What's your Technique? Mixing Bass & Kick

[larsongs]

Feel like sharing your Technique? Secret? Tips?

Thanks

[larsongs]

I saw this on YouTube & thought it was good.

From Recording Revolution

Any other thoughts on this subject?

http://youtu.be/ECRx4WF3pcc

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by larsongs

I saw this on YouTube & thought it was good.

From Recording Revolution

Any other thoughts on this subject?

http://youtu.be/ECRx4WF3pcc

Sorry, but as usual, sites like RR latch on to something someone famous said and turn it into overblown content. Gotta get those page views!!

That is a simple little thing someone does to help them predict their "gain staging" at the stereo buss. It doesn't in any way shape or form help you mix the kick and bass well sonically. I'd hate for you to think it does.

[Marsdy]

One tip I use.... If there's a noticeably pitched element to the bass drum, notch that out with an EQ and shorten it's length if it's ringy with a transient manipulator plug in.

That way you're not going to get note clashes with the bass guitar that can really mush up the bass end, especially if the interval between the kick note and the bass note is jarring.

[EGS]

I cut the "boxiness" frequency in the kik, somewhere around 150-200 hz, with a notch EQ. I do a similar cut to the bass, but at a different frequency. Add "snap" to the kik by boosting an upper-mid frequency. Do a similar boost to the bass, but at a different frequency. Sometimes on kik I'll use some downward expansion, i.e. gating with about 6-9db of range. Pan kik & bass slightly - 11 & 1 o'clock. To get sub-frequencies from the kik, copy the track and pitch it down by 1 octave. Get rid of the digital artifacts on this pitched track by applying a high & low pass filter. Compress both the kik & the bass. Monitor on big/medium/small speakers plus also headphones. My favorite speaker for this is the Tivoli Audio Model One. My 2 cents!!!

[YYR123]

I hate to plug sites, but I bought the Andrew Schepps mixes Ziggy Marley videos and he has some cool ideas about how he busses the kick/snare (I think he used the whole set) and bass - paralleled them and mixed them back in.....

I can't remember exactly but he said the console he was using had a quad buss, that fed the 2track buss....anyway he paralleled quite a few of his instruments and brought them back in....it does change the depth of the return and sound.....when mixed back in.

As I understand it - due to the different comps on the paralleled buss versus the comp on the actual track.

Not talking a huge amount of compression either....

[Wireline]

As always, it completely depends on what you are after. One old school approach I used with some success: putting the bass dum and bass guitar together on their own aux, with a buss compressor. This came from waaaaaay back when we used to take a kick mic and plug it into the second channel of the bass amp. The kick pushing the power tubes into compression produced a very nice leveling and auto duck effect

[JFreak]

cut kick around 400Hz (boxiness) and boost bass around 2kHz (fingers), blend Q to taste

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by JFreak

cut kick around 400Hz (boxiness) and boost bass around 2kHz (fingers), blend Q to taste

That's a good place to start.

About the boxiness thing. There's that famous old trick to hunt down the exact boxy frequency or any other nasty, peaky frequency for that matter.

1. Turn down your monitors... VERY IMPORTANT!!!
2. Turn the bandwidth control of a mid EQ to the narrowest bandwidth/Q
3. Boost that frequency a LOT!!!!
4. Slowly sweep the frequency up and down and you WILL hear the nasty frequency very clearly when you hit it. (It helps to hold down [command] on the Mac to sweep more precisely.)
5. Cut that frequency and then widen the bandwidth to taste.
6. One thing to be aware of... You need to make sure you're not hitting and cutting the fundamental frequency of a note or any of it's related upper harmonics i.e. an octave higher.

It works for boosting too. Not very fashionable but I really like the Avid EQ3 for pulling back nasty frequency content.

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by Marsdy

That's a good place to start.

About the boxiness thing. There's that famous old trick to hunt down the exact boxy frequency or any other nasty, peaky frequency for that matter.
[snip]
Not very fashionable but I really like the Avid EQ3 for pulling back nasty frequency content.

I hear the term "boxiness" a lot, but not sure what it means. Are there audio samples of this out there somewhere? I'd like to hear what exactly this is referring to. Thanks.