Compression 120Hz and under ???

  • Thread starter Thread starter PDP
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kcearl said:
A/Bing against commercial tracks in the same genre they sound far too bass heavy...I really though Id got that under control but I cant understand how the mixes got past my own, and others, ears with something so obviously wrong :(

I honestly think Id be better buying a pair of NS10's and forgetting about nearfields when mixing

I may give Jans suggestion a go once I get back and remix them...lemme know how you get on Pete
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Thats exactly what I'm saying, to make my mixes sound as full as commercial CDs they come out bass heavy. The simple thing is back off the bass, but when I do that they lose the fullness.

Granted there are many more stages of expertise and expensive gear used on those CDs I'll never match, but I'd still like to know why.

Rupert Neve said "everything in a sound/mix is in relation to the bass" thats exactly how I hear music, the first thing I notice is "how the bass sounds". The Who, Led Zeppelin, Stones, re-mixed and re-mastered parts of entire albums solely because they didnt like the way the bass came out.
 
kcearl said:
you have better ears than most of us and thats half the battle
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Lol. I don't know about that, but sure! :D


PDP, you keep mentioning "bass". Do you mean bass gtr? If so, how are you tracking your bass?
 
Greg_L said:
Lol. I don't know about that, but sure! :D


PDP, you keep mentioning "bass". Do you mean bass gtr? If so, how are you tracking your bass?
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Exactly, bass guitar or the melodic bass instrument of the song. Kick is never a problem.

I use all sampled/triggered bass.

I'm generally happy with the sound(s), I'm just really splitting hairs with this.
 
Greg_L said:
Well damn dude, use a real bass.
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I listened to your song "I'm not the one" translated between my speakers real nice, bass too.

There arent alot of subs in that style though, which has brought me to another conclusion. Maybe.....neither my monitors (Tannoy 501) or the cheap speakers, and my room are giving an accurate response below 120hz so I'm kinda blind there, making sub-levels a guessing game. Maybe an accurate sub-woofer would help me, at least save some time. IDK.
 
I use KRK Rokit 8's and can hear differences in low end down to about 50hz from these speakers. I don't know what they're actually rated to, but I can hear 50 no problem. My room is also pretty well treated. 4" thick bass traps, clouds, mid-range absorbers, first reflection panels, etc. I'm not a big fan of people running to sub-woofers to fix low end problems, but if your 5" speakers are holding you back, then maybe you could use one. Or maybe buy some different monitors.
 
PDP said:
Thats exactly what I'm saying, to make my mixes sound as full as commercial CDs they come out bass heavy. The simple thing is back off the bass, but when I do that they lose the fullness..
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I know it can be tough to find sometimes, but there should be a middle point in there.
Perhaps though you're looking in the wrong places -with the eq and compression -on the mix.
Part of the solution I see (assuming other instruments are cleared out appropriately first and not also playing games in the low end), is looking at the tone and the sustain of both the kick and bass individually and in combination in the mix.
I find it interesting that their combined result can be surprising and different than what I'd expect from hearing them separately, and that small amounts of low trims (on either or both) may be needed.
You want to get a picture of how they interact –in tone balance and attack and sustain.
-Which is providing how much in that tone and attack/sustain.
For example the bass may need to be shelved down on the lower few octaves, and/or the kick may need to be pulled down in or around its fundamental power frequency so as to not double up with the bass there. Or perhaps the kick (or the bass) can just plain too loose' (i.e. time wise?
Some where in there is full enough, but lean and tight enough.
 
PDP said:
I listened to your song "I'm not the one" translated between my speakers real nice, bass too.

There arent alot of subs in that style though, which has brought me to another conclusion. Maybe.....neither my monitors (Tannoy 501) or the cheap speakers, and my room are giving an accurate response below 120hz so I'm kinda blind there, making sub-levels a guessing game. Maybe an accurate sub-woofer would help me, at least save some time. IDK.
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Even in a poor room you can move around to hear differently, i.e. shift the hot/cold freqs in the room.
I'd say 'yeah maybe the speaker don't go down far enough', but then you said comercial CDs work/sounded ok.
 
mixsit said:
Even in a poor room you can move around to hear differently, i.e. shift the hot/cold freqs in the room.
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Yup.

If your speakers aren't kicking out enough low-end...go stand in the corner, or close to it...all of a sudden you hear where all that LF is going, and you can use that to tell if the LF is seriously overloading the rest of the mix, or not enough...just be aware that the LF is unnaturally fuller/louder in the corner of the room, so don't build your mix from that perspective. :D
 
Thanks for all the help and replies, all good stuff to consider.
 
One thing I've noticed with bass is that if you've too strong a presence in the upper bass frequencies i.e 100-200hz it tends to mask the sub bass (say 40-90hz) frequencies, or at least you don't notice them as much, so to compensate you boost the very lows but then the mix is boomy, so by cutting the upper bass a bit your mix seems like it has more sub action going on and may be what your missing.

Also youve probably tried this, but low cutting some of the very low sub bass (-40hz) may help with the boomy-ness.
 
Yeah sorry just to add, re-reading your original post if the cheap speakers your talking about are computer speakers or the like, it may very well be too much upper bass as they probably don't reproduce the lower stuff, so turning those frequencies down may stop the boominess but leave the sub bass so it still sounds full on your monitors, worth a shot.
 
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