Controlling low end

munmun

I have done everything by the book.  Cut off frequencies below 100-150k for all tracks other than bass and kick.

Time to start cutting low frequencies in the bass and kick too...
Keep cutting until it sounds bad and then back it off a tad.

Just as a simple starting point.... you can generally do no harm by rolling off all the freqs below 40hz.  A high pass set to 40Hz should do it. Most of what is below there is noise.

Of course, that is the simple explanation. If you have a nice parametric EQ, you can customize the roll off and the point where it starts.

I almost always have a STEEP roll off below 40hz on my stuff. The bass freqs are generally above that frequency and anything that goes below it is not a big issue.  I also roll off the stuff on the higher end too, but you didn't ask about that. It might seem counter intuitive to roll off the bass to get a nicer sounding bass, but it actually works well. (generally in the master bus FX bin)

In between those roll off points I have mids generally scooped a bit. To my ears, this gives less energy in the mids and that translates to a "cleaner sounding" midrange in the mix, resulting in a clear mix from top to bottom.

Getting the bass & kick to not clash is not too difficult. I use good samples and set the EQ slightly different for each one. I went into my Cakewalk audio FX and set up a drum preset and a bass preset in the ParaQ FX. So all I do now is load the proper presets to get me in the ballpark and then I'll tweeze them to that particular song. (in the individual tracks)

hope that helps

It sounds like it wasn't a P-Bass and there was a reluctance to pound on the big fat string.

I also think the timing is off just enough that it's creating a canceling effect with the kick and the low mid guitar tone.

I'm not sayin the timing is off in a bad way... but since you are asking... if you tuned and snapped that existing performance it would pop out at a lower volume.

I love the song... it's great.

I think you are being to hard on your self.

best regards,
mike

Cool song.... the bass on my computer speakers is not well defined. It's not a clean and clear as it should be. I would call it a "squishy" sounding bass at this point. Try experimenting with the EQ as outlined by me and others above. You want it to be well defined and kicking when it's playing.

It might require a total retracking of the part, (or not) but I think the song is worth it.

It's helpful to understand each of your references so that you can separate the weaknesses of your mix from the weaknesses of your playback systems. You already know that the hi-fi system in question hypes bass - but which frequencies specifically?

One way to address this, if you have a laptop that can record or a handheld recorder, is to make a test CD with white noise on it and record it in the listening position of your hi-fi (or car stereo or whatever). Examine the recorded white noise with SPAN to identify precisely what the playback system is doing to your audio.

I, too, have a hi-fi system in the rec room that normally amplifies the television but also serves as an alternate reference for my own recordings. I was frustrated for a long time because what sounded good in the car sounded bad on the hi-fi and vice versa. It was only after measuring both and discovering what each was adding and subtracting from the audio that I was able to zero in on an average that sounded acceptable on both.

I found, for example, that both systems artificially boosted "bass", but each boosted a different part of the bass spectrum. The car has an unnatural boost around 80-100Hz, while the hi-fi's boost was around 60-70Hz. Cutting the bass to suit the car made the hi-fi sound thin, and vice versa. It became apparent that there really was no way to satisfy both systems equally, which explained my frustration.

Ultimately, the solution was to cut bass less drastically and accept the reality that both references are deficient. I simply don't expect recordings to sound as good on either one as they do in the studio. As obvious as that seems, it was an epiphany to me. Sure enough, when I subsequently took my mixes to a professional studio and listened on their high-end monitors, there were no huge bass problems. I'd been making my own problems by chasing the deficiencies of my reference systems.