Turning volume down to make kicks shine through?

Robbb

New member
Does anyone ever lower the volume on one note in a beat that overlaps with a kick/808, in order to make the kick shine through? I am thinking about doing this with a guitar part. Will this technique help? If not? HOW DO I MAKE MY KICKS SHINE THROUGH THE MIX WITHOUT BRINGING THE ENTIRE BEAT OVER 0DB, AND WITHOUT MAKING THE WHOLE BEAT EXTREMELY QUIET?
 
Does anyone ever lower the volume on one note in a beat that overlaps with a kick/808, in order to make the kick shine through? I am thinking about doing this with a guitar part. Will this technique help? If not? HOW DO I MAKE MY KICKS SHINE THROUGH THE MIX WITHOUT BRINGING THE ENTIRE BEAT OVER 0DB, AND WITHOUT MAKING THE WHOLE BEAT EXTREMELY QUIET?

Now, I don't know, I was only told but...I suspect you are not tracking at the 'regulation' neg 20?

Dave.
 
I agree, It's an EQ issue. Probably too much happening below 300hz. I wouldn't start ducking things out of the way either with automation or any sidechain compression until you have a pretty solid mix happening.

Edit:
(Even then.... I don't think ducking anything out of the way is the answer)
 
Copy the kick track. Put a compressor on the copy, preferably a "character" type. Long attack. Fairly short release. Squeeze the hell out of it so that it's almost all attack. Add harmonic distortion if desired( a little goes a long way). EQ as needed. Bring up slowly while listening to the whole track until the kick is as present as wanted.

Works with snare too.
 
Ducking, i.e., using a compressor with a side chain (input from the kick), is a pretty common technique. You generally only want to apply it to the tracks with low frequency content, especially bass guitar.

If you're still mixing, I'd be hoping for a peak of the whole mix still a fair bit below 0dB. Maybe I misunderstood...
 
I usually start my fading everything not bass below 300 on guitars as a general rule (not a hard fast rule). Then below 300 are just the things I want to sit there. Then bass gets dropped below 60ish.

This usually keeps the mud down so that I don't have to work so much in that area in the general mix.

Once again, this is what I have been doing as an approach to get the kick to come out, bass to sit nice and not have a whole lot of mud.
 
EQ EQ EQ EQ EQ - carving 'space' for everything in the frequency domain.

+1 on this.

Side-chain ducking compression on the kick is a pretty common technique, but I honestly don't recommend it. I've used it personally, and found that there were better ways to get the kick through (eq and distortion usually). These days, the only side-chaining I tend to do is vocals ducking rhythm guitars.

It's also really easy to get that woofy kick effect that you hear on a lot of home-produced EDM these days. Where the entire mix ducks on the kick, and all you hear is a big, flat flump.
 
With sidechain ducking I go for obvious as an effect, or none at all. I think it sounds much more natural and cohesive if you work that EQ to make the bass/kick slot together like that jigsaw puzzle. Even if I am only ducking 1db it sounds off to my ears.

Only thing I use sidechain ducking for recently is after the Delay, or Reverb sidechained to the source so it will duck the delays or verbs out of the way of a vocal for example, the release on the compressor will bring the delays up in between phrases as an easy way to add more delay without it stepping all over everything. I really dislike ducking the bass to let the kicks shine through. I use the ducking method when I get frustrated and can not get my desired instrument to shine through, but really.... it's a cheat and I'm never happy with the results. To the average listener I doubt it would be noticed but because I know I've sidechained my way out of a problem, it just bothers me.
 
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