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Question, mixing a strong bassline over a kick drum without sidechaining?
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| cammaxwell |
I'm relatively new to mixing and I'm having am issue with a track I'm working on.
I want a very punchy/strong bassline starting on the first beat, so therefore I'm resisting the usual "sidechain to kick compressing" because it will alter that effect. So how do I mix this to ensure the two aren't going to end up muddy and then still make the kick come through?
Is it just EQ the bottom end and make sure there on different frequencies?
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks! |
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| chrisspob |
| Try automating the eq on the bass so it high passes on the kick and maybe compress them both together. Hope this helps |
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| palm |
| quote: | Originally posted by cammaxwell
Is it just EQ the bottom end and make sure there on different frequencies?
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pretty much. you can also play with a few ms delay on the baseline so that they dont hit EXACT same time. could also adjust pitch on the kick and the basenote of your track. i would sidechain anyway but more subtle than usual. just a dB or two. |
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| Kismet7 |
By strong do you mean the volume amplitude of the lower frequencies is high? Just go with a shorter decay kick that does not share a lot of energy in the same frequency range as the bass. Having a huge kick + strong bass is hard to pull off and things start to mumble. Go with something with some click and attack presence if your bassling is huge, but a short sustain and release transient. But not super skinny where its hard to mix with other kicks.
If you notice music that focused on bassline a lot, like funk and disco, they usually had really short transient kicks, but with a present attack. This is so the bassline could shine yet the kicks attack was there to keep track of the tempo and help the bassline have something to swing and juxtapose with. |
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| Zombie0729 |
| why don't you try just compressing them together... the issue you'll run is in headroom, EQ will help with overlacking frequencies but it's far from perfect in regards to volume increases (as i'm sure your beat + bass sounds huge compared to your kick solo'd). i think a subtle sidechain won't take away from the effect, maybe GR by 2-4db |
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| vikernes |
Maybe you should try Space boy? http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1163.html
Don't know how well it works.
But as someone said, the best way would be to use 2 bass tracks where 1st is only playing on the first beat and the second all others. Then just mess with the eq on that first bass. |
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| hasbone |
invert it!
duck the kick with the bass instead |
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| cammaxwell |
Thanks guys, some good suggestions that I'll play around with. See what works best.
Cheers! |
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| tehlord |
You might try layering the bassline with another sound that has a very quick attack, even a strongly high passed kick might work. Playing the two sounds together with the second layered bassline sound quite low you'd perceive them as being part of the same sound. If you then sidechained the 'real' bass sound with the proper kick and left the layered attack sound untouched the ear would hear the attack of the bassline even though the frequencies that clash are absent.
Make sense? :tongue2 |
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| d_Verge |
All good advice here. I just want to add that, as mentioned, choosing the right sounds is often the first major step to solving your problems. Second, I think many producers often over-complicate these things with out of control compression and other unnecessary fx, when all thats needed is very careful mixing of track levels and some proper use of eq.
But, at the end of the day I guess it's whatever works. Just stay at it, experiment a lot, and you'll figure out what works for you.
Good Luck! |
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| cammaxwell |
| quote: | Originally posted by tehlord
You might try layering the bassline with another sound that has a very quick attack, even a strongly high passed kick might work. Playing the two sounds together with the second layered bassline sound quite low you'd perceive them as being part of the same sound. If you then sidechained the 'real' bass sound with the proper kick and left the layered attack sound untouched the ear would hear the attack of the bassline even though the frequencies that clash are absent.
Make sense? :tongue2 |
Yeah, I understand what your saying here. I'm going to give that a try...
Thanks! |
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| DjStephenWiley |
EQ side chaining mate. (Not velocity)
Works great for this stuff (usually)
You have to be careful because most kicks worth their salt have strong harmonics and timbres in the higher frequencies which are what give it that bite and help it slice through the mix. Always roll off 30hz and below or so. (duh)
You're not going to be able to have the kick and bass swallow large portions of frequency bands at the same time without some ugly side effects. EQ based side chaining with a fast attack and release is the best way to go in your situation if you don't want a ducking sound. In my opinion there is no better way to do this considering what you're trying to do. Just my opinion though. You may want to consider multiple basslines as well. |
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