Bass Drum and Bass Guitar Fighting

[Robertt8]

so, i walked in the room last night to find my bass guitar down on the floor with the bass drum in a sleeper hold...well not quite...

I'm having issues trying to mix bass and bass drum (among the other instruments), but the bass is drowning out the bass drum at the lower frequency. I've kind of messed with cutting eq, but i'm afraid to cut to much out of the bass guitar...is there a good general rule here? or is it all to taste?

[beedub1]

Originally Posted by Robertt8

I'm having issues trying to mix bass and bass drum (among the other instruments), but the bass is drowning out the bass drum at the lower frequency. I've kind of messed with cutting eq, but i'm afraid to cut to much out of the bass guitar...is there a good general rule here? or is it all to taste?

As with so much of recording, a lot of it is up to taste. However, you should try to "accenuate" different frequencies in both the kick and the bass guitar. That will help to distinguish the two sounds. Also, be sure to get not only the bassy thump of the kick, but also the tight "snap" sound. Same with the bass guitar - bring up some of its mids...

[fenix]

you might want to try some multiband compression on the bass as well to compress the low end.

[Atterion]

Try running youe Bass guitar through a compressor, with the Kick Drum inserted in the Side-Chain. The Kick drum can than duck the bass signal win it is applied.
I do this often. In order to afford better control, keep the original kick drum track (which can be EQ'ed seperately as needed), and send it to the compressor side-chain (of the bass track), with an EQ inserted in between. You can then zero in on the clashing frequencies (Remember most compressors will allow you to listen to the side-chain input), and allow the compressor to work only when the clashing frequencies exist (as opposed to constantly ducking the bass with every kick hit). Hope this helps.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Sometimes you can achieve decent low end separation by boosting the bass guitar at 80hz and cutting it a bit at 100hz, and boost the kick at 100hz and cutting at 80hz.

Also, a lot of times I will boost kick OR bass at 2k, and the other at 4k, depending on what works best.

Doesn't always work, but a few times that technique has gotten me out of a low end jam.

[Ronan]

Try cutting the kick drum around 500Hz and boosting a bit at 4k and maybe think about putting a high pass filter around 50Hz. also try boosing the kick around 10k just a bit.

If the bass has any freqencies that seem overwhelming, try to lower those a bit.

These are all rough starting points that often work but USE YOUR EARS NOT MY NUMBERS. You should be cutting much more than boosting.