Another thing you can try is to put a compressor on the bass that has a side-chain input from the kick drum. This way, whenever the bass and kick happen at the same time, the level of the bass will be pulled down a bit (adjustable by the compressor settings) so that things to get too boomy when they hit at the same time. This way you can keep your low end in the bass and have it kind of pump with the kick drum... whenever the kick isn't hitting, the bass will still be big and full.No name wrote:Damn, I had hoped there was some way I could roll off below 100hz, and beef the bassline up elsewhere along the spectrum. I tried it out actually, and am realizing that it just isn't possible. Once I hipass aroun 50hz it immediately becomes lifeless and thin. If there is one part of mixing I hate, it is the bass and drums.
The other way to do the same sort of thing is to buss the bass and the kick drum to the same group channel or output buss and put a compressor across that to control the overall low end level. Set it so it really only pulls the level down when they both hit at the same time, and when they are playing separately there is no, or very little, gain reduction happening.
If you want to get even trickier, you can use a multiband compressor for either of the above and use just the low band set at the right frequency range to control only those low frequencies, but still let the harmonics of the bass and "click" of the kick attach through unaffected.
Hip-Hop is fairly sparse music to begin with, as opposed to the wall of guitars sound in a lot of rock/metal music, so you generally don't have to, nor do you want to, thin out the low end of the bass unless it's just way to boomy overall (which sometimes is the case). It's just a matter of getting the kick and bass to work together without blowing up the low end.
Remember that when you are removing some low end from a bass or kick that's too boomy, you don't have to use a high-pass filter that filters out all of the low end below a certain point (depending on the slope of the filter, of course). You can try a low-shelf filter and just subtract only the amount that is needed to clean it up a bit without completely removing all the low end. Sometimes even a parametric just centered around the problem frequencies can be used to remove some of the excess boom and clean it up a bit.
If you are using an 808 style kick, it's basically a sine wave with a bit of attack on the front. That sine wave is only going to have one fundamental frequency (unless it's a sample that has some distortion or something that adds some harmonics). You can figure out what the frequency is and then notch some of that frequency out of the bass without killing the rest of the low end of the bass, and that might help the two work better together.
Steve
Vocals were recorded first, last Monday. I probably spent about 10-12 hours on the song in total (including recording). Four hours on Monday recording and setting the overall direction, four hours on Friday completing the arrangement and adding the background instruments, and maybe two to four hours this weekend mixing and mastering.
