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Yo, recently i've really been scratching my head on the subject of mixing the two low end components together, i know what the standard reply to this thread is gonna be, "eq and sidechain"... however im trying to make house music, where the bass isnt as continuous as it is in dubstep, which means sidechaining takes away too much of the bass..so that now leaves me with the option of eqing the bass and kick carefully so the bass is strong around 60hz and a dip at 90hz and the kick strong at 90hz so the two frequencies fit in nicely, however, no matter what i do, the bass still seems to take away the nice punchiness of the kick and making it sound quite flat, and this is the part that leaves me confused, because i listen to a reference track, and the bass and kick isnt sidechained, but yet the kick has a real nice punch to it, from say 70hz to 100hz range!!!

is there any sly tricks or tips to help me here? ill let you know what effects and levels i have on the two so you can correct me if im going wrong anywhere.. I have the kick drum compressed with an api2500 compressor, ratio 6:1, threshhold -4db, attack 3 sec and release .2 sec, along with the ableton eq8 boosted a few db at 90hz, this is then run through a drum bus with an api2500, ratio 3:1, threshold -4db, attack 0.03 and release 0.1, the volume for the kick on the master comes to -9db, and for the bass... i have an api560 eq, boosted at 60hz, and an api2500, ratio 6:1, attack 0.03 and release 0.8, and the volume on the master is -18db (Low i know, and it still takes away the low end punch on the kick!!!!) when played together, the master volume is -7.5db, leaving alot of headroom!! if anyone can help me on this dilemma, ill be forever grateful.. cheers!

LukeRaith wrote:Yo, recently i've really been scratching my head on the subject of mixing the two low end components together, i know what the standard reply to this thread is gonna be, "eq and sidechain"... however im trying to make house music, where the bass isnt as continuous as it is in dubstep, which means sidechaining takes away too much of the bass..so that now leaves me with the option of eqing the bass and kick carefully so the bass is strong around 60hz and a dip at 90hz and the kick strong at 90hz so the two frequencies fit in nicely, however, no matter what i do, the bass still seems to take away the nice punchiness of the kick and making it sound quite flat, and this is the part that leaves me confused, because i listen to a reference track, and the bass and kick isnt sidechained, but yet the kick has a real nice punch to it, from say 70hz to 100hz range!!!

is there any sly tricks or tips to help me here? ill let you know what effects and levels i have on the two so you can correct me if im going wrong anywhere.. I have the kick drum compressed with an api2500 compressor, ratio 6:1, threshhold -4db, attack 3 sec and release .2 sec, along with the ableton eq8 boosted a few db at 90hz, this is then run through a drum bus with an api2500, ratio 3:1, threshold -4db, attack 0.03 and release 0.1, the volume for the kick on the master comes to -9db, and for the bass... i have an api560 eq, boosted at 60hz, and an api2500, ratio 6:1, attack 0.03 and release 0.8, and the volume on the master is -18db (Low i know, and it still takes away the low end punch on the kick!!!!) when played together, the master volume is -7.5db, leaving alot of headroom!! if anyone can help me on this dilemma, ill be forever grateful.. cheers!

can you give a link or something to this reference track? its easier to understand what you mean when hearing

there you go mate! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu68kXgQ6LE

Put an exciter on the kick maybe. If you don't have a plugin, it's a lpf > distortion > lpf but you might want to look
up a tutorial if you're going to make one yourself.

Also, sidechaining with the kick is way more common in house music than in dubstep. It should work but compression is
a pain in the neck to get right.

Find good samples first..

I usually LP filter my kicks off at about 70 but sometimes I'll cut it off at 85-95 (I'm weird, but it sounds nice.) Then I LP cutoff my sub at 60 hz..
My fx chain for my kick usually is
EQ, Filter, SLIGHT, very slight reverb, little satuation, and I may take off some of the release on my kicks.

Sub has
EQ, Filter, Reverb (for space/atmo ) a bit of distortion maybe, if I wanna give the bass a bit of grit.

EDIT: Bring out some of the frequencies in the kick to really enhance it, just don't make it dull.. I like to bring some of the highs out of the kick and boost it a bit around 120 or around there.. but you get it.

thanks for the suggestions! im half way through a tune, its nothing special, but is it cool if one of you have a listen and let us know if you think the kick is weak or not when the bass comes in? cheers http://www21.zippyshare.com/v/43372106/file.html

edit* just realised the bass goes a bit out of tune at the end, fixing that!

ZankUSA wrote:Find good samples first..

I usually LP filter my kicks off at about 70 but sometimes I'll cut it off at 85-95 (I'm weird, but it sounds nice.) Then I LP cutoff my sub at 60 hz..
My fx chain for my kick usually is
EQ, Filter, SLIGHT, very slight reverb, little satuation, and I may take off some of the release on my kicks.

Sub has
EQ, Filter, Reverb (for space/atmo ) a bit of distortion maybe, if I wanna give the bass a bit of grit.

EDIT: Bring out some of the frequencies in the kick to really enhance it, just don't make it dull.. I like to bring some of the highs out of the kick and boost it a bit around 120 or around there.. but you get it.

you put reverb on your sub? i always thought that was a no-no, distorting the bass right?