Yep, gets you closer, but it is greatly material-dependent. If you've been mixing for awhile, your ear will get you there quicker.
 
Dan

dcumpian
Yep, gets you closer, but it is greatly material-dependent. If you've been mixing for awhile, your ear will get you there quicker.
 
Dan

Absolutely agree
 
One important note...  make sure whatever room you work in is treated right, because this can play tricks on your ear!
 
Going on a tangent here, but as an example....  when I was building my studio, the bottom 3 feet of my walls were all still exposed around the whole perimeter.  My plan was to use 3X5 concrete board all around the bottom perimeter because it was an underground basement studio and I figured if ever there was a water problem...  I didnt want drywall or something that would rot.   
 
long story short...  I started messing around in the room before I finished closing in the walls at the bottom, and with all that surface area of exposed insulation....  can you say major bass trapping!  Typical wall insulation alone usually isnt an effective bass trap.  You need some density to the material.  But when you have a few hundred square feet of insulation exposed....  it can bass trap rather well lol
 
I use JBL LSR 308 monitors and a sub and you CANT make the bass sound overbearing in that room lol.  Those open walls just eat it up.  Even with the best set of ears youd struggle to find balance when the room just doesnt respond right to bass content.
 
that is all remedied now....but I thought it was a good example of a time where this little trick can help.  I know a lot of us at one time or another have worked in a room that wasnt sized well or hardly treated at all, and it especially makes bass content hard to judge.
 
 
 
 

greg_moreira

conklin
Unless I'm missing something, that would only work if the bass note was the same as the kick frequency.  Once the bass line starts moving the balance would be void  - right?  
 
Again unless I'm not getting it, not really sure why you'd want the bass at 0dB
 
Just my .02

 
as far as frequency goes.....  this is more about volume.  and if you think of the bass signal, typically its going to be pretty compressed and consistent.  you arent going to have any particular notes that are way louder than others.  at least you shouldn't.  So more or less it'll be pretty consistent.  Enough to get a ballpark.    And if you do have certain notes that are waaay louder in volume than others....  you should compress until you dont ;)

I think he's talking about the science of two sine waves adding together to make a 3dB gain.  If you have two waves, both at 50 Hz, let's say, then you'd have a gain of 3dB because at every single point along the wave they match and when added together 2 X the voltage is a 3dB gain.  

But if you had one sine wave at 50 Hz and another at 100 Hz, let's say, then they aren't going to match up at every point along the wave when added together now, so it's going to be less than 3dB.  For instance, when the 50 Hz wave is peaking at 1/4 cycle, the 100 Hz wave is at half-cycle hitting the zero line so there is no increase at that instance.  As you track the two waves there will be instances they double, and instances they do not, and instances they subtract, and so on.  

In other words, we're down in the weeds looking at the frequency cycles and how they add moment by moment.  In this case, you've got kick drum frequencies that do not match bass guitar frequencies, so they are not going to double perfectly for a 3dB gain - there's going to be adds and cancels instance by instance.  

All of this may be unnecessary obsession of details, that maybe don't really matter in any meaningful way.  But I think that's where he was going with his question.  And I'm kind of wondering the same thing, now.   

Voda La Void
And I'm kind of wondering the same thing, now.   

Don't do it...it is a non-productive rabbit hole...
 
Regards,
Dan

greg_moreira

dcumpian
Yep, gets you closer, but it is greatly material-dependent. If you've been mixing for awhile, your ear will get you there quicker.
 
Dan

Absolutely agree
 
One important note...  make sure whatever room you work in is treated right, because this can play tricks on your ear!

Yes, absolutely.
 
Regards,
Dan

Voda La Void
 
I think he's talking about the science of two sine waves adding together to make a 3dB gain.  If you have two waves, both at 50 Hz, let's say, then you'd have a gain of 3dB because at every single point along the wave they match and when added together 2 X the voltage is a 3dB gain.  

But if you had one sine wave at 50 Hz and another at 100 Hz, let's say, then they aren't going to match up at every point along the wave when added together now, so it's going to be less than 3dB.  For instance, when the 50 Hz wave is peaking at 1/4 cycle, the 100 Hz wave is at half-cycle hitting the zero line so there is no increase at that instance.  As you track the two waves there will be instances they double, and instances they do not, and instances they subtract, and so on.  

In other words, we're down in the weeds looking at the frequency cycles and how they add moment by moment.  In this case, you've got kick drum frequencies that do not match bass guitar frequencies, so they are not going to double perfectly for a 3dB gain - there's going to be adds and cancels instance by instance.  

All of this may be unnecessary obsession of details, that maybe don't really matter in any meaningful way.  But I think that's where he was going with his question.  And I'm kind of wondering the same thing, now.   

ahh i follow you.  yeah this is im sure one of the many reasons why its a 'ballpark' approach more than anything.
 
look at it this way, even if things were different and the science said that it is indeed an exacting method of balancing levels ....  it still doesnt necessarily mean its going to sound just right every time.
 
thats why it still always comes back to the ears :)

Sharke,
I didn't know about this. It was interesting to think about.

Thanks

greg_moreira

Voda La Void
 
I think he's talking about the science of two sine waves adding together to make a 3dB gain.  If you have two waves, both at 50 Hz, let's say, then you'd have a gain of 3dB because at every single point along the wave they match and when added together 2 X the voltage is a 3dB gain.  

But if you had one sine wave at 50 Hz and another at 100 Hz, let's say, then they aren't going to match up at every point along the wave when added together now, so it's going to be less than 3dB.  For instance, when the 50 Hz wave is peaking at 1/4 cycle, the 100 Hz wave is at half-cycle hitting the zero line so there is no increase at that instance.  As you track the two waves there will be instances they double, and instances they do not, and instances they subtract, and so on.  

In other words, we're down in the weeds looking at the frequency cycles and how they add moment by moment.  In this case, you've got kick drum frequencies that do not match bass guitar frequencies, so they are not going to double perfectly for a 3dB gain - there's going to be adds and cancels instance by instance.  

All of this may be unnecessary obsession of details, that maybe don't really matter in any meaningful way.  But I think that's where he was going with his question.  And I'm kind of wondering the same thing, now.   

ahh i follow you.  yeah this is im sure one of the many reasons why its a 'ballpark' approach more than anything.
 
look at it this way, even if things were different and the science said that it is indeed an exacting method of balancing levels ....  it still doesnt necessarily mean its going to sound just right every time.
 
thats why it still always comes back to the ears :)

It's definitely a ballpark technique and not scientifically perfect. After all, the technique requires that your kick makes the needle kiss 3db, not land on it exactly every time. With a live performance of a kick drum especially, you're never going to get 3dB each time. And you're just eyeballing a needle, hardly accurate. Same when you add the bass - the performance is likely to have some kind of dynamic range, so you're just getting a rough eyeball of when the needle is mainly kissing 0dB. I think many are missing the point here, which is not that every mix should have a scientifically 50/50 balance of kick and bass, but that in the absence of perfect monitoring, the technique serves as a rough calibration of an even balance from which to start. I've tried it - the resulting kick and bass does sound very balanced, at least through my ARC2 calibrated monitors and my Sonarworks calibrated cans. But that's maybe not what you want - however, once you know they're roughly 50/50 then you can take it from there with a higher degree of confidence than if you started from scratch.

Actually the math works out that if the two sinewaves are the same frequency the result is 6dB higher. When they're not the same frequency the output is 3dB higher. That's why bass + drums = 3dB. They aren't the same frequency. 

fret_man
Actually the math works out that if the two sinewaves are the same frequency the result is 6dB higher. When they're not the same frequency the output is 3dB higher. That's why bass + drums = 3dB. They aren't the same frequency. 

How can that be when 3dB is doubling the voltage, or power, or sound, whatever you're measuring?  6dB would be doubling it twice.  You can't get 6dB without gain (unless the amplitude is different, which means we don't have identical waves).  We're not doing gain, we're adding sine waves.  

So, if you have two sine waves of identical frequency and amplitude, then when the voltage at a particular instance is 2V, you have a total of 4V for a 3dB total increase.  A 6dB increase would mean 8V total.  
 
You can't get greater than a 3dB increase over the greatest amplitude when adding two sine waves together.