mixing technique help

[Nitemare2970]

got a couple of questions for some experienced sound engineers... or not experienced.

1. How do i get my bass drum to cut through the mix more- ive already cut all freqs below 75 on all the other instruments. Help??

2. When u record guitars, do u pan 1 all to the left and one to right or just slightly to left and right?

[avieth]

To get the bass drum to cut through, you'll want to free up some room around 80-150Hz for it.

As for the guitars, there is no proper way of doing it. If you have two guitar tracks you should do what is necessary to achieve the sound you want.

[NL5]

The only way to give you accurate advice is if you were to post an mp3 in the mix clinic.....

[benage]

If you are making a track with a quieter kick drum i.e. rock, I have found it sounds nice to let the bass guitar fill the very low frequencies 50-150hz and give the kick drum a 5-10db boost around 200hz. I also cut the same frequency 5db out of the bass guitar to make room for it. Increasing the beater click around 3khz can also increase the clarity of the kick. hope this helps

[MCI2424]

Originally Posted by Nitemare2970

got a couple of questions for some experienced sound engineers... or not experienced.

1. How do i get my bass drum to cut through the mix more- ive already cut all freqs below 75 on all the other instruments. Help??

2. When u record guitars, do u pan 1 all to the left and one to right or just slightly to left and right?

1. Whenever mixing, you must have either the bass or the kick "on point". Both cannot have the same sonic space. Cutting the 75Hz on all instruments just means you cut 75Hz from all instruments. You have to move the kick into anothe space. Pull up the bass and the kick and mix them alone eq'ing until they are both clear and sit in the mix. You may need compession on either or both to get a consitant volume through the whole song. Bring up one track at a time after this and find out if it sits well. Really, too much eq'ing means your tracks were recorded in a bad room or bad quality sources.

2. Depends on what you want. You can pan anywhere you want, but usually I find the best place is right in the middle (for a single guitar) and 9 - 3 for two guitars. If two guitars are hard panned, they have to be right on the money timing wise or you get drop outs that stand out.

[Nitemare2970]

thanks guys that helped a lot!!

Okay, here is a drum track that was recorded recently

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TTCDBRPB


Any suggestions, im striving for a metal sound by the way. I would record and post some bass and guitar but my bands bass player is in California at the moment and im in N.C., kind of a small problem.

Does the bass drum fit right in that mix??

oh btw, i dont think that the guitar source is the problem, they are recorded in isolation booths with a SM57 and they are low cutted. (but they could be the problem, im not an expert)

[jaybriggs84]

Typical EQ for a kick drum would be boost the bottom end(50-80hz), cut a lot around 800hz, you may have to cut up 12db or more depending on the drum and where the mic was placed, and boost some around 4k to get some sharpness from it. That should help. If you're compressing then use a slow attack and fast release. Cut some bass guitar where you boosted your kick.

I tend to avoid hard panning guitars for most things I do, but there's no rule for it or against it. Since you say you're doing metal music, then hard panning is pretty common.

[Seafroggys]

You know I do the opposite.

My bass drum's fundamental is 42 hz. I put a hi-pass at 55 hz, and a cut at 188 hz. This actually makes it cut more, since you remove the low end mud and knocking out at around the 200 area gets rid of mid ranged mud.

Plus notching out the 188 area frees up room for the bass guitar to cut through, since that's usually where the first harmonics run around in, which tend to be the strongest frequencies for the bass guitar.

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Nitemare2970

thanks guys that helped a lot!!

Okay, here is a drum track that was recorded recently

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TTCDBRPB


Any suggestions, im striving for a metal sound by the way. I would record and post some bass and guitar but my bands bass player is in California at the moment and im in N.C., kind of a small problem.

Does the bass drum fit right in that mix??

oh btw, i dont think that the guitar source is the problem, they are recorded in isolation booths with a SM57 and they are low cutted. (but they could be the problem, im not an expert)

Just because you get the drums to sound good alone, doesn't necessarily mean they will sit right in a mix with other instruments and vocals. They need to be mixed for the song with all the components of the song.

[ChrisBass]

You could also try using a compressor's sidechain to cut your bass guitar when the bass drum hits. This will make your bass drum stand out cleanly without having to sacrifice as much harmonic loss from cutting the eq.