All language subtitles for Mixing Kick and Bass (for a full yet tight low end mix)

I get asked about mixing Kick and Bass
a lot,

so today I'm going to take you inside one
of my recent mixes and show you how I mix

the two in an indie rock mix
for a full yet clean, low end.

Hi, I'm Sara Carter from simply mixing
Dotcom, where each week I bring you simple

practical advice to help
you get better at mixing.

Mixing kick and bass can become
problematic because

they both occupy the same area
of the frequency spectrum,

resulting in frequencies
building up and causing mud.

So how do we get the two to play
nicely together in this video?

I want to share my process when I mixed
kick and bass in a recent session.

And while you're watching,
please like and share this video and then

check out the link in the description
for my Clarity and separation guidebook

that will go over the more advanced
EQ methods for mixing kick and Bass.

Before I take you into my session,
I want to first of all say

that you've got to be able to hear the low
frequencies to be able to mix them.

And the golden rule is don't
boost what you can't hear.

Now, some small studio monitors might not

go down low enough to be able
to reproduce those low frequencies.

So you need to check out the spec of your

particular monitors
to see how low they go.

Typically with kick and Bass,
the low frequencies go as low as 15 hertz

and some smaller monitors just
can't reproduce those frequencies.

They can't really go much
lower than 40 or 50 hertz.

So you need to find out the lowest
frequencies your monitors can reproduce.

This is where having a really good set

of studio headphones comes in handy as
they tend to be able to reproduce

the lower frequencies down to 15
hertz or even lower in some cases.

OK, let's jump into it.

OK, so here we are inside Pro Tools and I
just want to show you this session.

It's the last mix that I've done and I

just wanted you to see what I did
to mix the kick with the bass guitar.

So let's let's have a listen, shall we?

Give you something to listen to.

It's an indie rock tune
and it comprises of drums, bass, guitar, a

few keyboards, some strings in the intro,
electric guitars,

then we've got some lead vocals,
it's just one vocalist,

but we used several different vocal tracks
to get the sound that that he wanted.

Some of that is very
highly processed, some is,

some is not.

But it is quite heavily distorted,

which was the aesthetic that they
wanted to go for, for this song.

Then there's a whole heap
of backing vocals, OK.

All the tracks go through, they each
instrument set has its own auxillary.

For example, you can see
the backing vocals here.

They all go through an auxiliary and then

that auxillary goes through
these all busses.

So the All Buss for backing vocals
is called all backing vocals.

And there's one for the lead vocals,

the strings, the keys,
guitars, bass and drums.

So all the instruments file through these

auxiliary tracks here
before they hit my mix bus.

OK, so.

Let's, uh, let's play a little bit for you
so you can get an idea of the vibe.

OK, so what I like to do is when I'm
thinking of the low end,

I like to think of which instruments I
don't particularly need to occupy the low

end because the low end has
only got so much it can take.

You know, think of a bucket and it's
got "low end" on the side of it.

You fill it up with too much
stuff and it's going to overflow.

And that turns into a muddy mix for us.

So there's only so much a mix can
take before it overflows of low end.

And so I've got to make some decisions

of what instruments I'm going
to allow into that low end.

And quite obviously it's going to be

drums, namely the kick drum
and the floor tom and rack tom probably.

And it's going to be the bass guitar.

It would also be bass synth, for example,

if that were the case
in this track but it's not.

So the electric guitars have that sort
of low end information in them.

I had to work quite hard with these

guitars to get them to to work
for me in this track.

I think from memory it was because they

were all recorded with the same
guitar through the same amp.

And so it was just all sounding
quite the same and one dimensional.

And some of the sounds I was given
were quite harsh and ear piercing.

So I had to address that,
which is why you'll see that pretty much

every track has got an EQ plugin on it
where I've had to go in and cut bits out

and add bits in,
in different places to try and make

the guitar sound different and to give
them some space and width.

If we look here on the verse guitar,

that's what we just listened to the verse
here, these three guitar tracks.

I've got an EQ plugin on each one of them
and I'm rolling off 90 hertz on that one.

I'm rolling off eighty on that one
and seventy on that one.

So, and some quite drastic notch cutting
going on here for some resonances.

Now, those guitars on their
own sound like this.

Which is kind of thin, but once you
get the bass guitar going with them.

So the bass guitar is totally filling

in the missing 90, 80, 70Hz
that I've filtered out there.

And what that's doing is giving me more

room in that low end bucket to be able to
get more powerful kick and bass sounds.

Let's have a look, see what I was
doing then with the kick and the bass.

I'd got rid of the low end information

in the guitars I didn't think I needed
or that would cause me some issues.

And then with the keyboard, actually I
did the same thing, even higher 225.

So that low end is nice and clear

and ready to be full of bass
guitar and kick drum.

So let's take a look at what
I did with the bass guitar.

I think, first of all,

I was given one track, just one
individual track, and I duplicated it.

And then I separated the tracks
in frequency by using a high pass filter.

So on this second duplicated track that I

created that I've called Bass AMP,
I've rolled everything below 200 off

in a kind of gentle fashion,
if you listen to that.

That sounds quite thin,

but then on the opposite end
of the scale, we've got this.

So when you blend the two
together, you get this.

And what that allows me to do is

to control the low end
separately from the high end.

So if I need more definition

from the strings, from the pick,
from the fingers on the fretboard,

I can get that by pushing
this bass AMP track, which is distorted

and has got that low
role off applied to it.

And that's typically something I would do
in a chorus for example,

I didn't do it in this case,
but I have done it in the past where if I

want a bit more excitement
then I can just push that high end bass

guitar so that it just pokes out
of the mix to get a bit more energy.

What I've done also with this bass guitar

at this group level,
because these two tracks

are fed through this bass auxillary,
I've applied more EQ and lots

of compression and some limiting to make
sure that that bass sit's nice and solid

and doesn't deviate and continues
to drive the track forward.

I've also got some harmonics being added

here from this Maxx Bass plugin
and the lo-air plugin to give me a bit

more definition on smaller speakers like
laptop and phones and then the lo-air,

not quite sure what it does,
but it gives a thickness

to the low end without it becoming
overpowering and woofy.

I can demonstrate those for you.

So you could hear there what each of those

imparted, definitely low end
from the lo-air and a little more sort

of presence or point I suppose
through the maxx bass.

So, yeah, I do a lot of compression, which
also adds thickness to the bass guitar.

So I've got the C4 here from Waves,
which is a multi band.

All that's doing is it's working
on the lower frequency range there,

that 250 hertz and below,
and that just really locks it in.

Take a listen to this.

Can you hear that thickness that it

that it brings in,
it's just making,

it just sits there in a thick line,
I don't know how else to describe it.

Just a solid foundation for all the other

instruments in the arrangement and then
I've got a series here of compressors.

I've got CLA 76, the MV2, which is the
high and low level limiter from waves.

And I've got the Pro Q3 that's just
rolling off a little bit there, 30 hertz.

That's where I like to feel the kick drum.

So I like to get the bass guitar out
of the way of that low end feel that

I just prefer to hear occupied by the kick
drum rather than the bass guitar.

Rolled off some high end there as well

at six and a half just to keep things,
again, them from getting too fizzy,

because the guitars, the electric
guitars in this track were very fizzy

and with the distortion I've added here,
I just did, you know,

wanted to control it a little bit more
at the latter stages before I started

really limiting it
and compressing it even more.

So I've got shadow hills that I use very
gently and the channel strip from

Plugin Alliance,
which is the SSL 4000 E emulation.

All I'm doing here is I'm just trying

to bring out more strings here at five
and three and that sort of 800 hertz there

again is for the small
speaker environment.

So the laptops and the phones,

because they typically don't produce
much in the way of low frequencies.

So this is the area where you can really

pull out the bass guitar so that you
can hear it on a small speaker setup.

And adding a touch of 200, which is
above the sort of kick drum range.

So it keeps out of the way of the kick

drum so that I can keep the two
sounding separate and distinct.

So that's what I do, what I feel
is I need to do on bass guitar.

I just want it to sit there, solid,
a solid foundation for all the other

instruments to sit on top of and by using
compression in different layers.

That's how I'm able to do that.

And different flavors
of compression as well.

Then some harmonic additions here

from Maxx Bass and low-air
just to really fill it out.

Then right at the end of the chain,
I've got this filter and this changes.

This is something I would change near
the end of the mix when I'm fine tuning

things, if I feel as though the low end
has got a little bit out of control

and that the bass guitar is just creeping
a little bit into the low end of the kick,

then I'll use this plug in just to dial it
back a little bit to bring the very low

end of the kick back into focus
on this mix.

It's at twenty hertz oK, so.

That's the bass guitar.

Let's remind ourselves how
that sounds with the kick drum.

When I start a mix,

I typically start with the drums
and then I'll bring the bass guitar in.

When I started this mix,

I would have listened,
first of all I would have checked

that the phase is all
correct between the various drum tracks.

So the kick and the overheads
are all in phase.

So the kick then, I would look at it,
make sure that it's in phase

with the overheads and I look and I listen
and it's rising up

and it was rising up in the overheads,
so I was reasonably happy with that.

If it is out of phase of course,
that's where you lose the bottom end.

So it's a really important check to make
that the kick drum and the toms are all

in phase with your overheads
and the snare, of course.

OK, so that being said, phase is good.

I will go in and do some processing
and have a listen to these drums.

So the drums, the drum shells all go

through this drum auxiliary here before
it heads off to the all drums buss.

And this is where I've done some global EQ

work to the drum shells
in this plugin by UA.

I've got the Neve 1081,
which I'm driving to get a little bit

of saturation going and all I've done is
I've taken some 15k added a little bit.

I've added a tiny bit of 3.9K,

which is going to be that click
and attack of the stick.

I've done a significant
cut at 390 to clean up that.

The low mids that's a typical area that I

would clean up is in that sort
of 330, 390, 470 area.

Just, I'll flick around there to see
where it sounds good to my ears.

In this case I settled on 390 and that is

going to give me space
for the bass guitar.

The low end of the bass guitar will sit
nicely there, the low mid and then here

at 56 hertz I'm boosting and that's really
kick drum in the chest kind of area.

So let's see what that's doing.

It's going to add some gain
because of this drive.

But have a listen to this.

That's doing a lot of the work there
for me really, just that one plugin.

Then it's going through this
Townhouse SSL compressor.

This is the SSL compressor

from the console
that the Townhouse Studios removed

and reworked somehow,
I'm not quite sure what they did,

but that's it's a great compressor
that I enjoy using on the drum bus.

Just brings
more weight and depth to the kick drum,

I'm not using it heavily, just one
or two dBs that's all you need, OK.

The other thing worth pointing out as

we're talking about compression here is
I've got some parallel compression going

on, which is this kick snare crush
using this, the DBX160 plug in

again, blended in quite subtly,
but you can hear the difference there,

particularly when
the whole track is going.

It really brings the drums forward.

I've also on this particular track,
I was experimenting with this distortion,

which is using the Studer
tape emulation plug in.

It's using the Decapitator plugin.

We've got the API 550A here

adding 100 hertz, 3k,
and then this great plug in by sound toys

called Radiator, which is
even more distortion.

This is something I picked up
from a mixer for Brian Moncar's.

It's just parallel distortion or a dirt

track, whatever you want
to call it, for the drums.

And it does a thing
with the phase as well.

So you dial it in and it,

apart from adding distortion,
it plays with the phase.

So you can see you could
be careful how you use it.

Let's see if we can hear that working.

Yeah, there's a slight phase shift there,
but I like how it really brings the drums

forward and more parallel
compression from the Fatso.

This is an Andrew Scheps thing
again I like doing.

So that's adding warmth as well.

You can see that just by, they're

not doing a whole lot on their own
but when you start adding them on top

of each other, they really
do some nice things.

And because they are all just adding

subtleties in their own way,
it amounts to a nice effect I think.

The other thing I've
got here is a drum sub

and to be absolutely honest with you,
I'm not sure how much this is doing.

Let's take a listen and see
if we can find out.

Yeah, it's really low,

the build up to the 30 Hertz area,
you may not be able to hear that depending

on the monitors you're using
and the headphones you're using,

but it's definitely adding something
down in the real low, low end.

So that's what it sounds like when I take

all my parallel compression
and parallel distortion off.

That's how I kind of got to the low
end there of my drum kit.

If we go up to look at the kick drum
in a bit more detail,

what I'm doing here is initially I'm
getting it so that I could,

so that I'm kind of removing
a little bit of the sustain.

This stops it becoming really wooly
and masked by the bass guitar.

So all it does is just shorten
the length of the kick.

It's really quite subtle.

I'm just using the standard preset kick
short on the Fab filter Pro G,

then the kick is going
through this kick auxillary.

Usually I've got more than one kick track,
but on this track I wasn't given that.

These drums are programmed drums.

They're not real in a live room with tons

of microphones, but they're very,
very good samples.

So on this kick auxillary,

I've got an EQ and I'm rolling off some
of the top end because I felt as though it

was a little bit too much going on up
there, particularly with those guitars

that were getting quite
harsh and piercing.

I didn't have room in the top end,

that 6k region, that's where
my guitars and my vocal is.

So I don't need kick drum up there.

So I've just rolled that off somewhat.

And then on the channel strip,
the SSL channel strip by waves.

I'm just using a little bit of compression

and I'm scooping out about 750 hertz,
scooping some out there, which

makes a nice little pocket
for my bass guitar to sit in.

So that sounds like this.

There's a bit of a level drop there

because of this, the fader,
drop the fader down here,

the main effect is, is that low mid cut
to make room for the bass guitar.

Next, I'm using a transient designer.

I used this on this particular
mix here in the chorus's.

Just to add a little bit more point

to the kick to get it to poke through the
very busy choruses, those high guitars.

I just felt as though it needed
a little bit more attack.

Then I've got the Scheps 73.

This is where I've decided
to add some 60 hertz.

I don't have these all in,
they're all bypassed when I start the mix,

as I go through the mix,
I'll introduce them one by one.

I start with the drums,
then I'll go to the bass.

So when I did the bass,
I may have come back here and activated

the Scheps plug in and had a little
play with the 60 hertz here.

And same for the lo fi,
because that adds low end,

as well as distortion and it's just a
real nice thickness I really like.

Have a listen to this.

It also acts as a nice kind of easy way

for me later on in the mix to play about
with the kick and snare levels just by

using the distortion knob
here and even just one click.

And it's amazing how it just helps

the kick drum come through the mix
just by the right amount it's amazing.

So that's the, that's what
I did to the kick drum.

The final result being what you've heard.

And I think you'll find that the kick
is nice and clear on its own.

The bass guitar sounds like it's in its

own space and it's supporting
the electric guitars nicely.

And that low end sounds clean yet full.

And this is how I was able to,
to achieve it on this particular mix.

One last time, let's see
how that all sounds.

OK, hope that was informative for you,

and if you have any questions about that,
drop them in the comments.

So there you have it.

A mix can only take so many low end
frequencies before that low end bucket

starts to overflow and your mix becomes
muddy and the low end gets out of control.

So how can you check if
your low end is too much?

Well, that's where references come in.

Having a commercial mix to reference your

low end to will soon tell you if
you've gone too far or not far enough.

And finally, remember,
you don't always have to reach

for the more advanced techniques of
side chaining or frequency slotting.

Just do your basic level balancing and EQ

work first before calling on those
more advanced techniques.

So I hope you found the video useful.

And if you want to learn more about those

advanced EQ techniques,
then be sure to click the link

in the description below to get my free
clarity and separation mixing guidebook.

Then consider subscribing and click

the bell to get notified every
time I release a new video.

That's it for today.

Thanks for watching and see
you in the next one.