Mixing Bass Frequencies

[mrsunshine]

Dec 13, 2008, 5:43pm, southpaw wrote:Stick, have to disagree."80Hz is pretty high for bass, no matter what what style. Guitars, vocals, sometimes piano, sure, but you're going to lose a lot of "bottom" if you chop off the bass at 80Hz. Same for kick... I'm often turning up the 40hz to get a good thump going."The first usable (not including maybe tribal, unique world music, etc.) is 40-80hz. Boosting 40hz will get you a good thump......don't know that I would boost in the 40hz range, but I sure wouldn't roll off at 80hz. Your loosing alot of Bass. If you don't think so, drop any current mp3 into your DAW of choice and roll-off 80hz at the master and see if there's any difference in sound quality...obviously theres alot to loose in this range. Roll-off at 40-60hz is about normal for me depending on the music...also the file format dictates decisions in this area. Small mp3s, like Taxi requests, have to roll off some bass for sound quality. Better, larger file format = better bass...Not enough room here for complete tutorial but google Wave's MaxxBass plugin and read up on that...I think it will be useful to you ...Chuck

[southpaw]

" Your loosing alot of Bass. If you don't think so, drop any current mp3 into your DAW of choice and roll-off 80hz at the master and see if there's any difference in sound quality...obviously theres alot to loose in this range."Rolling off at 80hz isn't cutting off all frequencies below that... As discussed, their is about as many mixing perspectives and techniques as there are engineers. Jamie

[stick]

Dec 14, 2008, 12:49pm, southpaw wrote:" Your loosing alot of Bass. If you don't think so, drop any current mp3 into your DAW of choice and roll-off 80hz at the master and see if there's any difference in sound quality...obviously theres alot to loose in this range."Rolling off at 80hz isn't cutting off all frequencies below that... As discussed, their is about as many mixing perspectives and techniques as there are engineers. JamieI think part of what's going on here, is that some of us are talking about hi-passing at 80Hz and some are talking about a shelf at 80Hz. And even if its a hi-pass, it depends on the slope of the filter how much is actually getting cut off. But, yeah, there's plenty of info in most current pop or rock mixes well below 80Hz. The whole point is learning to control it to your advantage.

[southpaw]

ooh ooh, i like slopes! Specially dose wuns wis snow on them and i like to geta wunning start and slide down them!

[mojobone]

Great tip on reference mixes, Stick. Makes for a great equalizer, no pun intended. If you have someone else's great mix available for immediate comparison, whatever you come out with should translate well to other systems; it's maybe the only 'rule of thumb' method proven to be effective. This is a pretty vast can o' worms. The idea that the ear can reconstruct missing bass frequencies based on the upper harmonics further complicates things, which is why that MaxxBass tutorial is also a good call...

[ro]

Yeah i third the motion on the MaxxBass by Waves.....its a great plugin especially if you want to be adventurous and listen to low frequencies in different synths and instruments that wouldn't provide a whole lot of lows....

[mojobone]

I'm down with the tutorial, but I don't think you necessarily need MaxBass, I meant that the principles are important to understand...