It happens in every song i make i often stop working on songs and start over because everything starts to sound all sloppy and im not sure how to fix it. I feel like my overall mix would be much better if i could solve this problem.


Here are 2 songs i made the other day that i gave up on because of low end issues

https://soundcloud.com/thyristor/thyristor-atlas

https://soundcloud.com/thyristor/thyristor-annex

As an alternative to straight up side-chain compression of your bass, you can also just duck the lows with an EQ... this will unmuddy the beat some but will not give your bass as much of a "breathing" sound to it.

Have you properly high passed all the instruments that need it? maybe all the other instruments in the mix mud up the low end so it sounds sloppy. or maybe side chain the bass so that when the kick hits the bass ducks and will clear it up. Lastly would like to know how many bass layers do you have? do you have a separate layer for a sub bass?

Often times i use 2 separate layers for bass. 1 layer for very low steady/constant notes and another layer for medium-low rhythm/aggressive bass notes. It just crossed my mind now that i don't really have a defining line of when one frequency spectrum starts and the other begins or ends.   

Using a dedicated sub to play under 100-120 hz will clean up your low end a lot. Eq'ing your leads and chords properly so the mid-bass can sit between the sub and leads/chords is super important too!

I've been wondering about this a lot with my recent productions....is this the general school of thought? I find that it's definitely easier to control low-end dynamics when I have just my simple sine or triangle wave cutoff around 100hz and nothing else but the kick is allowed down there, and then the energy of the "bass" in the track comes from a mid-bass around 100-500hz which has the sub either cut out of it or didnt exist originally.

Is this how most people do their bass or is there some merit to the alternative: having just one bass patch that has a sub oscillator carrying the low end?

often times my low end bass sits at around 25-50hz, pretty low. at that frequency it can come across being quiet. How do i make a frequency this low be known in the mix without being overwhelming?

Its usually quiet. its a sub bass so when layered with the agressive higher bass it will sound as one. Btw what are you using for mixing? speakers or headphones?

You would never guess by my productions but im using Rokit 8's

great speakers! thats why you cannot really hear the 25 to 50 hz, Monitor speakers alone do not have below 50 hz in their frequency range. Would you have headphones to try and mix the very low frequencies?

great speakers! thats why you cannot really hear the 25 to 50 hz, Monitor speakers alone do not have below 50 hz in their frequency range. Would you have headphones to try and mix the very low frequencies?

They are great i just wish i could use them properly lol

For the longest time i was using a pair of in-ear skull candies but they seemed to have to much bass so i would naturally make my bass softer. on my monitors its the opposite causing me to make the bass louder. i cant seem to find a happy medium so iv just kind of been guessing. any recommendations?

Quote from: Miles Dominic on January 06, 2016, 04:00:16 pm

Using a dedicated sub to play under 100-120 hz will clean up your low end a lot. Eq'ing your leads and chords properly so the mid-bass can sit between the sub and leads/chords is super important too!

I've been wondering about this a lot with my recent productions....is this the general school of thought? I find that it's definitely easier to control low-end dynamics when I have just my simple sine or triangle wave cutoff around 100hz and nothing else but the kick is allowed down there, and then the energy of the "bass" in the track comes from a mid-bass around 100-500hz which has the sub either cut out of it or didnt exist originally.

Is this how most people do their bass or is there some merit to the alternative: having just one bass patch that has a sub oscillator carrying the low end?

This is what I do. A simple sine sub bass to sit below 100Hz and have only the kick down there with it. I cut the frequencies of the mid/main bass above that and even HP at 100-125Hz to ensure nothing else goes down there. It makes it pretty clean and youre able to isolate the sub to manipulate it much easier