HELP - Getting rid of the mud when mixing Drums and bass

Hi all,

I'm working on a project right now and I'm having trouble getting the mix tight and clear in the lower end. I've resolved to put a gate on the bass which shortens each note with a gradient on the end. 

Any ideas in terms of isolating the drums and bass separately in the mix? I'm happy where everything else is. It was a live bass tracked through my Solo 110 DI, and the drums are from XLN Audio's addictive drums... I picked "what I think is" the best dry and tight drum preset for what I'm doing. 

I remember seeing something somewhere about someone using a gate triggered by certain drum hits that would automatically lower the bass, but I'm not sure how to do that or even if I can. Thanks!

Any help would be appreciated!!!!!!

Forget the gate for now.
Compression and EQ are your friends.

There's two good videos HERE.

Mike

I am holding against my forhead, an envelope with a specific reply from a specific forum member.

Anyone care to guess?

carnack.
i miss carnack.
he was a good fellow.




forget the gate.

that's the wrong approach.

you gotta find the FREQUENCIES where the meat of each reside, and push each one of them out of each other's way.

the kick cannot sit at 80 hz, if the bass is at 80 hz.

carve, and fill.

carve, and fill.

push and pull.

and look for that magic 'aha' moment, where they both work in perfect unison, and do not step on each other.



bass and kick.

you are on the search for the holy grail of mixing.

Any ideas in terms of isolating the drums and bass separately in the mix?

By using EQ and dynamic controlled processors, like Compressors/limiters, its easily done. Its called complimentary EQ'ing and you basically raise the predominant frequency in one instrument and lowering the same frequency in the other instrument. You cut and boost the same frequencies, so that they do not mask each other. This techniques is widely used and is very common with instruments in the same frequency spectrum, like Bass and kick drums, Piano and guitar, and violins and vocals.
You use this technique for every track in your project and then use reverb and delays for spacing and youll have a clear mix with each instrument playing in its own space..
Cj

skullsession


I am holding against my forhead, an envelope with a specific reply from a specific forum member.

Anyone care to guess?

yep, I can guess...

High pass filters are your friend . . . .
 
Cut below "FIDDY"! 

OK.  If you have a five string bass, set the hpf at 50 as Spindlebox suggested.

Isn't 31hz out of the range of human hearing?! 

If most speakers can't reproduce down to 30 Hz, there's no point in having it there.  The HPF will help tighten the bottom end by eliminating the sloppy rumble of a speaker being fed a frequency that it can't handle.

Here's a test clip I just made up... it's a 8 second clip with 4 1 second pulses at 20hz. The 20hz tone was synthesized in Adobe Audition as a "generate tone" process. I chopped it up and added a second of silence between each bass pulse so that it would be easy to hear it come and go.

http://harmoniccycle.com/...s/test/20hz_4count.wav

Have fun!

best,
mike