Car Test

[NaeDae]

I just put this out and it sounded great on earbuds, but when I tested it in a truck, the sub bass on the kick overwhelmed the bass guitar and it was hard to hear the bass. Is this a problem with my mix? Am I not using the subbass properly or something? Here's the song:

https://soundcloud.com/mo-t-597740592/tokyo

[andygabrys]

my 2 cents:

its not surprising you didn't hear the excess of sub bass on earbuds. You won't hear it most of the time. The earbud drivers are too small to reproduce the fundamental that is making that sub bass tone - it will only reproduce the harmonics of the sound. And the sound you have used for the kick sounds rather 808 like.

808's are pretty round with almost sine wave like response. so unless you have added parallel distortion or slammed with a compressor that added some grit, you will have an excess of bass / sub bass and little in the midrange that helps you hear the sub tone. Again its the high harmonics of those sub tones that help us hear whats happening. As most people listening systems don't go much below 50 hz.

so depending on what you system is like on the truck - its likely going to pump that sub region a lot heavier. Like if you have a sub in your truck its not surprising that the sub portion of the kick overwhelmed the bass.

If you look at a frequency distribution of your track, its hyped in the region of 100 hz and below - with a lot of energy when the kick hits.

If you want to get a handle on this - you have to respect how much energy each part of the mix is giving to that sub region. Most people high pass everything except for Kick and Bass, which helps clear out the bottom. But even with just Kick and Bass in the low range, it can still get out of hand.

call up your tune in a DAW with a frequency analyzer. Then call up a bunch of other tunes as references. See how much energy they have in the sub region. Look at the freq plot to calibrate your ears. its the only way I can see of getting a handle on it.

now what you can do:

add parallel overdrive and distortion to both the kick and the bass. Different sends to aux tracks with overdrive / distortion effects on them. Add some but not enough to make the kick and bass sound really grungy. The idea is that by sending a small amount you increase the mid-range harmonics of these low sub bass sounds. The result is that you trick your ear into "recreating" the fundamental tone because your ear hears the harmonics and it extrapolates so you hear the fundamental tone - even though it might not be there. Its a similar process that the Waves plugins MaxxBass and RBass use.

then you don't have to pump the sub region on either track. And it will sound tighter without a flabby sub region.

love to hear how if works for you.

[cardell]

I use IK-Multimedia's ARC Room Correction. It has multiple, simulated listening environments [virtual monitoring].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci1U2uhFqL4
"ARC System 2 takes your room out of the mix! Advanced room correction system just got more advanced "

This is what I do:
1. I mix with the system on "Flat"
2. Then I listen on every different virtual monitoring environment and tweak levels accordingly......done!

Stuart

[ochaim]

Did you upload a new mix for this?

I'm not hearing excessive 808/bass. The vocals is rather loud compared to everything else. The drums and bass sound really low. If they can be brought more upfront, or the other stuff brought down in volume it would feel more full, more balanced.

[Len911]

I'm not hearing excessive 808/bass.

... but when I tested it in a truck...

It's only in the truck

How many recordings of other artists have you listened to in the truck and then listened with earbuds? What were the results? Same or not?

call up your tune in a DAW with a frequency analyzer. Then call up a bunch of other tunes as references. See how much energy they have in the sub region. Look at the freq plot to calibrate your ears. its the only way I can see of getting a handle on it.

Yes exactly! Old school monitoring was based on how well you knew your monitors. They were a reference key word is reference, not how accurate they were. It didn't mean either that mixing to those monitors meant that every thing sounded well on every system, rather that it would sound decent on most systems, sort of a better average.

Today, there are numerous software analyzers that allow comparisons to whatever reference songs you might use. So it's not only using your ears, but your eyes as well.

[guscave]

I use IK-Multimedia's ARC Room Correction. It has multiple, simulated listening environments [virtual monitoring].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci1U2uhFqL4
"ARC System 2 takes your room out of the mix! Advanced room correction system just got more advanced "

This is what I do:
1. I mix with the system on "Flat"
2. Then I listen on every different virtual monitoring environment and tweak levels accordingly......done!

Stuart

I've used a few different room correction softwares and they do help, however if you're listening to different virtual environment through the same headphones or monitors, you're really not getting a true picture because you're using the same output source and you may end up with the same problem.

IMO the best way to avoid the over driven bass frequencies is by using good reference tracks. Not just at your mixing stage, but also listen to those same reference track in your car and compare it with your mix.

Also, here's a neat little trick I've been using lately that as helped me tremendously:

http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/ ... mix-trick/

[andygabrys]

Did you upload a new mix for this?

I'm not hearing excessive 808/bass. The vocals is rather loud compared to everything else. The drums and bass sound really low. If they can be brought more upfront, or the other stuff brought down in volume it would feel more full, more balanced.

sounds like the same mix I heard. the kick and bass sound low because they are mostly sub.

[ochaim]

Did you upload a new mix for this?

I'm not hearing excessive 808/bass. The vocals is rather loud compared to everything else. The drums and bass sound really low. If they can be brought more upfront, or the other stuff brought down in volume it would feel more full, more balanced.

sounds like the same mix I heard. the kick and bass sound low because they are mostly sub.

gotcha, thought my rokits would have translated those subs, but they obviously don't.

[mojobone]

THAT one rattled the bad speaker, so yeah, what Andy said. There's a lot of energy down low that most speakers can't read; when there's more sub-bass than bass, you can't get the low end loud enough on anything but the biggest systems and even then you're sacrificing overall level for bass that's in a range you feel more than hear, so it doesn't come across as loud. Some saturation/harmonic distortion is the key; just don't push it so far that the bass gets mushy.

[NaeDae]

UPDATED MIX: https://soundcloud.com/mo-t-597740592/tokyo-updated

I tried to fix the mix up. Here's what I did:

-EQ'd the bass guitar to be less bass-y and made it louder
-Removed subbass from kick
-EQ'd drums with less low-end and made them louder
-Slightly adjusted the robo-synth-bass to be a little louder

Is the mix sounding good? Is it too flat now?