Getting Bass freq for mobile devices/ lo fi players

I'm sure others who have more experience at this than me will offer some pro advice in due course, but at a guess at the bass part of your question, I'd say a healthy amount of compression and perhaps a boost in the low-mids maybe between 400-700Hz. 

There's a few tricks I know of:

1. Use a Send from the Kick track to a BUSS, and compress the frack out of it, and EQ so that you can get a little bit of pop out of that, then Send that BUSS to your Drum BUSS (i.e. Parallel compression). 

2. Then, I would find a very thin Q on a parametric EQ that you can boost that will allow the low frequency of the kick to cut through which is optimized for smaller speakers. Usually around 80Hz will be OK. But keep the Q tight so that you don't do nasty things to other drums or bass guitar.

3. Find a limiter or compressor release time that allows just a hint of pumping in the final mix. Your ears will perceive this minute pumping as bass on smaller speakers.

4. You may try Maxx-Bass from Waves, which works on some things, such as a kick, but IMO destroys bass guitar by muddying it up. It's not good for me on a full mix. 

Hope that helps!

sharke


This is where the VRM Box comes into it's own!

Yes. I also recommend trying to simply (using an EQ) cut all frequencies below 400Hz and work from there, and use only a compressor to get the punch playing with attack/release settings.