Hi, I really noticed lately when I have a kick drum and/or a bass playing solo, its nice and loud and sounds great.. but as soon as I play.. lets say a synth sample with the kick and/or bass, the impact of the kick/bass just goes down, it seems quiter, and gets muffled., its extreemly bad when you have like 5 other synths playing.. the kick and bass are just lost in the confusion this is really bugging me, as It takes away the energy and power, especially at a climax .. there's got to be away to solve this, any tips people?

EQ the "other" synths so that they don't have much low frequencies. If you use compression on the entire mix, try to compress your bass & kick separately to prevent anything pushing anything else away. Maybe put bass & kick thru an enhancer.

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All rhythm evolves around a kick...

compression and eq will help the most as all ready mentioned

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mner

If it's not a question of volume on the kick, then I tend to try pitching up the kick slightly. It'll probably make the kick punchier and, therefore, allow it come through more.

As mentioned by other ppl, I usually compress my drum kits with the intention of making them punchier so that they are more noticeable. As far as the Reason compressor is concerned (that's what I use), I find that the attack and release are what determines how punchy the drums will be.

It was mentioned that you could try eq'ing the synths to get rid of the bass on them. Alternatively, if all you want out of a certain synth is a mid to high frequency sound, you could try putting a bandpass filter on that sound, to really get rid of that bass interference.

Hope that helps.

thanks for the tips, I guess I'll try compressing and eqing each track individually now, instead of the entire mix at the end.

quote:

Originally posted by Anheuser Alternatively, if all you want out of a certain synth is a mid to high frequency sound, you could try putting a bandpass filter on that sound, to really get rid of that bass interference.

Don't you mean a highpass filter? With bandpass if you'd remove low you'd also almost certainly remove high

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All rhythm evolves around a kick...

I suppose it depends on the sound. I've had instances where a bandpass with some resonance really helped a sound cut through (after tweaking the frequency of course). You're right, high pass is another option and is probably more likely to work, if cutting the bass is the goal.

1) Don't take too much low end out of your synths - they'll lose their warmth. I used to make the same mistake, and all my tracks sounded very "tinny". It's a hard balance to achieve.
2) Try using different bass and kick sounds. It could just be that they don't have that punch that cuts through in a mix.
3) Try EQing them a little different, giving them more highs and high-mids (again though, don't go overboard).
4) Are you using cubase or a comparable piece of software with a decent mixer? If you are, send the kick and bass tracks to the same group, and run your compression on the group, so that the kick and bass punch through each other. Then, turn the overall volume of that group up.
And most importantly...
5) Step back and listen to the track. Is there just too much going on? Try muting parts and seeing if it fixes the problem. If it does, ask yourself if that part is really adding to the track. If it's not adding to it, it's taking away from it!
If nothing's working, then it's got to be #2. It took me years to find the right kick and bass sounds!
That's about all the advice I can give. This is probably one of the hardest areas to get the hang of in production. But once you get it, you'll get it every time, and it'll only get better!
Hope that helps!

thanks axs, that helps alot actually. I'll try these tips out next time I load up Sonar.

no problem. good luck!

If you tend to use a lot of reverb, give the reverb some lowpass, 200hz or something, NOT the whole synth

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Signature Suspended as it was deemed offensive.

Do you mean highpass? I tend to EQ a lot of the low-end out of my reverbs. To much low-end in your reverbs will muddy things up a lot.