The Mixing Engineer's Handbook - invaluable resource for any producer IMO. It has a whole chapter on EQing.

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quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler I've got 3 layered there believe it or not! I had more low end and it conflicted with the bass line a high volume in my car (again this does not happen with decent pro tracks in my car). Anyway keep the comments comming.

It sounds weak. Grab something from VEC3 and just drop it in. It doesn't sound very trancey to me. The lowmids for the bass seem to be lacking especially on the lower notes. Sounds like you might have high cut the bass, you might want to try a bell or a high shelf so that it still has some minor presence. You could try RBass to boost it's perception.

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

Just listening on headphones but the kick doesnt seem heavy enough to my ears
Its midrange could be softened a bit, but it doesnt have enough low end i dont think
The bassline itself sounds fine imo, could maybe do with a touch more lowend but its hard to tell what a difference a new kick could make....

I notice youve got a lot of stuff coming in at the breakdown, do those elements stay in for the rest of the track?
Reason i ask is they seem to have a lot of stuff that could interfere with the kick/bass unless they are highpassed a bit more - you could automate an eq so you can still hear them nicely in the break, but then they wont interfere when it comes back in...

Have your track playing in its busiest section, then (without looking at the EQ curve if you can avoid it) slowly sweep your highpass filter upwards on whatever track and listen
When you start to hear a change - stop - then maybe roll it back a little bit
Do this for everything and you can always automate your EQs back down when the kick and bass arent playing

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Originally posted by Beatflux You could try RBass to boost it's perception.

Do you know he has this plugin? Waves plugins are pretty expensive.

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Originally posted by derail Do you know he has this plugin? Waves plugins are pretty expensive.

MaxxBass is 130.

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

Buy the book "Mixing with your mind"

You wont regret it...

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The best bit of advice I could give you is that if you choose / produce sounds that work extremely well together to begin with you will not need to depend on EQ half as much. Instead of shaping sounds with EQ, I will usually shape them at the sound source. The same goes for live recording. instead of fixing things with EQ, just move the microphone position or change the mic.

The only time I really use EQ is to either remove unwanted low-end frequencies or to add character to a sound using a nice outboard EQ.

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Wow, thanks for all the advice everyone, very interesting.

I think I'll try VEG3 for kicks, as I get fed up fiddling with my own kiks and layering, then burning to cd only to find in my car or other consumer systems the kick is wrong.

This process I have done literally hundreds, if not thousands of times - there's no way airbase (thanks for the video link) has to hop in and out of his car everyday, after having exported a track and burnt to cd!

I high pass every sound. In the break where there is less bass and no kick I automate the lower freqs of other sounds back in until the chorus where I re-fade the lower freqs away so as the bass and kick are'nt compromised.

Thanks for the book recs - but I'm under no illusion a book will really resolve my empass.

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Originally posted by Richard Butler I think I'll try VEG3 for kicks, as I get fed up fiddling with my own kiks and layering, then burning to cd only to find in my car or other consumer systems the kick is wrong.

I think this implies that you need to learn your monitors better. Ideally you would get to a stage where you trust your monitors and know that when a mix works on them it will translate well on a variety of mediums.

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Just to add to the Topic started. I usually have my Plucks/ Stabs sit around 2hz to 5hz. really good results in my mix downs.

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Originally posted by Beatflux MaxxBass is 130.

But you didn't recommend MaxxBass, you recommended RBass. As far as I can see, the cheapest bundle you can get that in is the Renaissance bundle which is currently priced at $429 (that seems to be with a 35% discount taken off, so normally it's more expensive).

Regarding the OP, it's as Wave Alchemy is saying - start at the initial sounds, find sounds that fit together well, set appropriate levels and get to know your listening setup so you'll know how it translates to other playback systems such as your car.

I realise it may not sound very helpful, if you're at a stage where you're feeling frustrated and you're looking for some "killer tip" which you've somehow missed, and which will suddenly give your productions a massive boost. "Choose sounds which fit well together and set appropriate levels" sounds very trite, and obvious, and you probably read that and think "gee thanks, big help".

It sounds very easy, but it takes many years of mixing to train your ears to a degree where your mixes sound great without EQ, reverb or other effects. (Obviously, then you add EQ processing, reverb, delays and so on and the great mix sounds even better).

If your kick consistently sounds wrong, spend a few weeks just putting together a kick, a simple bassline and maybe some other drum sounds. Put together 40 or 50 sets of sounds, export the loops as audio and burn it to a CD, listen to the CD in your car and make notes as to which ones sound better, which ones sound worse, and what it is that makes them sound better or worse - maybe in one the bass is too boomy, another the kick has too long a tail, another the kick doesn't have enough weight. Guaranteed there will be several among the 50 which sound significantly better than others, which will give you a new frame of reference as to where to start, in terms of building the foundation of your next few songs.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler Wow, thanks for all the advice everyone, very interesting. I think I'll try VEG3 for kicks, as I get fed up fiddling with my own kiks and layering, then burning to cd only to find in my car or other consumer systems the kick is wrong. This process I have done literally hundreds, if not thousands of times - there's no way airbase (thanks for the video link) has to hop in and out of his car everyday, after having exported a track and burnt to cd! I high pass every sound. In the break where there is less bass and no kick I automate the lower freqs of other sounds back in until the chorus where I re-fade the lower freqs away so as the bass and kick are'nt compromised. Thanks for the book recs - but I'm under no illusion a book will really resolve my empass.

If your kick sounds good when at your PC, but crap in your car, then your problem is your monitoring situation

What monitors are your running?
Do you have any room treatment?

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