Low End Mixing advice

Take some of those commercial mixes that you are playing on your computer monitors w/sub, that sound good you...
...and them play them through your mixing/monitoring system...and then compare them to your mixes there.
See if you can hear differences, and then try and adjust your mixes using those commercial references.

This is the best way to start to fix that problem. And as previously mentioned.......it's likely that your playback system is not as accurate as it should be. A good set of headphones can help you out here as well. Flat......accurate cans are not a bad way to take a better look at your bass. No matter what though............always play your favorite well known tunes through your monitoring devices to get an idea of how the bass should sound.
 
This is the best way to start to fix that problem. And as previously mentioned.......it's likely that your playback system is not as accurate as it should be. A good set of headphones can help you out here as well. Flat......accurate cans are not a bad way to take a better look at your bass. No matter what though............always play your favorite well known tunes through your monitoring devices to get an idea of how the bass should sound.

Thanks for the input.....I think I am getting closer to where I need to be. I did a lot of research and spent many many hours playing around with a heavy rock mix. Thing is, I get it to sound great to my ears(monitors and cans) and was actually excited for once, then I bounce it down to listen on a normal system and the guitars sound like hell. I scooped a lot of mids out of them and they sounded unnatural compared to commercial recording. I think I am going to scrap all EQ and start over with a flat response. One thing I did learn is that I have over done a lot of the EQ settings so need to start fresh. Hard rock seems to be a lot more difficult than just an acoustic song.
 
Thanks for the input.....I think I am getting closer to where I need to be. I did a lot of research and spent many many hours playing around with a heavy rock mix. Thing is, I get it to sound great to my ears(monitors and cans) and was actually excited for once, then I bounce it down to listen on a normal system and the guitars sound like hell. I scooped a lot of mids out of them and they sounded unnatural compared to commercial recording. I think I am going to scrap all EQ and start over with a flat response. One thing I did learn is that I have over done a lot of the EQ settings so need to start fresh. Hard rock seems to be a lot more difficult than just an acoustic song.

Looks like progress :)

Hard rock seems to be a lot more difficult than just an acoustic song.
For Shure .. :>) As the density goes up.. and more tracks are competing / sharing for the same space.
 
No problem. I dug out the box my AT2020 mic came in. The mic came inserted into a big foam block. I cut the end off that block of foam and taped it over the strings
at the bridge of my bass using duct tape (it won't come loose). Run the tape as you see it here so it won't pull the ends of the foam down (I still have to adjust mine a little).
The foam should be loosely fitted to the strings, not pushed down hard.

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i love this! cool solution
 
Like others are getting at, find the frequency that is so prevalent in the subs but not in the other sources. Remember subs pick up below typical speakers. So you can cut out fqs from subs and never notice on reg monitors.
 
I am a bit confused how low end mixing got turned into hair scrunchies on a guitar...

You only know what you can hear. If it not there where you mix, then solve the problem. And even that is just not that easy until you make it so.

Sorry, Mr. vague is in the thread. lol
 
Try sweeping a high pass filter up from 20Hz, first on the whole mix, then on the LF elements. I suggest this more for diagnostics than as a solution, but it might end up helping.

You can safely remove sub frequencies (30-40Hz and lower) on almost all tracks. You might leave it in on bass OR kick, but in most cases, removing ALL of those sub frequencies gives more headroom for the frequencies that really matter.
You can go a lot higher with the hi-pass frequency on almost all tracks, this will clean up a lot of unnecessary rumble.

A general low-end tip is to put the hi-pass (30-40 Hz) on the mix buss and add a subtle bell around the same frequency of the hi-pass. This will instantly make the mix's low-end tighter and warmer. (from one of those Waves mix tips videos)

Let us know if it's working!
 
If you are not hearing the same thing before and after the bounce through the same drivers(speakers or phones), it could be caused by full range compression or other effect on the master output , but I have found the easiest way to go wrong is to bounce before taking a break to reset your ears and check your mix. Ears are so sensitive to midrange that its easy to keep lowering it after listening for more than IDK 40- 50 minutes
 
I think I saw a vid where that particular eq setting was supposed to sorta emulate a Pultec style boost plus attenuate low shelf. Looks like it anyway
 
I think I saw a vid where that particular eq setting was supposed to sorta emulate a Pultec style boost plus attenuate low shelf. Looks like it anyway

I'm pretty sure it's a natural consequence of the physics of the filter rather than a design goal.
 
Some do. Depends on the EQ tho. They don't all do that...

Is that just a Reaper thing for the slope selected?

I was wondering that, I use ReaEQ all the time, but I have other EQs which could be used if they didn't do that little boost.
 
No problem. I dug out the box my AT2020 mic came in. The mic came inserted into a big foam block. I cut the end off that block of foam and taped it over the strings
at the bridge of my bass using duct tape (it won't come loose). Run the tape as you see it here so it won't pull the ends of the foam down (I still have to adjust mine a little).
The foam should be loosely fitted to the strings, not pushed down hard.

This was a big thing in the 60's and 70's, I had a foam block under the strings of my P bass in the 70's, in fact the P bass had a foam mute under the bridge cover, but everyone took them off. It was handy if using a lot of open strings when playing.

However there is no need to do it is the playing technique is correct. You should be able to mute strings with your fingers, or use a fretted position instead of an open string if short notes and no overtones are require. The disadvantage of the foam block is that it shortens the sustain of every note, so if playing long sustained notes they will be too short. A lot of muddy bass is bad technique and bad bass setup / string condition.

Alan.
 

Well... :D ...Boz kinda rambled his way through that and didn't really get to the heart of the matter.

In an analog hardware Pultec EQ...the reason the Boost and Cut don't cancel out when set to even opposite +/- levels (which someone might think they would since they are both set to the same frequency), and instead you get that low-end boost with "dip"...is because the boost and cut each have different equalization curves and gain potential, even though they are set to the same frequency. BY varying the boost/cut...or frequency...you can move that "dip" for the best results.
How those things are modeled in the various Pultec-style plugs, might give different results.

I've read somewhere that the reason behind the design of original Pultecs with those differing, simultaneous boost/cut circuits has been kinda lost in time...no one seems to know why they decided to do that in the first place...but it works. :)
 
Well... :D ...Boz kinda rambled his way through that and didn't really get to the heart of the matter.

In an analog hardware Pultec EQ...the reason the Boost and Cut don't cancel out when set to even opposite +/- levels (which someone might think they would since they are both set to the same frequency), and instead you get that low-end boost with "dip"...is because the boost and cut each have different equalization curves and gain potential, even though they are set to the same frequency. BY varying the boost/cut...or frequency...you can move that "dip" for the best results.
How those things are modeled in the various Pultec-style plugs, might give different results.

I've read somewhere that the reason behind the design of original Pultecs with those differing, simultaneous boost/cut circuits has been kinda lost in time...no one seems to know why they decided to do that in the first place...but it works. :)

Yep. :)
 
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