Dubstepforum.com

I'm working on a remix of a Nine Inch Nails piece, and being a new producer, I'm running into the issue that the chopping between basslines is not seamless - the transition is an audible "jump" from one bassline to the next. As this is my first experiment with multiple basslines, I'm not sure on how to cure this.

Can anyone give me a hand with it?

I'm not a pro at this either yet but a few things you could try are...

Bus your basses together and give them some light compression (glueing them)

Adjusting your fades so it's a more gradual transition from bit to bit.

Mazak wrote:I'm not a pro at this either yet but a few things you could try are...

Bus your basses together and give them some light compression (glueing them)

Adjusting your fades so it's a more gradual transition from bit to bit.

What is bussing? Sorry if that's a complete n00b question.

Do you mean like sending both to audio and compressing the transition a bit?

Setup a separate track as a bus.
It's like a folder, you apply compression to the folder which compresses the 2 basses together.
You use the same technique with drums to make them sit together better.

It's essentially grouping the channels into one and effecting them together.

Okay. Is sidechaining necessary?

I would say that at least sidechaining your sub bass in necessary. I've heard of people rolling off the lows of their kicks instead, which is definitely wrong. I've also heard of people reversing the phase on their sub, which is also wrong, because it will create a phase conflict. An alternative to sidechaing compression is volume automation, can can pretty much draw out what you want your sidechain to sounds like and she'll do ya good.

Or you can have your kick and your bass hitting at different times.

DefeaterDub wrote:I would say that at least sidechaining your sub bass in necessary. I've heard of people rolling off the lows of their kicks instead, which is definitely wrong. I've also heard of people reversing the phase on their sub, which is also wrong, because it will create a phase conflict. An alternative to sidechaing compression is volume automation, can can pretty much draw out what you want your sidechain to sounds like and she'll do ya good.

I seem to hear the exact opposite, people saying that sidechaining is cheating and with good EQ:ing none is needed. What I do though is roll of most of the sub in my kicks (because I don't want the whole track hitting in the subs all the time anyway), and then sidechaining just the subs slightly with very fast release to the kick just so they're not conflicting when the kick is hitting, but the pumping isn't noticable.

Back on glueing the basses together though, I used to have a hard time with this before, mainly when I was making more 'bro-y' stuff with different wobbles and screeches and stuff. I haven't had the problem recently but I don't know if it comes down to better mixing or different composition. Although, personally I never route my basses together and compress. Sometimes though, I use the same bus for processing, as in if I have an effect chain for my growl and I want to make a PWM hoover I'll send it through the same chain, maybe with some pre-EQing to make it fit better. Which is a bit lazy but it also helps maintain the same sound.

I think it's more a question of good EQ:ing to get the same sound than just throwing a compressor on them though. Maybe I'm bad at compressing but it doesn't seem to do all that much difference to me.

DefeaterDub wrote:I would say that at least sidechaining your sub bass in necessary. I've heard of people rolling off the lows of their kicks instead, which is definitely wrong. I've also heard of people reversing the phase on their sub, which is also wrong, because it will create a phase conflict. An alternative to sidechaing compression is volume automation, can can pretty much draw out what you want your sidechain to sounds like and she'll do ya good.

Not wrong. Its a valid technique, (rolling off stuff under 80Hz is the first thing i do (but thats just me). I find sub frequencies in a kick just pointless, they often sound flabby and take up un nessecary headroom as well as clashing with your sub. Im hungover and felt like irritating people on the internet

I'd say keep a bit off sub in the kick (maybe that's what you meant by rolling off though, broad term), but IMO having no sub in such a bass heavy sound just sounds hollow and weird to me. Definately not a lot though.

There is usually a lot of good kick stuff at 120hz imo. if you get me

Yeah, I usually got mine peaking between 100-150, but too me they just sound more natural and full with a bit off sub in them. Granted, if it's a full bro mix there might not be room but I'm usually a bit more conservative with my drum patterns so for my glitchy stuff, if there's room and I've got a clean sample, I like to keep some sub. If you're playing on a big system and there's no sub at all in the kick it's just underwhelming IMO. But yeah, just a bit, definately roll them off at around 80-90, just not to steep a curve imo. But of course that depends on genre and the mix. And also I might be totally wrong about this, not presenting it as facts, it just sounds good to me D:

Edit: Back on topic, sometimes some slight sidechaining on your basses can help melding them together though since you can kind of 'mask' the attack on the cut between basses with the sidechain on the kick. Probably wanna be careful with that though and if they're completely different sounding it's obviously not gonna help too much.

At the end of the day what is important is that it sounds good

It depends on the sample I think, ive got a few kicks which I can roll of at 80hz ish and theyll still sound punchy and deep whereas others will sound thin and hollow. Most of the time ill roll of at 80hz, very small narrow boost somewhere round 100hz ish and a slight dip at 200hz ish. All depends on the samples your using, the other sounds that occupy the same freq range and what your going for though.

Yeah I run all my kicks through a spectrum analyzer if I'm lazy to get a quick feel for where it peaks before I throw it in the tune. They differ a lot, many of the vengeance kicks seem to be hitting in the sub though so for anyone using that I'd recommend paying some attention to the frequencies of your samples if your kicks are sounding weak.

...Jesus Christ.

Should I spectrum analyze the kicks and notch each bassline when the kick hits?

Would overlapping the basses and do some volume automation fading on them make them seam together better?

Yeah sorry man, we hijacked your thread. That's not really related to the stuff you were saying about making the basses stick, but it's generally not a bad idea to save some space. I often automate notches in the EQ after my kick/snare if I find it sounds too empty with those frequencies left out entirely. It sounds better and a lot more subtle than sidechaining the volume IMO (unless you want it pumping), if you do it correctly. Although keep in mind there's no point in filling up every spectrum in the mix all the time, you don't need every sound hitting at 120 hz so it might actually be nice to just notch it out. Depends on how busy the mix is, if you get what I'm going at. I posted a track in the WIP thread (Mercenary Man) where this is quite obvious if you wanna hear, I've sidechained to low end of my piano to the basses so they don't conflict (okay so it's not exactly the same but the same principle as to sidechaining to the kick) when they happen to be on the same beat, but the piano still sounds bassy and full when my growls are quiet.

But not really related to your bass question.

I'd say overlapping basses is a no in general, depending on where they hit. You'll get a muddy mix and phasing issues in the bass which will just sound nasty. Although if you've got like a screechy wobble that's not too bass heavy you could overlap it with the bass with careful EQ:ing.

Edit: Don't take my word for it though, actually never really tried so I'm not 100%, and I dont wanna make myself out to be some pro either. None of the stuff I'm saying is actual facts and a lot of it might be utter BS. So try it out for yourself and if it works, sure. All depends on your mix.

So should I just stick with the compression bussing and give that a try?

(You may not be a pro at this stuff, but at least you have an idea )

DefeaterDub wrote: I've heard of people rolling off the lows of their kicks instead, which is definitely wrong.

Elaborate

solidus wrote:So should I just stick with the compression bussing and give that a try?

(You may not be a pro at this stuff, but at least you have an idea )

Yeah, go ahead. And also, EQ the individual channes a bit and try to get a similiar sound. Try to listen and see what part of the new sound sticks out when the basses switch, and find the part that doesn't blend. For example, say your first bassline is just a chunky saw bass with the mids scooped out and a lot of bass and then just some sparkle in the highs. And now your next synth is a brosteppy screaming wobble with a lot of mid. To me it's kind of annoying when the amount of content in the different frequencies change too much at once. For example if you've got one pattern with a hi-hat loop and one without it'll suddenly sound really empty in your highs. Same thing here, if one of you basses have a lot of mid and the others don't it might sound out of place. It might also sound super good and in-your-face, but that's up to you too decide. Anyway, if this were the case you might wanna scoop out the mids here with a bandreject or something like that and it'll sound a lot more like your other basses. It could also be stuff like one's got a lot of reverb on it and one doesn't. Try going back in your FX chain and just adding the same effects to both. Maybe make one separate bus with an EQ, some reverb and chorus or whatever and then route everything through that. How much and what depends you wanna use depends of course. But it might make them sound more as one synth. And like I said before, sidechaining this to the kick could work really well, masking the transitions with the kick. As long as it sounds good that is.

Now with that said I should probably point out that I don't do this at all, usually don't need too. But I've probably got pretty similiar effect chains on all my synths since I've established a pattern in my sound designs. Could be that. I rarely run my synths dry straight out of massive either, which kind of molds them to sound more alike. You can get a lot of different characteristics in the your synths.

I bet this'll all come a lot more natural the more you produce. You'll probably find some favorite effects and put that on a lot of your synths. For example, I use a lot of bandreject and dimension expander. Thus, my synths have a similiar timbre. As you go along I bet you'll have a set of standard go-to plugins that you put on all your basses. That'll help.