Random Questions

[dusty4444]

1) If I have big 808 kick that has mid range punch as well as that low sub bass. What is there freqeuncy ranges to seperate these two? Do most people seperate these into two channels. One for sub-bass,and one for the punch or just keep them in one and EQ as fit. I know most people say cutoff at 30HZ. Any ideas

2) Where do you use mastering racks at. Is this after you render audio then open a new session, then add mastering racks. Has anyone ever added a rack to a kick to give it more thump just on a channel?

[Cezband]

1. If you feel like it would be beneficial to seperate them out and treat them differently, then there's nothing stopping you from doing it. I think a lot of the time when people talk about having one channel for attack and one for body / sub, it's more in regards to layering different samples to make a new kick. As for cuts and frequency ranges, this is going to depend on what other sounds you've got going on in the same tune - a whole bunch of sub bass on your bassline is going to clash with a really bassy kick, so you'd cut one or the other, depending which is more important.

2. Mastering racks are just groups of Live's own effects, just like the other racks. They usually consist of various settings for compression, reverb, and possibly saturation. Try unfolding the rack and look at what it's made out of - listen to the different components and see what it is you want. If it's more thump, try dropping just a compressor on your drums to begin with. If you build your effect chain to suit the sound it's working on, you'll get further than dropping some preset effects which weren't tweaked with your tune in mind. In terms of when to actually add master channel processing - I usually bounce down to audio simply to keep my CPU at a manageable level. If you've got a fast computer or a simple song, then it won't much matter either way.