Yesterday we talked about the first part to dealing with the kick drum and bass guitar in a mix.

If you haven't checked it out yet, here's the article. Leave a comment and tell me what your approach is.

As I hinted at yesterday the low-end is tricky place to be. Low-end frequencies are big and bulky and the bass and kick are greedy sonsabitches that want to hog it all to themselves.

But luckily, if you ever learned anything from your mom, you need to share your toys.

That's exactly what we'll be talking about today.

2. Decide Where Each Instrument Sits in the Frequency Spectrum

As we discussed last time, soloing both the kick drum and bass guitar together will give you a more rounded view of the low-end.

Unfortunately, we still have to decide where each instrument sits.

At that point it becomes a decision making process that has more to do with the overall character of the mix than just the low-end.

Ask yourself a few questions while you're EQ'ing the kick and bass:

• What kind of kick sound is common for the genre?
• Is the actual character of the bass naturally thicker than the kick drum, or does the kick drum dominate the low-low-end?
• Is there a sweet spot in either the kick or bass where they really stand out and shine in the mix?

If you're mixing a country song you'll want a more "basketball" sounding kick than if you were mixing a hardcore metal album. That should affect how you approach the low-end because a naturally brighter low-end (say at around 100 Hz or so) will help you get closer to country than giving the kick drum a big fat boost at 60 Hz.

Sometimes the recorded sounds will simply give you the answer you need. If the bass is naturally thicker, in the 80 Hz area for instance, you don't want to cut all that out just because you want the kick to sit there. Make the tracks tell you what they need instead of deciding for them. It's fascinating how little you might need to add EQ-wise if you just listen to what the tracks are telling you.

But if there's no real natural separation and both the kick and the bass are overly dominant across the low-end it's time to make some decisions.

That's when you bring out the EQ and start sweeping around. Try to find a natural sweet spot in each instrument that seems to flatter the overall sound. There might be a few so go back to the original question of what's right for the genre or feel of the song. Once you've decided the sweet spot of each instrument and added some boosts in each respective instrument it's always a good idea to cut the same area in the opposing instrument.

So for example:

• If you boost 70 Hz in the bass you should cut 70 Hz in the kick.
• If you boost 100 Hz in the kick you can cut 100 Hz in the bass.

That way you end up dividing the frequencies between the two instruments and now they're both sharing the same frequency spectrum without bothering each other.

You mother would be so proud!

If that works you can call the low-end a day and keep working on the rest of the mix. But if the bass is still clashing and you can't hear the snap of the kick drum from the low-end of the bass there's still one thing you can do.

We'll talk about that in tomorrow's email.

For now, if you're still struggling with making your bass cut through the mix I have some great ideas for EQ'ing the bass guitar inside EQ Strategies.

Check them out here:

www.EQStrategies.net