It's day 3 of our kick drum and bass guitar series: 3 Ways to Separate the Bass Guitar and the Kick Drum
Part I and II can be found here:
At this point you're either all good in the low-end and happily working on something else.
If that's the case, congratulations. You deserve a drink. I'll see you at the bar. I'd like a Pueblo Vida Hefeweizen thanks.
If you're still throwing sweeping EQ curves around the low-end to no avail maybe it's time to do something a little different.
This is one of those tricks that you might need to do
after you've done the aforementioned tricks.
Why?
Because if you've followed the guide so far, this is what you've done:
- Solo'd both the kick and bass together to get them to sit in the low-end.
- Analyzed the character of each instrument and decided where to EQ them so that they share the low-end together.
But what happens when you bring the rest of the mix in is that your kick might drown in all the other instruments.
Even if you hear the kick through the bass
while solo'd the bass might still take over when everything is playing at once.
It's funny how it works that way but luckily, we have a solution.
When All Else Fails, Side-Chain
By inserting a compressor on the bass guitar track and side-chaining it
to the kick drum you can duck the bass guitar out of the way every time the kick hits.
Because the beater belongs in the mid-range instead of the low-end we haven't really focused any of our EQ'ing there.
(I mean, you probably have but in the context of the article let's suppose not mmm'kay?)
What happens is that when you bring all the other mid-range dominant instruments in the beater gets buried with them.
But we don't have to duck each instrument out of the way of the beater. We really only have to focus on the bass guitar because once that bass goes down a few decibels you'll hear that snap from the beater again.
Here's a good step by step process.
- Step 1 - Make sure the kick and bass are grooving nicely in solo and that you can still hear the beater.
- Step 2 - Bring the rest of the instruments into the mix.
- Step 3 - If the beater gets buried lower the fader of the bass until you hear the snap of the beater again. It shouldn't be more than a few dB.
- Step 4 - Bring the bass back up to its original position and insert a compressor on the bass track and side-chain it to the kick.
- Step 5 - Have the compressor compress the bass the same dB amount as you found in step 3.
- Step 6 - Set the attack and release to fast so it only compresses during the initial transient of the kick drum and doesn't affect the bass sound too much.
- Step 7 - Meet me at the bar. I got you a Pueblo Vida Hefeweizen!
Have Fun With the Rest of Your Mix
Now that you've got your kick drum and bass under control you can focus on EQ'ing the rest of your mix.
If you need help with that, guess what? I've got just the thing.
It's called EQ Strategies - The Ultimate Guide to EQ. It's a eBook and video tutorial series that gives you some great practical tips on making the best EQ decisions for your mix.
And the eBook also comes in eReader format for the Kindle or
iBooks. Perfect for taking to the bar to enjoy with....you guessed it...a Pueblo Vida Hefeweizen!
Here's where you go next:
www.EQStrategies.net