Miniseries ep. 3/10: EQ math to improve your bass [video]
(For an abundance of other mixing-related posts, see the dedicated collection (link)
I always remember Optical the DNB producer saying he approaches things with the philosophy that he wants to process things as little as possible, and I agree with that.
With all the plugins available to us today, I think we may overcomplicate or overprocess signals at times, and as an engineer and a tutor, I get to see and hear that and steer people away from it.
"How to make my bass cut thru on small speakers?" is a common question in my inbox.
I have always approached that from a fairly simple angle, not overcomplicating things or processing things. Yes, you can slam it into a saturator, but that may pose its own problems.
So let's see where I start. And often when I do this, I hear, "What did you do to the bass?"
For more bass info, make sure to check out the dedicated Bass Collection.
For example, what has helped so many people over the years:
• Getting the sub loudness right as well as
• Getting the sub frequencies right.
• Also Let's talk about bass takes a deeper dive.
We keep that bass strong around these parts.
Next episode soon: fixing and oh-so-common issue in a very common type of bass that hurts its weight and a lot of producers still neglect, but it's easy to fix.
🤔 Once the mini series is done, what do you say we 1) make some jungle and 2) check out some full mix+master walkthru stuff (e.g., tech house)?
Comments (6)
About operator, you got this numbers 16, 32, 64 next to harmonics, Thats how you can make view bigger if you only need couple of them :D
Goated tip!! Thank you 🙏🏻🥰
I somehow just saw this today, and it couldn't have come at a better time, since it helped me get the consistent tone and weight I wanted on a bass. So thanks! I have a two-part spectrum analyzer question: Is the -30 mark in ProQ similar to the -30 target for sub in SPAN, and is it ok if the second harmonic occasionally rises to a similar height in ProQ as the sub? I know it's best to keep that downward slope, but then I look at references, and they occasionally have peaks poking out from midbass layers. I suppose the answer is go too far and then dial it back, right? 😄
Yo! Span -30 prob isn’t the same as in ProQ. Second harmonic hitting sub levels is ok if it sounds ok!
Nice. Agreed with Optical and on that line if you design your bass in a synth with (bigger UI) harmonic editing like Sytrus or Serum you don't even need EQ, you just dial in the amounts you need! I vote make some jungle.
Yeah I'm increasingly talking about bass DESIGN as opposed to processing it to make it fit. I obviously do a lot of both. But if producers were aware of the options they have to make a bass that has both a good sub and decent harmonics, then it's also easier for me to shape into the mix. Jungle will be made :)