Yo I have 2 bass channels, one instance of resampled and saturated bass and a sub bass channel with a slight touch of distortion. It all sounds muddy in the low end. I've shelved a lot of the bottom end in the eq as my other low end elements were getting squashed out of the mix. Any tips to make my bass sound "thinner" ?
when you say muddy in the low end, are you referring to the bass on its own, or when other elements of the track are playing too? if its the bass on its own, perhaps you need to cut more of the lower frequencies from the mid channel and/or more of the high end from the sub bass. also, maybe the distortion on the sub needs to come off, i normally keep mine clean. if its muddy with the kick, i would recomend finding the main frequency of your kick drum and surgically eqing it out of the sub bass. thats what i do anyway! Also, are you levels all in the green?
First off, I wouldnt distort the sub. It creates harmonics that will muddy it up. You could layer a square with it. I usually low cut the sub around 150hz and boost whatever frequency corresponds with the key its in. Roll it off around 30-40hz. Then the other bass, I would high pass it around 140hz. Make sure sub is mono and maybe sidechain it to the kick.
Same here, i would say at least reduce the amount of dist. on the sub. Last ditch attempt for your mid fre. conflict if Eq can't fix it properly : try it one octave higher and see how it sounds.
You need a surgical eq in all (and I mean every single channel, all of them!) tracks. Sometimes some samples or any other audio source can hide some infrasounds or ultrasound that dramatically degrade the dynamics of your mix. That's why you have to make sure samples are cleared up from unwanted freqs and low pass/high pass every single channel that are suspicious. Especially infrasounds, with their huge wave evolution, they grab load of dynamic range, with the result of saturating the mix. I guess that's the main reason why your mix sounds squashed. The squashed problem it usually come up more evident when apply a compressor to the master buss. I always suggest to use a spectrogram analyzer and check each single channel on which freq range are working. It's essential that you keep the dynamic and frequency range of your sub under control. Apply a compressor if it has too many up and down modulation (e.g. LFO), so to keep it thick but slim without the need to rise too much the volume of the sub channel and consequently taking headroom. I hope it helps!
If you end of routing the sub bass into a buss with your mid/high bass, a bit of m/s separation may clean things up a bit. I agree about not distorting the sub bass...however, a very small amount of overdrive can really add a bit of warmth. And when I said a little, I mean a little. For example, increase the overdrive until you "hear" it begin to boost the sub bass, and then dial it back down a bit. Finally, like Rajstah pointed out, view a spectrogram to really figure out what's going on when the frequencies in the sound and sort it out from there. Cheers.
ON EVERY CHANNEL?? would that not take alot of dynamic out the mix... cos i have a tune thats suffers with the wide bass problem and for the life of me i cannot mix it down... bass ruins like all the drums
your always gonna get a nasty frequency somewhere in every sound that adds nothing to the track. you may not be abel to hear it when its at low volume, but it will effect the tracks mix down and space. i always have an eq on every channel, if you dont need the low end in a sound, take it out!
Typically when i'm mixing bass and I run into a strong "Mud" frequency I make a small dip of about -2 db in the 300hz range with a Q value of about .71. This range 250-350 is known in engineering as the mud range. Hope this helps.
