so im working on a track, and the bassline is only sub bass, no midrange.im listening to it and im noticing that the sub bass is completely hidden behind my drums, and when i increase the sub's volume,it distorts everything and its just a bloody mess. do you guys have any tips for making the sub bass stand out?
definitely cut the low(est) frequencies from your drums (be careful with the kick though). try turning everything down and increasing the volume of the sub, the distortion could just be you pushing everything a bit too far into the red..
turn everything down probably way down, you should have room to overpower your drums by your sub before it starts to distort or to generally shit at least. then pull the sub back untill the drumz and sub are sitting nicely. my guess is your mixing without enough headroom and everything needs to be lowered to give you more wiggle room to turn things up and down just a lil bit to get them to fit.
other than that, something like tube saturation can help add warmth and weight to subs.
kate... wrote:you could try sidechain compression, too if you want for a pumping effect, pulling the bass up just to let the kick through.
If you get your mix levels right, you should never have to sidechain the sub off the kick unless its for creative purposes.
Whatever channel your sub is on, put a low pass filter as the last effect in any chain you have. Roll it off so there is nothing above say 60/70hz. Do the same on your drums with a high pass filter and roll anything off below 75hz. If that doesn't clean things up, I'll be surprised.
http://45hertzofbass.com- Guest mixes and interviews with the likes of Danny Scrilla/Baitface/Mishva and more.
arktrix wrote:
If you get your mix levels right, you should never have to sidechain the sub off the kick unless its for creative purposes.
Whatever channel your sub is on, put a low pass filter as the last effect in any chain you have. Roll it off so there is nothing above say 60/70hz. Do the same on your drums with a high pass filter and roll anything off below 75hz. If that doesn't clean things up, I'll be surprised.
This. Sidechaining to fix a mix is for pussies. There is a thread in the production forum that links to a sub bass tutorial by Distance where he demonstrates the techniques detailed above.
You want your kick around -12dB at 70-100Hz and sub at -15dB 45/50Hz. High pass your kick from about 70Hz and low pass your sub from 70Hz. Then there will be no conflict. Also I put a bass amp on my sub to make it more weighty. Side-chaining a light compressor on your sub to kick can bring it out more aswell.
