Cry For Help on Mixing Hip Hop

[waveheavy]

Sounds much, much better.

I still think you could tighten up the kick more and make it a bit more punchy. Dipping out around the 250 Hz range on kick does wonders with tightening up a kick. And boosting around the 65-70Hz area adds 'meat' and 'punch' to the kick. Don't forget the sidechain trick that when the kick hits it drives the bass compressor down (can already have bass compressor set to even out the bass before doing this; dipping the bass compressor more when the kick hits simply allows the kick transient to be heard more clearly without the need for boosting the kick volume).

Dave Pensado's The Lair would be a good place to study these particular engineering tricks for Hip-Hop and Rap styles, he does a lot of that kind of production.

[ochaim]

the recent changes sound ok, as far as i can tell on earbuds.

the bass is there, i dont think its too overbearing but it sounds like the kick gets buried in it. as andy mentioned, i also use waves rbass for both the bass and kick. but instead of sidechaining i notch out the bass around 100hz to give some roomwhere i find the punch is usually from the kick. or at least thats where i like to hear/feel it. then i high pass the kick a bit to leave room for the bass to support the punch at 100hz. if you're not making complementary room for the bass and kick that might explain why the kick feels like its being buried in the bass.

i'd also try layering the kick with another kick to get the kick sounding better. is that an old drum machine like lindrumm or similar?

not sure whats going on with the ozone limiter situation. maybe its allowing intersample overs?

[andygabrys]

i also use waves bass for both the bass and kick.

that is exactly one of those magic plugins that creates harmonics in the midrange using parallel distortion.

You can often get it for about $25 to $50 when Waves has a big sale (which happens more and more often). It came out in the early 2000's.

[mojobone]

It's not your ears and it's not your limiter; your problem is Suzanne Vega and physics. Firstly, subbass doean't read on earphones nor small speakers; it can't. To the extent that you can hear bass at all over earbuds, that's your brain reconstructing the missing bass from the upper bass and mid harmonics; hence MaxxBass. Go download the manual and be enlightened, though Andy laid out the basics, upthread. Of course you can do the same manually; and the key is saturation, which basically means adding harmonic distortion selectively so that it doesn't sound 'distorted'. [HINT: this is why engineers own so many different compressors/EQs and preamps] You can do this either separately for bass and kick or use MaxxBass (or similar) over the master bus, but even better is if you choose the right samples; I don't know too many hiphop folks, but the ones I know seem to have folders and folders full of kicks and basses.

The second problem is that lossy data reduction algorithms need more headroom than CDs and DVDs and they absolutely hate too much energy in a given range of frequencies, which means that having more than a suggestion of subbass fundamental in your mix will rob it of a lot of punch, energy and power, whilst most listeners are unable to hear it, regardless-when it's in the room, you feel it more than you hear it, through bone conduction, but you'll neither hear nor feel anything from small speakers.

These issues aren't new, engineers have been dealing with this bass thing forever. Some folks believe they've come up with a way to automate the process: http://soundways.com/products

[markhimley]

I'm late to the party, and unfortunately I don't have anything to add. I really appreciate this thread though; I am also new to hip-hop and have been mixing issues with bass also.

Threads like this make me so grateful to be a part of this TAXI community. I still feel like an absolute newcomer, but you all are awesome and generous people.

[markhimley]

Woah, I just realized as I was re-reading through this thread, that I've actually been sort of using one of these tricks. I had no idea what I was doing or why it worked, just that it did.

When I started making bass heavy music I was having a really hard time getting the bass to cut through without being over-poweringly loud. I was messing around with some different plugins and tried adding Sountoys' Decapitator to it, and it did the trick. It's a saturation plugin (or maybe distortion? I'm not entirely clear on the difference.) Anyways, after reading this thread, now I sort of understand WHY it works.

So, thanks for educating me on the technical side guys!

[andygabrys]

Idk.

Saturation < overdrive < distortion in increasing amounts of grit.

Doesn't really matter though as long as you employ it to good effect to make your mixed parts audible (not just low end either) and that you make it as invisible (or not depending on the track) as it needs to be to sound "right".

So any saturation effect that has input and output volumes and a mix knob is really handy.

[mojobone]

BTW Waves' MaxxBass is a $29 download, right about now. And since you mentioned, the healing is way ahead of schedule, thanks to all for the thoughts and prayers!

[andygabrys]

Here you go!

$24 and change on AudioDeluxe.com

[cosmicdolphin]

Graham... You did remember to switch off the Sonarworks plugin before you bounced it right ?..been there, done that