched right, because if they were, it wouldn't do that. Haha, Deck Molestor, yeah...I am constantly messing with the pitch and the record...maybe its perfectionism. But I'll try to prevent myself from matching tracks like that...and if I do, I'll give the record a slight nudge to stop that, it's all in practice :-D

Thanks again!

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