"Notch the bass-line to give room for the kick"?

[penumbra]

What exactly does that mean?...

When any of "you guys" have done this, I understand that you are doing it so Kick AND Bass fit better... but, by notch, do you literally mean "Notch-Filter/Band-Reject"?... or simply just a deep-narrow cut of however many db's it takes?

I'm also confused because I think of a kick drum as having quite a bit of lo-end information, as does a bassline... and to think that a narrow notch (which is much more narrow than the kick /bass freq. content) is gonna make a difference... although perhaps it does.

[Hepta]

Notch or cut. I think it means that you just have to leave enough space for your kick so they don't clash. It doesn't mean Notch-filter/Band-Reject literally.

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah, it just means cut a hole, with EQ, in the bass where the main "meat" of your kick drum sits to allow them both to be present in the mix.
Generally the main bulk of a kick sits somewhere 60-120hz. But obviously this all depends on the type of kick and where you want it emphasised.

[oddmyth]

These ADSR EQ Masterclasses will help you

http://adsrsounds.com/eq/eq-masterlass.html
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[day.one]

These ADSR EQ Masterclasses will help you

http://adsrsounds.com/eq/eq-masterlass.html
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... kxK83r9PpZ

Thanks for this.

[penumbra]

Great!!!

Thanks a lot everyone...

[penumbra]

I don't know, I guess I over think audio production sometimes.. as if the tracks I hear have a bunch of sounds all playing together that have a lot of common freq. content... but, its really as simple as this... If i have two people standing in front of me, and I want to see them both clearly, then I can't pile them on top of one another... I need to have either, stand them side-by-side (panning), stand them one in front of the other, but with one of them standing far enough behind the other to see them both (depth/dimension), OR, if they are going to "stand on top" of one another, then I need to "cut" one dude's legs off, and cut the other guys upper-torso off... and I suppose various combinations of all of the above can help make 'em both more distinct in the mix.

I suppose I've been watching too much Clive Barker lately... he he..

[Lost to the Void]

I definitely recommend cutting a dudes legs off to improve your mix.
Put it on YouTube when you go for it.

[Hepta]

For the simplicity...



Everything blends together nicely!

[rein]

well if you have say a kick at G1 49hz or something
you can put a bass note playing a perfect 5th at D2 73,5hz approx on top, and mix it way easier than say a A1 bass note on a G1 kick.
speakers don't like dissonance in bass
try playing chord like structures with respect to your bass, and you'll find mixing is a lot easier.

do not only think in terms of fundamental harmonics, but also look at your harmonics / overtones above the bass and kick.
for example if you use a synthesized bass sound for the D2 note, it could well be there's a peak at D3 depending on the patch.
if your kick happens to have crucial information for say the punch part around D3 147, try eqing this. especially patches with filter envelopes
with a fast attack can cause problems with other transient rich sounds like drums / kicks etc.
another solution is to try adjusting the filter envelope and see if you can fix the problem without EQ

etc etc

thinking about source sounds this way will save you a lot of headaches during the mixing process.

[penumbra]

I definitely recommend cutting a dudes legs off to improve your mix.
Put it on YouTube when you go for it.

so... did you release tracks under the name "Voidloss"?.. as in the following tracks: (pardon if the names aren't exactly correct)

- As the Blood Drains Out
- The First Doom House
- Saviour

and did Deh-Noizer & Electrorites remix another track as well?

[Lost to the Void]

Yes

[penumbra]

Yes

wow dude... Your stuff is straight GNARLY..

sometimes it reminds me of slowed-down jungle almost... like those tracks where, instead of a kick on every quarter-note, they are like, every three 1/16th-notes.

Back in the late nineties, there was a movement called broke-beat DnB... it was in the San Francisco dnb scene where artists like UFO, Juju, E-Sassin, Echo, Sage, and others started focusing on a similar rhythm.

Another thing that kinda' reminded of DnB were some of your subs... they sound like detuned sine waves or something along those lines... am I right about the detuned subs?

[Lost to the Void]

Well cheers, Ive always had a deep respect for the 90's era jungle sound, especially the really bass led minimal dark stuff.
So maybe that influence is always there in the background.
Industrial and ebm are probably a stronger influence.

For my subs I generally use a lot of treated field recordings and contact mic recordings. London underground deep fan vents are the best, the long vents on some of the extract fans act like bass horns, so you can record some lovely textural sub sounds, lots of fx piled on and they sound super.

[penumbra]

London underground deep fan vents are the best, the long vents on some of the extract fans act like bass horns, so you can record some lovely textural sub sounds,

that's.. just... awesome.

So then, the subs aren't exactly part of the key per se'?.. though, maybe those recordings do have an overall fundamental pitch, I don't know, but... I mean... do you tune those field recordings to the key or something?.. or just tune them to what "fits." ?

[Lost to the Void]

London underground deep fan vents are the best, the long vents on some of the extract fans act like bass horns, so you can record some lovely textural sub sounds,

that's.. just... awesome.

So then, the subs aren't exactly part of the key per se'?.. though, maybe those recordings do have an overall fundamental pitch, I don't know, but... I mean... do you tune those field recordings to the key or something?.. or just tune them to what "fits." ?

I tune by ear to fit, which generally means "in key". I like to use bass chords, it`s one of the No No`s of production, but I love the grating, bouncing dissonance from sub chords, it just requires hard work to keep it under control.

For "As The Blood Drains Out" the sub sitting under the kick is a big ass warehouse door having a car tyre rolled in to it at speed. Lots of processing has given it a huge boomy sub sound.

For "In The first Doom House" the sub bass is taken from electric feedback noise, the groove it plays is essentially created through the interaction between itself and the kick running in to compression and then heavy saturation. The compressor feeds the audio in to the saturation in a nice rhythmic but slurred way so not only do the kick and sub play off of each other groove-wise, but the saturation also changes state in a rhythmic way as the input drive is essentially modulated.

Compression is a great tool for the low end.

On "the Saviour" the sub is just coming from a kick generated via FM synthesis, resampled and pulled out and then shit ton of distortion and EQ.

Resampling, adding texture, resampling, is something I find myself doing a lot these days.

[penumbra]

...the groove it plays is essentially created through the interaction between itself and the kick running in to compression and then heavy saturation. The compressor feeds the audio in to the saturation in a nice rhythmic but slurred way so not only do the kick and sub play off of each other groove-wise, but the saturation also changes state in a rhythmic way as the input drive is essentially modulated.

Compression is a great tool for the low end.

when you talk about "groove" from the compressor... do you mean because of the release?...

also, with that 1st doom house track, is your kick lo-cut for the sub to fit under it?


and... so you compressed the kick with sub? what is the reason?.. to create the rhythmic-pulse in the sub?

[Lost to the Void]

Because the sub and the kick are running to the same compressor they play off of each other as the compressor reacts to the changing energy levels between them, the compressor is set to react to the dominant kick frequency so the kick takes precedent, the groove is then tweaked with attack and release, and the post comp saturation adds additional gel and grunge, again in a ryhtmic way due to the way the compressor is acting.

In the first doom house, the kick is low cut, but not specifically to allow the sub underneath, as the sub is relatively low in level and is forced out of the way by the compression.


Occasionally I group the sub/bass and kick together if I want them to interact in a certain way, generally to get some extra groove in there, and to gel them together.

[Mattias]

I'm also really into "bass chords" really great way to make solid low-end. Not recommended for the small standard studio monitor / bed room though.

[Patriek]

I try to avoid the have a bass and kick at the same time. But that's probably my own issue as i never found a way to make it sound perfect. Could also be cause my headphones/speakers are crappy like Mattias mentioned
I do like to try and make it 'one sound' so the lowend is filled up nicely with sub/bass.