Mixing the bottom end
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cavedog101
Well-known member
Much great advice. The old adage "less is more" really works in some applications. Knowing what to concentrate on in order to enhance it is also an eye(ear) opening experience.
Several years back when I assembled my current studio and was able to acquire very decent gear, one of the first things I went about doing was completely destroying the low-end reproduction in most of the projects I had recorded up to that point. Which was a bunch. I thought that with the addition of the power and flexibility of the programs and plugins at my disposal, it would be an easy thing to achieve high-end pro low end in the mixes. Which I later found, I already had........
Fortunately when I began to really get into the pro level aspect of digital mixing and recording, I knew someone who was successful in the business and I paid him to teach me. In many ways I was an advanced student as far as mic/pres/outboard/room setup/etc but I could barely start my computer.....let alone do anything about a crash!
Anyway......what I learned about the lowend is all about the energy and how it affects the mix of everything else. The advice about HPF a shade below 30hz is deadon....I'd even go above that in most cases of rock music in general, certainly country, jazz for certain, and Indie pop..I'm not sure there is a bass part....;-0. I learned to separate the lowend of the kik and the bass yet keep them as fellow team members holding down that part of an arrangement.
I ALWAYS mix to stems. getting alike things to sit together under the command of a submaster and using that to add your compression to just for those pieces will calm down everything at the main stereo out. I do NOT strap anything across the master. Most Daws and computers tend to collapse the mix a bit when there's too much information trying to go down a small pipe...In this way I control ONLY the parts of a particular set of sounds before being sent out through the 2 buss. The individual tracks you sweeten till you like them, then group things that work together in the mix and control these parts. One great benefit is the calmness of the master meter...you don't lose the deflections indicating headroom but you also don't have it bouncing all over.
I also start on three things before anything else gets added to a mix. Vocals, Drums, Bass or low end instrument. When these are done they get mixed into the 2 buss and never touched again. Everything else is gravy.
remember....HPF is your ally. If you have a particularly difficult bass track for example, compress it until you like how it sounds, print it to a separate track and then HPF that track and add it to your mix.
Several years back when I assembled my current studio and was able to acquire very decent gear, one of the first things I went about doing was completely destroying the low-end reproduction in most of the projects I had recorded up to that point. Which was a bunch. I thought that with the addition of the power and flexibility of the programs and plugins at my disposal, it would be an easy thing to achieve high-end pro low end in the mixes. Which I later found, I already had........
Fortunately when I began to really get into the pro level aspect of digital mixing and recording, I knew someone who was successful in the business and I paid him to teach me. In many ways I was an advanced student as far as mic/pres/outboard/room setup/etc but I could barely start my computer.....let alone do anything about a crash!
Anyway......what I learned about the lowend is all about the energy and how it affects the mix of everything else. The advice about HPF a shade below 30hz is deadon....I'd even go above that in most cases of rock music in general, certainly country, jazz for certain, and Indie pop..I'm not sure there is a bass part....;-0. I learned to separate the lowend of the kik and the bass yet keep them as fellow team members holding down that part of an arrangement.
I ALWAYS mix to stems. getting alike things to sit together under the command of a submaster and using that to add your compression to just for those pieces will calm down everything at the main stereo out. I do NOT strap anything across the master. Most Daws and computers tend to collapse the mix a bit when there's too much information trying to go down a small pipe...In this way I control ONLY the parts of a particular set of sounds before being sent out through the 2 buss. The individual tracks you sweeten till you like them, then group things that work together in the mix and control these parts. One great benefit is the calmness of the master meter...you don't lose the deflections indicating headroom but you also don't have it bouncing all over.
I also start on three things before anything else gets added to a mix. Vocals, Drums, Bass or low end instrument. When these are done they get mixed into the 2 buss and never touched again. Everything else is gravy.
remember....HPF is your ally. If you have a particularly difficult bass track for example, compress it until you like how it sounds, print it to a separate track and then HPF that track and add it to your mix.
I read an article a while back, written by some guy who has recorded, mixed and mastered with some of the biggest names. He went on to say how they sold over 10 million + records of a recording done on equipment that was totally inferior by most pro standards but because the MOST important element in any of these processes are the "Ears" they were able to pull it off. He went on to state that even though he works today in an absolutely high end studio with the best of everything, sending all 2 tracks out to one of the most renowned mastering facilities in Europe, he could still do it all on desktop or laptop today if he had too. He says because he knows how things need to sound on each playback device to transfer well to all others. He went on to say how much he respects those who really understand how all the gear works and how he wishes he had the time to learn it but he just does not. He said in the analog days we turned the knobs until it sounded good and that was that. He uses a slightly more elaborate version of that philosophy today in the digital world. Has some basic starting points for most recordings and just messes with things until they sound good. I think this is an over simplification of a process or philosophy that makes some sense. After all if your mix sounds the way you want it too and transfers to all or most playback devices well, I guess you are most of the way there. While the technical is always of value sometimes we make things harder than they need to be. Since for the most part I am happy with my mixes except for the way they transfer to low end speakers, maybe all I need is a 20.00 pair of speakers sitting next to my better gear to check my mixes on before I print them to anything. Just keep turning the digital knobs until the mix sounds good on all of the speakers and I should be a happy guy. If it were only that simple. Not a bad idea though.
Pinky
and The Brain...
Waves C6 and the L3 multimaxmizer are part of my master chain. The C6 is more/less glue and I adjust this very little from what the default 'mastering' preset offers, and the maximizer for hard limiting and priority (using the bands for EQ gain/priority). If I want to further smooth the mix I stack other plugins (an early EQ in the chain, other compressors, etc). It also helps to experiment with what order you're applying the plugins, I would never put EQ last or the hard limiter first, for example. I wouldn't say it's "easy", since you still need to know how to get what's coming from the speakers to sound like you're imagining/hearing in your head. The skill is understanding the tools, and not needing to reinvent the wheel every time you sit down to mix. Otherwise it could take days or weeks to work on a mix that would otherwise take hours with the right understanding. There are certain rules that, if broken, will yield poor results immediately. Knowing those pitfalls before you start a mix saves time/effort.
More importantly I upgraded my sub recently, so now I have a hard crossover (filter) from the sub to my monitors and can get very surgical with the bass frequencies if I want. Much of this is done while tracking and mixing. But I needed the right playback tools to even start producing the frequencies I needed to hear to adjust. On top of this, poor acoustics in the room will further color and disguise issues.
Most mic'd instruments get some degree of roll off below 100hz, bass guitar gets specific EQ treatment depending on its role in the song, and drums get a room reverb with a short t(r)ail so the kick isn't too boomy. I don't produce a lot of metal nowadays, but even on harder tracks I would still have some type of lower end cutoff so the guitars and bass weren't stacking in the lower end. Simple EQ notches for each to sit in seems to be adequate. Just a few things off the top of my head I use to manage the lower end BEFORE mastering.
More importantly I upgraded my sub recently, so now I have a hard crossover (filter) from the sub to my monitors and can get very surgical with the bass frequencies if I want. Much of this is done while tracking and mixing. But I needed the right playback tools to even start producing the frequencies I needed to hear to adjust. On top of this, poor acoustics in the room will further color and disguise issues.
Most mic'd instruments get some degree of roll off below 100hz, bass guitar gets specific EQ treatment depending on its role in the song, and drums get a room reverb with a short t(r)ail so the kick isn't too boomy. I don't produce a lot of metal nowadays, but even on harder tracks I would still have some type of lower end cutoff so the guitars and bass weren't stacking in the lower end. Simple EQ notches for each to sit in seems to be adequate. Just a few things off the top of my head I use to manage the lower end BEFORE mastering.
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andrushkiwt
Well-known member
Yes I do have the C6 and the full complement of the L series, L1, L2, L3 including the L3-16 multimaximizer. I've been working with the C4 on tracks and the master buss along with the L2Ultramaximizer on the master buss just because they are a little less complicated. Yesterday I applied high pass filters where appropriate with Renaissance eq's , and did some soloing to look for offending tracks. As I stated before Right now I most often am working with stereo music backing tracks along with individual vocal tracks. This is good and bad. If the engineer did a really good job on the stereo music and drum tracks a lot of the work is done and the vocals seem to lay in there pretty well. If he did not and the music track needs some punch or enhancement its tough because the instruments are not isolated on separate tracks. This is why mixing the music tracks on my current projects is a little more like remastering as the most I have worked with so far are premixed stereo music only track along with a premixed stereo drum kit track with separate vocal tracks. Not the most conventional way to do things but for now it is working when I find quality backing tracks. You really have to look but there are some out there.
