Bass guitar and kick drum separation in a mix

I've got an old Korg D8 and have just got a pair of KRK RP5's to add to my little studio set up. I was trying to mix a few songs that I've recorded recently and was coming into problems with getting good separation between the kick drum and bass in a couple of tracks. They seem to be in the same frequency range sometimes and aren't as distinct as I'd like to hear.

I can boost the volume of one against the other but then the overall volume of other instruments needs to come up to compensate. So is there any acknowledged techniques I can apply to tweak the frequency ranges of these low end notes without adding to their volume?

The Korg is a bit limited with the eq adjustment as it only has high and low eq's which are calibrated between -15 and +15 so I've no idea which particular frequency ranges are being adjusted at any given point.

Any insightful comments would be helpful.

rolling the lows off the bass guitar off below ~100Hz and doing the opposite for the kick (cutting everything over 100) will give each its "sonic space." this is tough with a drum machine, but carving an EQ notch on the drum machine track at the bass' sweet spot (generally about 200Hz — experiment!) will usually work without taking too much off your low toms. i would use the software EQ rather than the Korg EQ for this so you have more control over your mix as you go along. remember, subtractive EQ (cutting frequencies) almost always sounds better than additive (boosting frequencies).

panning-wise, it can also help to take them both slightly off dead-center for a little separation — even a tiny bit can have a marked effect.

http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/production-master-class-blending-kick-and-bass/

OK then. Now for the next question on this subject!!

I finally got these songs onto a cd that plays on all the cd players I've got.

The mix on these songs sounds quite well balanced on the car and mini systems and on the cheap PC speakers but on my good hifi system the kick drum sounds overly boomy and prominent in the mix. It sounded OK through the KRK monitors.

So, what should I do, if it sounds OK on 3 out of 4 systems? Do I adjust the kick drum down into the mix so it's not so prominent on a good hifi system or would you leave it as it is given that the majority of people tend to have average quality systems and aren't listening on expensive hifi's?

If I adjust the kick downwards then it might get lost on average systems but sound good on expensive systems?

Do I compromise or should I err on the side of the majority of systems where it sounds fine?

i would try some EQ and possibly compression ... try it on a couple more systems if you can, like an inexpensive boombox and a friend's home system, to get a clearer picture. it's possible your good stereo enhances the bottom end, as some consumer systems tend to do — but you still need to tame that kick, and EQ might help.

please note that my opinions are from the standpoint of a journeyman home recordist — no way i can address the matter with the depth of the Master Class guys in Stu's link.

Compress, and if you can compress only the lows (either using a multiband compressor or running the kik through an eq and letting only the lows through and then into the compressor) try that. Might tame the boominess while keeping everything else as is.

You could also try bringing up the frequency where the beater hits the kik drum's head - which can be surprisingly high - to bring out a bit more definition, or fiddling with some of the mids in the bass to do the same (the octave between 500 and 1k is where I'd have a listen.). But that can throw other things out of whack - interfering with guitars, vocals etc. So, proceed with extreme caution there if everything else is sitting where you want it.

Other eq ideas are choose a different center frequency to boost. So if one is at 100hz, the other will be at 80 or even a bit lower.

But it all depends.

Are your home stereo speakers set up so they're in a corner or with their backs right up to a wall? If so, try moving them out a couple feet and see what that does to the boominess in your mix. It might just be where your speakers are or your room itself might be boomy. It might not be the mix.

Cheers,
geoff

Are your home stereo speakers set up so they're in a corner or with their backs right up to a wall? If so, try moving them out a couple feet and see what that does to the boominess in your mix. It might just be where your speakers are or your room itself might be boomy. It might not be the mix.


excellent point! i learned that lesson with my studio monitors (hung them too close to the wall AND the ceiling). as a test, you could plug a set of good headphones into your stereo amp and see if it still sounds boomy.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I don't think its the position of the hifi speakers as the car speakers are also showing the kick drum boominess. I reckon I need to go back and tinker with the drum tracks and see what can be done there.

Will let you know how I get on.

You can make the bass guitar more audible by accentuating the low-mids (200-400 cycles) as you record. Try using a pick instead of fingers (if that's how you play bass), close micing through a few different amps, not recording direct. Get the mic off to the side of the cone to diminish the very high freq stuff (pick click, fret noise).

And as Geoff said, bring out some of that beater sound from the kick. Could be a bit tricky with just high and low eq, without frequency sweep. Usually, you need some kind of parametric or a good graphic to find that head snap. If you use that same high frequency control on everything in the track, any beater snap you get out of boosting that high eq control will just get lost in the traffic jam around whatever frequency that thing is locked in to.

Del — i just reread this whole thread and realized i wasn't clear on one thing: are you tracking to the Korg and mixing down on computer, or are you mixing down on the Korg?

if the latter, then a lot of our replies are presuming capabilities the Korg doesn't have, particularly EQ-wise. i checked out the specs on the D8 and saw the EQ is a typical 2-band 100Hz/10KHz configuration ... not a whole lot of flexibility. reducing the bass on the kick may be your only option, then also reduce it on the bass guitar and bring the volume up a tad.

if you're indeed mixing on a computer DAW, forget i ever said a thing!

I agree with woodman...depending on the size/shape of the room you may be experiencing room modes...where one frequency dominates over others in a mix. If you have a spectrum analyzer you can see which reqf is doing that and dial it don with a parametric eq...hope this helps

I've been recording and mixing on the Korg and then transferring the stereo song to Cubase on the PC for final editing and 'mastering' between tracks to get similar volumes, etc.

The D8 has a very basic eq facility and doesn't allow for anything fancy to be done but I think I've got it sussed now.

I reduced the lows on the kick drum and bass and added some highs to each and the boominess has been eliminated and the overall sound is much better.

I've been recording and mixing on the Korg and then transferring the stereo song to Cubase on the PC for final editing and 'mastering' between tracks to get similar volumes, etc.

The D8 has a very basic eq facility and doesn't allow for anything fancy to be done but I think I've got it sussed now.

I reduced the lows on the kick drum and bass and added some highs to each and the boominess has been eliminated and the overall sound is much better.

You should do some googling on "audio ducking". If Cubase can use effects plugins that are side chainable you can set things up so that everytime the kick is hit, bass parts with similar frequency will be gated out or dratically reduced in volume.

I've been recording and mixing on the Korg and then transferring the stereo song to Cubase on the PC for final editing and 'mastering' between tracks to get similar volumes, etc.

The D8 has a very basic eq facility and doesn't allow for anything fancy to be done but I think I've got it sussed now.

I reduced the lows on the kick drum and bass and added some highs to each and the boominess has been eliminated and the overall sound is much better.
You would be better off transferring the individual tracks to Cubase and mixing it in that platform. The native eq's and compressors in Cubase will be much better than the Korg.

Along with EQ carving and compression, something a lot of people don't do is panning the kick and bass just out of center, away from each other. So many people swear by "IT MUST BE PANNED DEAD CENTER", but if you take the kick and pan it just a tiny bit to one side, and the bass a tiny bit to the other, it most assuredly helps.

ALSO. Don't overlook the importance of rolling off lows on every mic source that doesn't need low end. Highpass everything that isn't kick, bass, maybe room if you want a boomy room tone, and sometimes floor tom (although I still roll off the lowest lows in it). You don't need 40 hz or 80 hz or 120 hz in your hat mic, or your snare mic, or your overheads, or your guitars, etc. This will help in defining the low end signals.

AND.

Having an accurate place to listen to mixes is crucial. If you've got reflections everywhere in your mixing room, and the speakers are right next to the wall, both facing straight out and not angled, right next to but slightly behind the computer monitor, all in the corner of the room, your mix coming out of your monitors will not sound anything like it really does.

Personally, I would put bass DEAD CENTER in the stereo field and move the bass drum 'slightly' away from center.
All the suggestions above regarding EQ is also good to mess with.

I put 'em both dead centre. I figure if I can't get them happening together panned to the same location, I got problems I gotta sort out other than via panning.

Buuuuut. Us mere mortals (ie non-pros) often have problems with the lowest couple or three octaves because the rooms we work in often have problems dealing with those frequencies (nodes etc.), our monitors often have problems there (and do things to extend the low a bit lower at the expense of "truth" in that region), and most of our non-critical listening (for most of us) is done on systems that aren't real good there either. So we (well, me anyways) don't have a very good grasp on how things are supposed to sound in a good room on a system that can reproduce those frequencies.

Anyhow, it isn't as easy as it sounds (ah, a pun) to get the kik and bass clicking together.

As always, practice grasshopper.

Cheers,
Geoff