bass and kick, 50-80 hz

Chris Jahn

New member
ive been reading about and experimenting with the idea that bass gutiar and kick drums share the same frequencys in the 50 to 80 hz range. the idea being that if you boost one you shuld pull on the other because they will cancel each other.

Now ive tried it, and its true, but then either my bass or my kick sounds like crap. they boht stand out more, but i lose that low end in one or the other. any suggestions.
 
Let the kick and bass work together, I've found you don't really have to make space for one or the other, let them blend.
 
working together

musically i agree they should work together, but in a mix they both tend to disapear because they share so many characteristics.

i asking about a way to hear them both in the mix, they tend to cancel each other with the same effect as phase cancelation if they share to many bandwidths.

but if you cut or raise those very band widths, one or the other does not sound to hot, mabye what im asking makes more sense now
 
If you find them clashing at all, then I think the bass can live without it's 50-80hz in most cases. Try EQ-ing out or even high-passing the bass starting at 50 and move that frequency around (up) and see if it helps. Not as a rule, but I don't think cutting bass under 90hz would hurt and might help.
 
jonnyc said:
Let the kick and bass work together, I've found you don't really have to make space for one or the other, let them blend.
Ive never had a problem with bass and kick competeing for space.
Im not usre what Im doing diffferent so I dont have this problem as Ive heard that this problem can be quite common.

I actually EQ the kick and bass pretty similar. I boost the low end, cut the low mids, and boost the high mids.

Eck
 
I prefer the bass guitar to extend below my kick drum.

Very generally, I'll find myself boosting +2db @ 85Hz with the Q in a nice 'bell' shape, cutting 1 - 2db @ 70Hz with a narrow Q, and then low shelf -2db @ 55Hz.

I then boost 1.5 - 2db @ 70 Hz with another nice 'bell' on the bass guitar. Because of the couple of db's I low shelf on the kick, It allows the bass guitar to breathe a little more while still blending both sounds.

I do also like to sweep through the mid/highs with a significant boost (+8db) and a narrow Q and find where the string pluck noise is most obnoxious, then move the boost a little left or right of whatever frequency that is , and slowly lower the boost to +2db, and widen the Q untill a definite string is heard, but not a harsh 'boingoing'.

Of coarse, all of the above frequency examples are purely subjective, and material dependant.

-LIMiT
 
the kick drum usualy peaks at 80Hz, the bass has a wider frequency range, the only time where the frequencies might cancel each other is when the bass plays around 80Hz, there shouldnt be a problem between the two sounds, unless the bass is playing constantly around 80Hz. You can try boosting the kick drum at 80Hz and cutting a bit of the bass around that frequency.
 
Ive never had a problem with bass and kick competeing for space.
Im not usre what Im doing diffferent so I dont have this problem as Ive heard that this problem can be quite common.

I agree. It's never been a problem. I'm actually surprised at how often I hear someone say they're "competing" for the same space. I wonder if people are determining this with their eyes or their ears.
 
If you side chain the kick drum to the bass compressor, and have the bass turn down a 3-6 db when the kick strikes, they will co-exist much better. :) Pay close attention to that release knob!
 
I agree. It's never been a problem. I'm actually surprised at how often I hear someone say they're "competing" for the same space. I wonder if people are determining this with their eyes or their ears.
Let's not forget that no two kick drums are the same, nor are any two bass recordings. Kick drums vary in diameter, skin composition, beater composition and tuning. Bass can be 5-string, 6-string, played only on the first three frets or up in no-man's land, DI'd or miked.

Sometimes the problem isn't even with the instruments or the recordings, it's with the monitoring. When your room is nulling certain bass frequencies at your listening position, it's doing so to both the bass and the kick, which tends to leave them sounding pretty much the same.

And finally, sometimes people mix with their ears, but their ears (read: their brain) tends to favor a certain sound as "awsome", and tried to get both the kick and the bass to have that same "awsome" punch, and they wind up sounding the same.

I concur with Ford's sidechain idea as a nice blanket solution for most of that. It's a tried-and-true go-to. I'd also add that - for next time - looking closely and objectively at each of the above factors and taking the opportunity to try and get them right at the source - i.e. select/tune the kick to cooperate with the bass arrangement, don't try forcing the kick and the bass to compete just because you like a frequency, but let them find their own sonic territories, make sure the problem is real and not just a product of your monitoring, etc. - and you might find yourself even more pleased with the overall results.

G.
 
With most stringed instruments, most of the energy is in the first harmonic above the fundamental note. Depending on tuning, key, and musical style, that would put the energy of the bass in the 80hz to 130hz range. I tend to make that range dominant for the low end of the bass and leave the 60hz and below for the kick.

As was said before, most of the tone of the bass is in the mids.
 
Fordvan just made a very rare (for him) non-idiotic recommendation.


But generally speaking, you'll tend to have a lot less problems if your kick and bass are fundamentally solid in the midrange; i.e. if the kick has ample beater slap (doesn't have to be clicky - just so long as you can hear the batter meeting the skin), and the bass should have at least a little of the throaty growl to it -- and even if that's not the sound you're going for, just a little can go a long way without being too obvious.

But overall, a kick drum should be quite focused and consistent in the frequency ranges it occupies ... enough to where the bassist should be able to work with it and find a good pocket, tone-wise. If it isn't, then it could be indicative of issues with the kick; i.e. there could be a funky resonance going on, or possibly a room issue.

.
 
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If the bass guitar is getting in the way, remove it from the song. Same for the kick drum. Then there's nothing to worry about.
 
And finally, sometimes people mix with their ears, but their ears (read: their brain) tends to favor a certain sound as "awsome", and tried to get both the kick and the bass to have that same "awsome" punch, and they wind up sounding the same.


G.

I used to have that problem. When I ditched that mentality my mixes sounded 4X better...:cool:

Pretty much everything else u said covered anything I was gonna say. U seem to do that alot to people...:D
 
I find that if I pull down the kick in the 200-400hz range to get rid of the "boxy" sound and boos the bass in the same, slightly, it tends to help separate them a bit better. That's just me, I prefer more of a metal "punch" kick sound and a growly, old Rickenbaker bass sound so this works well. YMMV.
 
I agree with farview on the eq'ing, and I read somewhere that the bass drum is coming in around 65Hz, bass guitar 80Hz give or take, but I always eq to the sound I want, not what someone sez is the EQ range, I did a funk song for a band, bass guitar sounded best at 125HZ this brought up the fingerplunk without level burst, and on bass drum added 14kHz slap, its obvious...how do you get a bass guitar and drum to sound the same anyhow? The side-chaining is a good key to nice eq'ing and I use it alot in analog to record....just snare and bass drum...right now I have a song that is driving me crazy, if you guys have any suggestions pleeaze...how can I get a snare to come up without hard limiting it? I've tried everything except put in a sample and remove the instrument....gimme a good midrange EQ? FX? New drummer? haha
 
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