An age old topic, but I'm outta ideas and need some help

OK, solo the bass sounds good and the kick sounds good too. But when both play at the same time they don't sit well together. I didn't notice this problem until I listened in my headphones and turned it up a bit. But, if a track is destined for a club system, you gotta get it right haven't you?

To fix this problem I first tried some very narrow EQ on the bass, then when that didn't work, on the kick. In each case I started with the main EQ frequency around 50Hz and swept it slowly up through to the mid-range. I was using about 6dB of cut, as any more really messed with the sound. But... I didn't find any better results.

Then, I tried a side-chain compressor, running on the bass with the kick as the side-chain. This did sound a bit better, but when the kick dropped out and the bass was still playing the sound went haywire. I just could not find the settings I needed to compress the bass normally all the time, and extra when the kick was playing.

So... please help me! Have I tried the right stuff, but just been too thick / tired / drunk to make it work, or is there other nice techniques I can try to solve the problem?

TIA

U know what, post the kick and bass sample here so we can try and fix it.

I always start off with the kick and bass, even before I know the direction of the track. I hate it when I get my mind set on using a specific kick and bass, and it just doesn't want to work. Have you tried a little distortion? I find that you can greatly change the charecteristics of a kick (or bass) without it getting too dirty sounding.
I've found having a healthy sized collection of custom kicks helps out when getting into similar situations. I you want I can send you a few. They range from fairly mild, to really kick-ass-hard.

Lemme know.

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Yeah, if you could post a sample of the bass and the kick individually, then we could have a go for you. Although maybe you don't want to give them away. It's up to you, but its kinda hard to do it without knowing how they sound.

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It does sound like you just didn't get sidechain compression right. If kick isn't there, it shouldn't be compressing it at all, so there should be no change in the bass.

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-brash

quote:

Originally posted by brash It does sound like you just didn't get sidechain compression right. If kick isn't there, it shouldn't be compressing it at all, so there should be no change in the bass.

I think that's what his problem is. He wants the bassline to sound the same when there is and isn't a kick. When the kick stops, the bass sound different, and he wants it to stay the same.

Correct me if I'm wrong

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I have more or less the same problem, except ive got compression over everything and it sounds great, but once theres no kick it sounds completely different so i cant finish the tune

Ok, a very short tutorial on compression and side-chain compression. Unfortunately, I haven't done a lot with side-chain compression, and the only stuff I have done has been in Buzz, so it may be different for whatever program you use. But if it is wrong, someone can correct me.

Side chain compression is compression of one track using another track's levels. I'm going to call them master (the track whose levels we are using) and slave (the track being compressed). I'm also going to assume the master is a kick, since the discussion seems to be about kick and bass.

If you are using side-chain compression to achieve a certain affect (it would be some sort of waoh-waoh-waoh-waoh effect, the bass dropping when the kick comes in), then you probably want this even when the kick is gone. In this case you want to keep the kick playing but with no sound output. In Buzz I can just not connect the kick to the master mixer, but in whatever program you use, you may have to do something like make it 0 volume or something, but after it runs through the side-chain compressor.

If you are using side-chain compression to clear up the kick and bass, you shouldn't be getting a noticible waoh-waoh effect, and so you wouldn't want the kick to keep triggering the side-chain compressor when it is off.

If you use normal compression on the bass, keep in mind that this is using the levels of the bass. You aren't going to get and waoh-waoh effect, because the levels don't change like that. You are going to get a flattening effect (not sure how else to describe it -- you get the normal compression effect, because it is applied evenly and continuously throughout the length of the compression). So if you are getting that waoh-waoh effect when the kick plays, you won't be able to reproduce it with normal compression when the kick is not playing.

Hope this helps someone. Hope I understood the problem correctly, too.

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-brash