Lessons

Lesson Info

Mixing the Low End of Bass

Now on this now that I'm back in this song after listening to that wes on I'm feeling first stuff I'm going to go with what we did at the end of the last section and I'm going tio high pass my sbt class a track and really focused the low end on the d I because I hadn't set that up in this section yet you need to clean this up I have too many tracks in here one second that's what I'm doing I did this yesterday but I'm just and today I'm just going to a low pass that d I so all its containing is my bottom end and then I'm going to do a similar high pass on the s v t so that it's not contributing to nearly as much bottom end as it is right now you guys I don't know how well that delivers over to people at home but you guys can hear what's going on where we just have that one wind and then someone we were gonna look where are low pass wass my vision is so bad it's at one forty so that's where we're going to high pass the sbt track so here as I sweep this out like right now I'm pretty extre...

me so I'm going to pull this back a little bit and open the top way confined like right here you can hear like the there's a little too much buildup, someone to go a little bit sharper and then in this area right here because on the other shrek mihai pad or low pass would be coming in like this. So we just effectively cut off around here, which is a little bit cut off like five dp of one hundred hertz where we were building up and I talked about this earlier I didn't have to do this in the last track because we weren't dealing with multiple tracks what we are going into a limiter, so whatever moves we make, fader wise, we're kind of ah, we can boost into it a lot with the fader in the limiter is going to take care of it at a certain point, you're going to hit a lot of distortions, so you've got to be careful with it, but that's what's allowing everything to blend without having toe over think all like a ton of different gain and fader changes as stuff different areas, frequencies of buildup and what not, and now I'm going toe listen through a portion of the song and we're going to do the same thing with the kick, and then we're going to do the guitar second this time to me on this song, the kicking, the base aren't really fighting with each other that much, so I would personally, in my experience, I wouldn't even start to worry about it at that point because this song so much more laid back, I don't really feel I wouldn't feel that there's a need to start compensating kick with base. I don't know how you guys, I'm definitely open to opinions on how you guys feel that you are relating right now, but when I listen through, I don't hear much of a problem. My biggest problem is there's way too much may be going on with the base period, so although I said I would do drones first, I'll ignore what I think's going on with the drum is because I don't think they're really interacting with each other too much you're with a different e q this time to do the same thing that's the guitar, you know, basic, you there we go, so here I'm still what I'm doing now is amusing, easier, cuter work look at her people home, its ssl like you and I'm going to pull a little bit of high, mid and a little bit of low med and I'm going to see how that starts to effect and see where we can compensate with guitars using the same principle of whatever I take away, I'm going to boost on the other tracks. So what I did right there I don't know if you guys they're hearing that it's still sticking out a little bit so we're going to compensate with the guitar before we make any like rash judgments, but I boosted the high mid and I cut the loman and I felt like it started to kind of pocket and with the guitar is quite a bit better yes hearing that someone to do compare what I did same time so boosted four point two wait and I cut seven so I'm gonna go over there they get tar and I'm going boost seven will boost a little less and I'm gonna cut the same amount they're living together a lot better at this point where they're doing the same thing they're starting to mesh is one tone, which is a lot of it there still some parts where I would like teach week and I'm noticing now is that way now I'm hearing a problem with the drums more so so as I said with before is it this accused a lot easier to look at then the other one? So I'm going to go to one hundred hurts and I'm gonna pull something out of the k or out of the base rather making sure that I am working I'm on the wrong track that's good to know, so I'm gonna put two d be out obviously, none of these numbers really relates anything except my own years and sound, and I'm going to go on. I'm in a boost to deviate one hundred with the s s l q on the kick and start to see how that relates with each other. What I've done here is I ended up boosting the kick and extra deby on one hundred versus what I cut from the base, but it definitely came back to life and it was what was like building up and kind of making itself disappeared just flood be became a lot more focused, which is to really simple e q moves and the cool thing with this is a cz you guys can see I used one e q this time I didn't need to use multiple instances, and why did that in the first one? Was just it was easier to look at, but this is I think everybody pictures when you picture your first thank you, it's just the simple knobs there's, no graphic and that's what's cool about the ssl interface and it sounds or the plug and sounds great. So, like the last song I'm going to go through and I'm going to turn all the killing that I just did off and everything is just a lot flood beer and out of focus in compares. I'm gonna go to the end driven part that we listen to and like rehab throughout the beginning and kind of see how that's affecting itself now and I might want to carve up extra space so that it's only taking a tiny bit of room up at this point now that I've, although I knew that was something that I wanted to impact my mix at this point, maybe it's sticking out like a sore thumb er it's not providing any effect at all, so we're going to check that out so definitely wasn't it's not showing up is much now that we've kind of massage things into place, so what I'm what I ended up doing is that would be something where I would automate it up like james murphy asked about earlier is because I know that the levels I know everything sounds right and how I wanted to do so at that part I would specifically boost that, and I could also deciding I taste like do I want like a more dense bottom and at that point and my wanting the grit of the top end now show the two differences slightly at this moment I'm impartial toe what I would want from that I just wanted to show how you can add impact, but let's use the high pass in a low pass to see what we could get out of that obviously that was an extreme example of the volume of the part, but I would have what I decipher it is what I wanted was the more less of the high end of more of the lowland in that part so show that and then we will move onto a different song in that's where I would take that part is that would have the extra well and I'm not cutting a ton of high and so you still get that extra dirt that we added for the effect but it would be a cool way to just end a song with impact by doing really simple stuff like adding a track instead of overthinking automation ah question for you and you're and you're in your experience at least in my ear to the end of that song you know you have ah a bass player playing with a pick rights you get that kind of clacking, you know and that's where he maybe took some of the high end out um you can often get you know, up a pick playing bass player where you hear more of that clock in the bass guitar not line up with the kick you know, just behind the kick to make him come together do you find that you know, cutting out some of that high end is some way around that to sort of assuage the disparity between what the bass player plays and where the kick is played by the drummer? No, I usually I understand that and that's usually one of me queuing you're talking attack and more you're we're talking kind of high end at that point. Yeah, um if I'm trying to kind of pocket the base away from the kick to make space in that regard instead of going any queuing stuff, I would even nudge a couple milliseconds of the bases hitting right after the cake and get it that way because I don't want to affect my tone as much. I'm gonna get my tones the way I want them and interact slightly with the q, but I want it make his harsh of a cut as just what did yes, I just low pass that eight or so I'm not going to do that extreme of a low pass to get rid of the attack. I would generally I would treat that by nudging orel tree bent in the performance issue because generally like I have my drum mix somewhat locked in before I'm at least how the drums are in my head before I'm tracking the bass player at all so just tell him to calm down and that's how I would go about that, but it's you could do that and you could really I know a lot of people that automate high passes and low passes per parts, but it seems a lot tedious. Where? It's something that you can really analyze in the actual tracks that you have, as well as the performance. That's. Something you do? A lot. Ok, perfect. Yeah. We have any questions at home as far as what we're doing right now. Ah, question from feynman asking if you ever use reverb, delayed chorus, et cetera on a bass track. You have really mentioned that so far. River no delay, no chorus. Yeah, what's. Ah, good idea to listen to that now. Usually I only if the bases coming out thin to me is where I will use a chorus and I'll use it as a send. And I believe I even have that set up in this session right now. So let me look sure do that's for feynman? Yes, let's. Give him some course as he asked the reason I would use choruses if I felt like the base was for a couple reasons. Excuse me if the base, if I couldn't get it to fit by using volume or e q or tone, you can sometimes use, of course, to make it feel wider. Well, it's still quieter. So it's not over impacting the mix, and I've used it for various reasons. Usually I use it is a kind of to medicate a bad performance really is something I would use it if I'm not able to get re allowed with the base or get the tone to fit the way I wanted the guy played a little bit sloppy taking these the chorus and the way it effects pitch and whip tio kind of smooth it out so let's take a look at that when we find a decent chorus in here it will take me a second because I've never used courses in pro tools I generally mixing logic I know I touched on that yesterday but I just turned everything down obviously and we're goingto got more with chorus what's this what this is doing is uh is you guys can hear here is just really smoothing out the performance is what I'm doing with coarse and that's generally all I would use course on base for is tio I was able to keep the apparent nous that it's when you're listening to this song you that's a song with base in it and you but you don't have it really loud took the player wasn't playing one hundred percent playing a little loose you khun I would use the course to kind of smooth them out the same way you would at a river bird distortion to a vocalist that's not the best but other than that like I've said usually true my instruments like instruments for the most part and use amps and more amps and more amps to get my sound for based but that's, where I would use chorus as faras reverb, I've barely rarely use any river, but all on base, I use reverb on vocals and drums, and even sometimes guitars. But the base waves are very thick, and base is very dense generally. So I don't find a lot of anything advantageous about sending that to a chorus other than if I once in a while on, like a hardcore mix or something very good, more sparse mix. I'll do a very, very light room mastering reverb that I'll put at, like five or ten percent after everything, and it kind of just blends everything together. But there is no time where the base is specifically getting sent to any sort of reverb it all.