kick and bass how to make them sound massive and punch

[The Carpet Cleaner]

no you don't need to read anything.
Seriously, you want your kick, your drum and even the rest of the stuff to sound loud ?

send me your track and I'll fix it.
Paypal only.

[ChiDJ]

Pro Tip: If you're spending more than a few minutes getting your kick and bass to fit together, change your kick and/or bass.

[leedsquietman]

I've mentioned it before but 'The Mixing Engineer's Handbook' (2nd edition) by Bobby Owsinski is a great resource which touches on this quite a lot, both in terms of the author's advice, and by reading all the mix engineer interviews.

Nothing is EXACTLY the same twice. You need to learn several techniques and practice, practice, practice, until you are just automatically getting in the zone with plan a, b or c and your acquired knowledge. And like ChiDJ suggests, if you are spending a long time and tried a few approaches and it doesn't work, it can be easier to replace the kick and/or bass sounds rather than spending hours with processing messing around just to still not be happy. Good advice Tod.

[anybody human]

Check out the Tarekith papers, always good stuff in there.

The first thing I try to identify is frequency masking, or where the kick and bass are competing with each other. Sweep thru the low frequencies using a healthy eq boost with a narrow Q. Find the fundamental frequency of the kick, the loudest or most important part, usually around 50Hz-60hz but every kick is different, especially if it's layered. Boost this to taste & widen out the Q a bit, then go to the bass track and cut the corresponding frequency. Now find the fundamental of the bass, usually around 140hz for me, but don't boost it just make a mental note of it. Instead, cut this frequency from the kick. Also add a low shelf below the frequency you boosted on the kick, pull this down so that the bass gets all the sub harmonic frequencies to itself (your kick will still sound huge since you boosted it's fundamental). By sweeping thru you can find other important or problem frequencies, deciding if it's better to cut them directly or cut them on another track to leave room for them.

There are 2 types of sidechain, using a sidechain input to signal compression, or using a sidechain filter which filters out low and/or high frequencies that would trigger compression earlier. For instance, low bass is loud and would trigger compression quickly, so you make filter that out of the input signal. All the frquencies will get compressed, triggered by only what you tell the compressor to listen for. This works really well on drum busses and the master fader. I sometimes even use SC filtering to let the high end of the cymbals thru as well as the low bass. Things seem more alive and present because big bossy freqencies aren't telling the compressor to turn on before the rest of the frequencies join the party.

[anybody human]

+1 to everything Leeds said. That book is a great resource. Saw an Ill Gates lecture/workshop and he talked about "The Uncarved Block"- before you start sculpting it, it's already a thing- instead of bending it to your will ask what it wants to be and help it become more of itself. This applies to mixing, if the kick ain't working, either go in another direction if it seems to want to go somewhere or choose another kick

[Piplodocus]

I like the Dance Music Manual (I think it's called) myself. Some good explanations in there, even though what I make wouldn't really be classed as dance.

I'm an Engineer/Physicist and Guitarist too, so my main problem is I know exactly how it all works and all the principles behind it, but my ears don't work!

[netwarrior]

thank you! now picture is getting more clear 4 me

i also have found DJ Vespers tutorials on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDmSJsY5 ... re=related

what do ya think about them?

[anybody human]

Yeah those are preety good i think. There's a cool effects rack linked in one of his vids. If you like those you'll really like Mister Bill and Tom Cosm etc. Also, check out the Fabfilter Pro Q tutorial, it goes thru the frequency masking thing. I'd throw out links but I'm typing this on my phone and haven't figured that copy & paste thing out yet.

[netwarrior]

thank you, ill be waiting those links:)

yep, ive seen Tom Cosm videos, but he has somelike his own method understandable only to him and not really my type of music .

[netwarrior]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNYBbPA ... =1&index=3

i think this one is great explanation

i just bought myself this magic eq

[anybody human]

Yep that's the video. And that eq is fantastic.

[netwarrior]

yep its the best eq ive ever seen better than ableton's built in...as its not so accurate

[anybody human]

Here's the link to Mr. Bill's tutorials.

http://www.mrbillstunes.com/services_tu ... _video.php

[netwarrior]

mr bills tutorials are nice.
any more suggestionsz?

[netwarrior]

up