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Posted by xxonemanriotxx on Jul-07-2008 00:10:

Having problems with my bass...

So I made a track, it sounded great on my computer speakers, which also includes a sub. The sub had a nice sound to it so I thought my song was done. But when I went to play it on my regular stereo, the bass was non-existent! I tried to go back and tweak it, but I couldn't make the bass be heard on the regular speakers without over powering the track. I did eventually get the bass to show up, but its so quiet that you have to listen for it if you want to hear it.

Any Advice or tips on what I should do??

Im working in FL7 if that helps any.

Thank you in advance!

Posted by Cetra� on Jul-07-2008 00:14:

This is where studio monitors come in handy. If you have good ones with a nice flat frequency response you could more accurately predict what the bass would be like across the board.

I guess the next best thing is to compare this track to a professional track that sounds similar to try and match the amount of bass in both tracks. Have the other one open in winamp and play them right next to eachother, then play it back in your stereo and see if this makes an improvement.

Posted by derail on Jul-07-2008 02:30:

The midrange is very important - if everything is coming through clearly in the mids, it's highly likely it'll play back fine whatever you play it on. Otherwise, you'll have to hope that people have subs or other specific setups.

Definitely do a lot of referencing - it sounds like your bass is weighted very heavily towards the very low frequencies, meaning you can throw all the volume you want at it, it's still not going to sound loud because it doesn't have a frequency balance that will allow for it to sound loud.

A good listening technique I use is listening very quietly, in mono. It sounds to me that if you listened to this track extremely quietly (so you can barely hear it) the bass wouldn't come through at all anymore. In addition to listening to your track in mono, as well as very quietly, you can throw high pass and low pass filters across the track, and leave just the midrange - this will tell you how your song will sound on radio and on most systems. The midrange is the key.

Posted by xxonemanriotxx on Jul-07-2008 02:59:

Thank you guys for the tips. I am going to start working on this right now.

Posted by DJMaytag on Jul-07-2008 08:03:

Re: Having problems with my bass...

quote:
Originally posted by xxonemanriotxx

Any Advice or tips on what I should do??

Take a road trip down to the other end of I-16 to my studio, for starters.

Try this: try listening on several sources. I like to use my Sony Silvers, my AKG K-240's, studio monitors (Alesis M-One Powered), the speakers in either of my Dell laptops, my car stereo, and a shitty boombox at work.

If you can get something to pretty sound good in most of those, you're doing alright. Crappy ass speakers can do something amazing when it comes to showing you your shortcomings in certain frequencies.

Posted by davidbuhau on Jul-07-2008 08:39:

have you considered turning the sub down and running some spectrum analysis?

most systems do not have a sub... so... i dunno

david

Posted by Nightshift on Jul-07-2008 12:39:

Rule of Thumb: Do not do a mixdown with the subwoofer on.

If the bass does not sound right after mixing down then work with the kick and bass's lower frequencies (generally 200hz and lower) via EQ only after you have done the mixdown with the subwoofer off.

quote:
Originally posted by derail
The midrange is very important - if everything is coming through clearly in the mids, it's highly likely it'll play back fine whatever you play it on. Otherwise, you'll have to hope that people have subs or other specific setups.

+1

Posted by cybernetica on Jul-08-2008 09:55:

quote:
Originally posted by derail
The midrange is the key.

indeed. good advice

Posted by xxonemanriotxx on Jul-08-2008 22:12:

Thanks again guys for the help, all of it has been useful.

Posted by airwalker1 on Jul-26-2008 13:50:

Re: Having problems with my bass...

quote:
Originally posted by xxonemanriotxx
So I made a track, it sounded great on my computer speakers, which also includes a sub. The sub had a nice sound to it so I thought my song was done. But when I went to play it on my regular stereo, the bass was non-existent! I tried to go back and tweak it, but I couldn't make the bass be heard on the regular speakers without over powering the track. I did eventually get the bass to show up, but its so quiet that you have to listen for it if you want to hear it.

Any Advice or tips on what I should do??

Im working in FL7 if that helps any.

Thank you in advance!
im running fl 7 to and the only addvice i can give is, look for at least three diffrent bass notes.this may sound like your boosting things up your not. ie make a bas line on c then find the other notes. untill your happy with it. i use sytrus,try selecting a bass synth then see how you go.