I spoke to Dr. Dre's mastering engineer!!!

[lil' drummer boy]

Hi Everyone,

A couple of days ago I posted a question on the forum about "Dr. Dre's Snares and Bass Sounds". My question was if anyone knew what he was doing to make his snares sound so good. I really love the warmth and snap that you feel when you hear them! Also I wanted to know if anyone had any EQing techniques for tweaking the bass so that it would not over power the other instruments in the mix. Most people responded to my post by saying that Dre stacks his snares and uses I live guitar player for his bass. Someone else also recommended that I try to get in touch with "Kris Solem" who is known to have done work for Dre on several of his albums (productions). I promised that if I had a chance to speak with Kris that I would come back and share any info with you guys - so here goes!!!

My questions to Kris were similar to the ones I posted here on the forum. Basically I told him that my snares didn't sound phatt enough and they often seemed to get lost in the mix. I told him that my kicks didn't have the type of punch that I wanted them to have. And lastly, I said that my bass sound always came out too boomy once I burned everything down to CD.

He was kind enough to share a few tips with me but unfortunately I'm having difficulty translating his advice. (I'm not fluent in the engineering language ) He kept mentioning something about "cycles". I have no idea what that means. Below is the response that I got back from Kris. If there is anyone who could put this in laymen's terms for me, I'd appreciate the help!!! Also if anyone else has any other tips on helping to define the kick, snare and bass in a hip hop mix, please share them with me.

Here is Kris' response:

Sterlin'


Thanks for your kind words.


My specialty, actually, is mastering - not mixing. This means that my clients come to the mastering studio with their mixes and we create the actual finished product as it will be manufactured. In some cases their mixes are great and a minimum of actual sound processing work is needed to make a competitive product while in other cases a lot of work with eq, compression, and other sorts of tools is required to make a good cd or 12" single.


In reference to your questions -


I run across the following eq issues in lots of urban - hip-hop mixes:


Boomy bass - Many times I hear mixes where the arrangement has the key element of the bass one octave too low. This might sound cool on studio monitors but doesn't translate well to the real world.


Also, frequencies below 25 Herz do nothing but eat up level and overdrive woofers. Try a 6 or 12 dB per octave high pass filter at 20 - 30 cycles to tighten up the bass. On rare occasions I've even gone as high as 40 (@ 6 dB/8va).


Another frequent problem area is the low mids - 200 through even as high as 400 cycles. Very often you can really open up a mix by reducing these frequencies a couple dB. Each situation is unique, but try 250 or 300, - 1 or 2 dB. 400 will effect the vocals more.


In mastering, any eq you add which enhances the snare will affect lots of other instruments and voices as well, maybe good maybe not. Upper midrange frequencies like 2,500-3,500 can add a lot of presence to a mix but watch out for too much edge.


Hope this helps, good luck with your mixes...


Kris

[nukmusic]

Practice Makes Progress!

Sometimes in the mix I'll use a stereo delay(a few ms) on the snare. Or bus it(aux send)to another track and add stereo effects(trial and error). Also try using some stereo effects for other instruments in the mix. I also might use different reverbs and/or delays for different instruments. example: hall and room reverb on the lead vocal, but only hall on the back ground vocals. Practice to see what sounds the best.

[Cliffy_Boy]

my 2 cents - cycles are Hertz(Hz). so 20-30 cycles is the frequency range of 20-30Hz. Very low frequency range. Almost subwoofer range.

[Gary O]

Almost subwoofer range.

Definitely subwoofer range. 20hz is considered to be the lowest note that the human ear can discern. (your mileage may vary) Beyond that it just rattles the blinds.

[Meterbridge1]

Have you tried some dynamic compression on the kick?
You might try some subtractive eq'ing on the bass line.
Listen to all of the tracks on and sweep the eq on the bass line like 9dB down to see what frequency lets the other instruments through better then raise the dB to where u like it.

[6969]

I finally have some songs written and this thread comes in just in time as I am really getting deep into learning how to mix.Its a bit of a rough ride and I am going through a bunch of CDs .Bass frequencies are crazy and the translation from my monitors is not to be desired. I'm learning my monitoring system slowly and hopefully it will be a bit easier in the future to get a better grip on the translation. Great tips.Thanx folks.

DJ

[lil' drummer boy]

Boomy bass - Many times I hear mixes where the arrangement has the key element of the bass one octave too low. This might sound cool on studio monitors but doesn't translate well to the real world.


Also, frequencies below 25 Herz do nothing but eat up level and overdrive woofers. Try a 6 or 12 dB per octave high pass filter at 20 - 30 cycles to tighten up the bass. On rare occasions I've even gone as high as 40 (@ 6 dB/8va).

Okay - assuming I have a bass that I think may be an octave too low, how do I apply the advice that Kris is suggesting? He says to "try a 6 -12 dB per octave HPF at 20 - 30 cycles." How do I determine what per octave means in a situation like this? This may be a simple question but I'm confused. Can someone give me an example scenario? Please!

[hookiefree]

Okay - assuming I have a bass that I think may be an octave too low, how do I apply the advice that Kris is suggesting? He says to "try a 6 -12 dB per octave HPF at 20 - 30 cycles." How do I determine what per octave means in a situation like this? This may be a simple question but I'm confused. Can someone give me an example scenario? Please!

i just stumbled across this
http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req0400/OctaveEQ.htm

[O.G. Killa]

Oh, FYI...I don't think Kris has mastered any Dr. Dre album (please correct me if I'm wrong). I know he's done other hiphop like Ice Cube, NWA, Bone Thugs, and stuff like that but I don't think he's done any of Dre's solo albums. Out here on the west coast Dre uses Brian Gardner over at Bernie Grundman Mastering. I think Dre also uses Sterling Sound in NYC too.

[Nitronick]

Okay - assuming I have a bass that I think may be an octave too low, how do I apply the advice that Kris is suggesting? He says to "try a 6 -12 dB per octave HPF at 20 - 30 cycles." How do I determine what per octave means in a situation like this? This may be a simple question but I'm confused. Can someone give me an example scenario? Please!

Let's say I have applied a HPF at 80hz with 6db per octave "rolloff". This means that if my signal is 0dB at 80hz, roughly one octave lower at 40hz, it is going to be -6dB. Go one octave lower, and the signal will be -12dB.
I made a graph, but couldn't get it to come out right.
I hope I haven't made your head explode