mastering assistance...

[Riup]

im having trouble mastering my tracks for some reason...i want the bassline to really have a kick to it. the way i have it, you can hear it, you can tell its the bassline, but you cant feel it...its not my speakers or anything either. any help is appreciated.

[hurlingdervish]

there are a million things that could be wrong

most likely its not turned up loud enough, or the bass isnt LOW enough.

try using a highpass filter on your kicks to get rid of unneccesary frequencies down low whille still keeping the thump of it

try using EQ and boosting the 50-150 hz area

if you are playing the bassline at over 200 hz then its not really a bassline and thats probably why you dont "feel it"



audio sample would take the guesswork out too

[Riup]

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... RTJGa1E9PQ

theres a link for the unfinished track
at 44 seconds is really when i want the bass to kick in but it doesnt have the kick i want. i used a "bass booster" vst plugin in fl studio and put it at 100hz...

[hurlingdervish]

i used a "bass booster" vst plugin in fl studio and put it at 100hz...

that song is pretty nuts!

the bass is actually pretty good where it is

anymore of it and youll get distortion

i think its a matter of your monitor and headphones

[HxC]

I agree with what that doctor said.
Kick drums often "fight" for power with your bass line on a track.
A good strategy is to choose which one you want to be the lowest low (usually the kick but not always) then EQ accordingly.

Also if your woofers aren't at least 8" you might not be getting an accurate listen.

[tape smoke]

what i do is put the bass lower on the frequency specttrum and the kick a bit high up. sample usually fills the mids and highs, and bang a full body track. thats what i do anyway, i heard you can sidechain your kicks and bass so they dont clash , it will cut out the bass and the kick will cut in, i think this is called gating with sidechain. compressors do lots of weird things. i met an audio engineer who was showing me some insane things you can do with a compressor to turn things on and off , i was stoned drunk and on mushrooms but it made alot of sence at the time, haha .

[Riup]

i guess it does sound ok...ive been working on these 4 tracks NON STOP sense memorial day weekend... getting them ready to play at a club and introduce my self =P i did tweak it a little though, sounds a bit better. but its just when you listen to it over and over and over and over it all starts to string together kind of...

ill post the finished product(s) in the proper section

thanks!


also, master lo

what youre talking about where the bass cuts out for the kick and cuts back in and what not...
that can be done with an equalizer if done correctly
i used an equalizer to do that before made by blue tubes

[Nation]

If you don't know about side chain compression then you need to be informed.

http://sonictransfer.com/side-chain-com ... rial.shtml

This is a good technique for mixing a lot of heavy sounds and not have it all sound like mud. When the kick drum track hits the threshold on the compressor it will attenuate tracks being compressed and allow breathing room for the kick.

[tape smoke]

hi can you explain the process to side chain, like do you send the bass and kick to the same fx channel ?

[Nation]

The link in my last post explains pretty well how to do it in software with using a VST plugin in ableton Live, but version 7 of Live has a compressor effect with side chaining too.

But if you are using hardware, then you will want to put the compressor on the synth, guitar or bass as a pre-fader insert to the mixing board. This way the compressor effect is 100% wet. If the compressor has side chaining there will be an input to put the kick drum into and a select switch to turn on side chaining.

If you don't have a hardware compressor and just want to try the effect out then download the demo of ableton. The manual explains sidechain with the compressor well.

[Platypus Beird]

there are plenty of software compressors with sidechain that aren't in Ableton, basically sidechaining is setting a compressor to trigger or compress when a certain sound plays or a threshold is reached..

in this case the bassline would be compressed everytime the kick hits, assuming the kick is in the sub frequencies...it should be super fast release and attack, so fast that you don't notice the compression, you just feel the bassline and the kick...

I believe someone was saying that Flylo used sidechaining on the Tea Leaf Dancers song, on the chicks voice? I dunno, plenty of early scarface mixed by Mike Dean have wonderful examples..I think maybe "fuck faces" with devin, or never seen a man cry

over and out