What can i do to get closer to this reference

[Mike20]

Hey, so im practising ALOT lately and im trying to get this hard bass sound,

I have posted an example of what i am going for (obviously not just copying, just the 'type' of sound)

However i don't feel mine is standing up, in my opinion it doesnt sound as professional or big as the reference,

If somebody could take a listen to the refence and also my go and let me know what they think i could do better i would be much apprecaited

Reference @ 1.45 :

My Go : http://www66.zippyshare.com/v/5195932/file.html

Thanks !!

Mike

[james_mcfadyen]

IS it just me that gets a whole lot of white noise in the reference file?

[Mike20]

F*cks sake, must have messed up in the boucne,

heres the link, at 1.45 :

Cheers

[paterpeter]

IS it just me that gets a whole lot of white noise in the reference file?

In the preview, yes. But the downloaded file is OK.

[Mike20]

I updated it with a youtube link instead anyway

[james_mcfadyen]

In the reference there seems to be a reverb on the bass - the tail very short but the pre-delay quite long.

Also, I think the mastering of the whole track may be contributing to the high pressure sound of the reference.

You can try placing your best limiter on the bass track to give yours the upfront punch prior to mastering.

[Mike20]

Thanks a lot for the reply yeah I now try reverb but I didn't think to use pre delay. His is very bright you think it could be high shelf eq'd afterwards and perhaps sidechine compressed as the bass is?

And yeah I get you with the limiter. In what way should I use it? For example all I use a limiter for is to stick on my master when mixing so I don't peak over 0db.. How would I set this one up? Raised input?

Thanks!!

Mike

[james_mcfadyen]

Don't ever put a limiter on your mix buss - it's crazy. For some reason some inexperienced people do this so they don't go over 0db - You just need to watch your gain summing.

Granted I spent 3 years training but even those who are self-taught should be aware of the fallacy and bad sound practice of this - even by the compression-war standards of EDM.

As for the reverb, yes, low-pass shelving is likely to help and all decent reverb plugins have a control for this.

If you're putting a limiter on the bass track, limit quite hard, but use the best limiter you have. For me, the Waves L2 is a good benchmark industry standard. However perhaps this is one occasion for multiband limiting using the L3??

Else, multiband compress it, then limit it with a standard limiter.

One final point, don't just mix in solo - often when something sounds great in solo sounds wrong in the mix. Make sure it complements the mix and commands its own space. I think that's the biggest trick about it.

[Mike20]

Thanks a lot for that James,

Very helpful going to practise it all now

Thanks!

Mike