Bass Advice

Been working on a new track recently that I'm becoming quite happy with.....only I have an issue with the bass...

Its done with a VST and on the studio speakers being played out of the MPC Renaissance it sounds full, warm and lovely....but when I export it and play it in the car it makes the speakers rumble....

I don't really want to turn it down because it sits really nicely in the mix at home........but I want to process it in some way to keep the volume and feel, but take off the heaviness that is giving the car speakers grief....

I have EQ'd it to take a bit of the low end off and its better....but if I EQ anymore I think I might lose something.....

anyone got any advice?.......had a similar issue?

Lampdog wrote: I'd kill off "inaudible freqs". It helped a lot.

Yeh cheers Lamp. I could probably do with something like that. Its like a harsh low rumble that sits just below the nice smooth bass.

I think I could probably get it sorted via EQ.....but the problem is I cant hear it in the studio..... so unless I rig up my MPC in the car (not gonna happen) I just gotta keep mixing it down and taking it to the car to check it.

anyway....I guess I was just hoping someone would suggest I download the 'Sort My Bass Out' plugin or something....

maybe just find the frequency using a spectrum analyzer tool if you cant hear it... and try sloping it off if you dont want to outright cut it out.

Use headphones to see if the bass is balanced in the track on all frequencies.
Use an HPfilter on 20Hz, or even kill more of the bass and replay/layer the sample with an sine oscillator (or triangle with a LPfilter) in the sub region.

Or use a reference track (one that's similar to your bass, but that's playing decent in your car) and try to get as close to that sound/balance as possible.

One tip I read was to put an VU meter on the masterbus with only the kick playing and level it at -3, when you bring in the bass it should hit 0, when they collide. This is supposed to be the best balance between kicks and bass. Good luck!

i think that tip is really dependent on the situation... for example if it's a beat for rap or a vocalist... maybe leaving more headroom than aiming for 0db is a good idea...

Yeah, forgot to mention that you have to remove the VU meter (and the gain adjustment you've made within the plugin) when you have levelled the kick/bass/low energy. So that you get your headroom back.

Explained here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECRx4WF3pcc

thanks all.....I appreciate the advice....

it seems to be worse on the lower notes....

i'll check that link and have a go later.....

If it's worse on lower notes, then I might suggest putting a compressor/EQ compressor on it.