Keeping the low end from being muddy

So I recently got an MPC Live and am getting into making beats. I'm having trouble keeping the bass and the kicks from muddying up the mix together? What can I do to prevent this? I know the which answer is find sounds that don't clash in the same frequencies. I guess that's where I don't know what frequencies are common for each of those? I'm trying to stay in standalone and not have to go to plugins if possible. Are there mixers or fx that are preferred for this? A lot of what I'm trying to do is 90s sounding hip hop so it's not really slamming drums or overpowering deep subs. I just need to be in the right ballpark to figure out how to work on the mix.

You will have sounds that clash in the frequencies, (don't look for sounds that don't clash) they may be the dope sounds. The fix is getting rid of those frequencies. You can cut hi or low in the frequency range. In the Bass and Kick they both are low characters, you want to cut highs on both the kick and bass, but learn how to cut in the low area also with the kick and bass. This is a skill that is learned for years not overnight. it is best shown and not told by me here. Go to YouTube and there are tons of vids showing you how to not clash the bass and snare.

Peace.

Sidechain can be your best friend.
Like sidechaining bass and kick.
And filters of course are also your best friends to clean the very low frequencies.

Depending on the kick, bass & desired sound, filters may not cut it. Unless you want absolutely no mids/highs in the bassier instrument, EQ would be better. This way you can simply reduce the main frequency of one in the other.

Rolling off unneeded low frequencies can clear the bottom up a bit. I put a high pass filter on my master buss, usually at 30Hz. I know some people do 20Hz to get a bit of extra bottom but I seldom need it. The ultra-low usually isn't even audible to humans but is making your plugins work harder & sound worse, so chop it off.

Also, per song, decide which will rule the lower frequencies, either the kick or the bass, and high pass filter the other one a bit to make room. I high pass the lower one at 30Hz, and the higher one at 40Hz pretty often, but you must use your ears and adapt accordingly.

I try to mix them in the context of either the whole mix, or at least the drums and bass together so you can hear how they sound together. Adjusting them soloed then putting them together is always horrible.

A lot of times that's all I need, but I can coax a little more thump from the kick by sidechaining as described above. Sometimes just 3-4db reduction on the bass does the trick. I personally use the attack & release as fast as possible so the listener doesn't notice that it's happening. Other genres use obvious pumping as a stylistic choice.

If it's still yucky, research the boost-sweep-cut eq technique to carve out the offending frequencies.

In my spot, I have trouble with what they call "standing waves" in the bass frequencies, another one to research and eliminate.

Best way is to clear mud, is to tune your kick and bass, to the key of the track. So if your song is in A Minor, tune the kick to A minor. Also the Bassline should be in A Minor or C Major which is the relative key of A Minor.

Get a Tuner that shows you the Note and Frequency. It can be external or vst plug in.
Use this site to get the frequency of each note. https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

By learning this, you'll making composing and mixing so much easier. You'll be surprise at how things just
fall into place.

There’s going to be a TON of answers to this question, and because of that, you’re going to get some really good opinions and advice as you’re already starting to see. But the downside is that the various opinions means that there are a LOT of things that you have to consider and possibly fix. A non-inclusive list is:

* Your room can be key to getting a good mix. Is it treated? Untreated? Not necessary to treat it, but just be aware that how you address the rest of these points is influenced by that.

* Your monitors (and how / where they sit in your room), and what their frequency response is. Are you using monitors or headphones?

* Your mix - see opinions and advice above - some good stuff there.

My contribution to the advice is to find a reference track and play it on your system, then try to recreate the same “sound” with your music (not recreate the music, just the overall sound of it). But 9/10, people just starting out think that the bass has to be LOUD to get the proper effect. When in reality, it needs to be turned WAY down lower than what they have it at. Learn about the frequencies that different instruments have in the sound spectrum. Those types of technical knowledge can be your best friend - even if you only want to be a producer and not a mixing engineer.

The MPC needs an analyzer.

If you're using it in controller mode, use an analyzer like Voxengo SPAN to see what freqs they mainly occupy.
These days ProQ3 with sidechain is my best friend in mixing.

Eyalc wrote:There’s going to be a TON of answers to this question, and because of that, you’re going to get some really good opinions and advice as you’re already starting to see. But the downside is that the various opinions means that there are a LOT of things that you have to consider and possibly fix. A non-inclusive list is:

* Your room can be key to getting a good mix. Is it treated? Untreated? Not necessary to treat it, but just be aware that how you address the rest of these points is influenced by that.

* Your monitors (and how / where they sit in your room), and what their frequency response is. Are you using monitors or headphones?

* Your mix - see opinions and advice above - some good stuff there.

My contribution to the advice is to find a reference track and play it on your system, then try to recreate the same “sound” with your music (not recreate the music, just the overall sound of it). But 9/10, people just starting out think that the bass has to be LOUD to get the proper effect. When in reality, it needs to be turned WAY down lower than what they have it at. Learn about the frequencies that different instruments have in the sound spectrum. Those types of technical knowledge can be your best friend - even if you only want to be a producer and not a mixing engineer.

Very good advices.
My main difficulty is to find the good balance between low and high.
I noticed I tend to keep the bass too high in volume, it seems it sounds right on speakers but a spectrum analyzer cannot lie and when I hear the mix on headphone I notice the bass is too strong.
I think we are all used to superbass because many speakers with subs on concerts and clubs are very bass strong.
And we try to achieve that without thinking that this sound is obtained with those super bass speakers.
The mixing should be just balanced and most linear possible I guess

Frisbi wrote:Very good advices.
My main difficulty is to find the good balance between low and high.
I noticed I tend to keep the bass too high in volume, it seems it sounds right on speakers but a spectrum analyzer cannot lie and when I hear the mix on headphone I notice the bass is too strong.
I think we are all used to superbass because many speakers with subs on concerts and clubs are very bass strong.
And we try to achieve that without thinking that this sound is obtained with those super bass speakers.
The mixing should be just balanced and most linear possible I guess

Are you mixing for what it looks like or how it makes you feel?
What size is your room?
Have you tuned your room?
Are listening at too loud of a level?
Are you speakers too big for your space?
Are you speaker lying too you?


As Eylac said, it's a number of things.

Your Room.
Your Speakers.
Wrong Selections of Sound.
Poor Tuning.
Lack of experience.
Talent for making music but no talent for mixing it.
Listening to poorly mixed references.
Poor speaker placement.

Eyalc wrote: Learn about the frequencies that different instruments have in the sound spectrum. Those types of technical knowledge can be your best friend - even if you only want to be a producer and not a mixing engineer.

1000% if more people understood this, all these mixing tricks would not be needed.

"I hate compression. It should never have been invented. Automatic gain control is a crutch and it’s definitely not good for the music." BRUCE SWEDIEN

A good generic starting point after you've looked over all the rest of the advice, cut your kick from about 70-80Hz down with a low shelf filter (thats the Low band on the Akai's regular 2+2 band EQ plugin). Neither instrument needs much from about 200-400Hz either. Cut a chunk of it out of the bass track, you might notice the kick around 1-200Hz gets beefier but you can still hear the bass coming through around it, theres a shit ton of useless energy there that can mask all sorts of shit when it creeps up into the midranges. Kick drums I do the same thing I do to snares, pull a big ass chunk of it out right in the middle around 400Hz. Same deal with the bass, its useless wasted energy that crowds the space all of your melodies and leads will live in. That area on a snare drum is usually where the 'boxy' sound lives you want to cut as well. Ultimately you want your drums and bass to work AROUND the midrange so you need to take out the stuff it doesn't need there as well so the rest of the song can cut through. On top of that, if your preamps have low cut filters on them, use them religiously except for the obvious drums/bass tracks. Just like that midrange energy of a drum kit that you need to cut, you might not hear it, but synths can easily create harmonics all the way down in that area even when you dont mean to. They might not be loud enough to overtake the bass or kick, but just the same, those frequencies are going to take up space and mess with those instruments when they dont need to be down there. Cut it out, and you'll notice the upper ranges actually get stronger and stick out more. Its energy is now focused up above where you hear it.

Theres your low end somewhat managed, obviously the frequencies will be dependent on the actual kick and bass used but you can use that as a general rule of thumb. For the top end, well theres the fun part. Just about everything needs a space in the 1-2.5K range, which is where you hear the 'snap' or pop of a kick drum/snare drum/etc.. This youre just going to have to play around with until everything finds a home that works for it.

This is why knowing the key, selecting the right instruments, and composing the music are important. I've never been a fan of fix it in the mix, because when you perform it live, it should sounds the similar or better. It's pretty crazy, how technical mixing has become, yet the music is not as dynamic or as intricate.

Monotremata wrote:A good generic starting point after you've looked over all the rest of the advice, cut your kick from about 70-80Hz down with a low shelf filter (thats the Low band on the Akai's regular 2+2 band EQ plugin). Neither instrument needs much from about 200-400Hz either. Cut a chunk of it out of the bass track, you might notice the kick around 1-200Hz gets beefier but you can still hear the bass coming through around it, theres a **** ton of useless energy there that can mask all sorts of **** when it creeps up into the midranges.

Kick drums I do the same thing I do to snares, pull a big ass chunk of it out right in the middle around 400Hz. Same deal with the bass, its useless wasted energy that crowds the space all of your melodies and leads will live in. That area on a snare drum is usually where the 'boxy' sound lives you want to cut as well. Ultimately you want your drums and bass to work AROUND the midrange so you need to take out the stuff it doesn't need there as well so the rest of the song can cut through.

On top of that, if your preamps have low cut filters on them, use them religiously except for the obvious drums/bass tracks. Just like that midrange energy of a drum kit that you need to cut, you might not hear it, but synths can easily create harmonics all the way down in that area even when you dont mean to. They might not be loud enough to overtake the bass or kick, but just the same, those frequencies are going to take up space and mess with those instruments when they dont need to be down there. Cut it out, and you'll notice the upper ranges actually get stronger and stick out more. Its energy is now focused up above where you hear it.

Theres your low end somewhat managed, obviously the frequencies will be dependent on the actual kick and bass used but you can use that as a general rule of thumb. For the top end, well theres the fun part. Just about everything needs a space in the 1-2.5K range, which is where you hear the 'snap' or pop of a kick drum/snare drum/etc.. This youre just going to have to play around with until everything finds a home that works for it.