BIG bass drum sound!

[ExecutiveRob]

Hello, hope someone can help with this...

I'm normally used to mixing really clicky metal bass drums for grindy/tech metal kinda of stuff, but I'm working on much slower riffy band at the mo (kinda like early Isis, Cult Of Luna, Capricorns sort of thing).

So I've got bass drum sound that I'm really pleased with, plenty of thump and sub, plus the mix is sounding quite fat already when I've tested it on a few Hi-fi systems.

My problem is that when I look at the mix waveform, I can see the bass drum spikes towering above the whole mix! I've had a few quick goes at seeing how much I can push it in mastering, and as you can guess... not very much! It quickly distorts and it's not even close to where I'd like the final levels to be.

Soooooo...

I know I need to bring it down to make mastering easier, but how can I make a deep kick drum appear to be louder in the mix without adding loads of prescence and making it become clicky?



And before someone asks, unfortunately I can't post up any clips as I currently have poor man's internet!

 

[grywolf627]

What? No Tad Donley/Nuendo jokes yet?

(sorry, I know I'm not answering your question...there's others here with more experience that can give you better tips...waiting for them to chime in)

 

[Youowemeapony]

Are you compressing it?

If you have a couple mics on the kick, take the track with most of the attack and compress it with a fairly fast attack.. 10ms or so and a release around 40ms at a 4:1 ratio. Reduce like 5-6 dB and see if that does it.

I don't know if your problem is the transient popping through too much, or if you just want more level for the whole drum. If the initial attack is what's looking huge, compress that. If the air/boom is too much... compress that.

Also make sure you roll off below 40 Hz, and depending on your monitoring situation you might need to take some low end out. Have you tested the mix on anything other than your normal speakers?

Hopefully this helps...

 

[ExecutiveRob]

hey man, thanks for the reply...

The kick drum is triggered with drumagog and in the heavy parts, the dynamic tracking is set to 30% (don't know if you use it...). There's also a sine wave synth triggered at 44Hz subtly within the sample.

Following that I'm compressing 4:1, attack 20ms, release is 100ms (I was losing a lot of body with quick release times plus the beats are fairly sparse)...

Then EQ, cutting a little wide around 400Hz, boosting a little at 58Hz, quite a lot at 6KHz, High pass at 30Hz.

All this followed by a noveltech character plug-in.

The dynamics are fine... it's not all over the place - it's just consistently too loud! But reducing it makes it inaudible.

If the initial attack is what's looking huge, compress that. If the air/boom is too much... compress that.

This maybe the right way to go though... you reckon stick a multiband on the kick to handle the thump/boom?

 

[Katau]

First, make some room for it in the mix...obvious, right? Maybe high-pass the bass around 100-120.
A narrow boost on the kick at the 700hz can provide some presense without the click. Another narrow boost at 100 to 150 can provide some low end. You shouldn't necessarily 'hear' the 50hz low end stuff, but you should feel it. I've never really gone below 65hz on kick boosts. Anything below that should be cut out.

 

[colonel kurtz]

you reckon stick a multiband on the kick to handle the thump/boom?

squashing the lows with a multiband comp and giving it a few db's make-up might do the trick...

also, if you need to turn the kick down and retain some of the low, you might try copying or aux'ing the kick track, and stick a LP filter on it...then maybe compress the low end that's left, and it tuck it in under the original kick track

 

[2012]

Parallel and Two-Stage compression will raise the apparent loudness of any source.

 

[BassTard]

Some good ideas in this thread, thanks to everyone

If you want your kick to sound that deep (44 Hz is deep indeed). Maybe you should try a bass-enhancer. The harmonics of the deep frequencies will kind of suggest a lower bass even if it's not there - and they won't need so much of dB for being audible.
That's pretty much the way Waves MaxxBass works e.g. If you don't have a bass-enhancer try to bring in a bit of harmonics of 44 Hz instead (88, 132, 176 etc.) ...or try changing the sine to a saw.
I found this strategy to be pretty helpfull on kick and even bass-guitar, especially if you listen on cheap car-radios.

 

[ExecutiveRob]

Dudes... this is completely ace! Thanks very much, some really good tips there!

It's not so much I'm trying to hear the 44Hz, I know it'd have to be stupid loud for that - can definitely feel it, it's just I didn't want to resort to making it clicky to hear it... just doesn't suit the music and it'd be a cop out to settle for that!

Anyway... tried the multiband which helped a lot, but the harmonics and copying kick tracks ideas sound very cool. I shall try and let you know.

Cheers again guys!

 

[Mood Bender]

Sonic space for the kick

Make the kick beat last longer

Kick peaks carry little energy. clip those bastards

 

[greyskull]

give the room mics a healthy dose of bottom end and roll of the top too!

 

[ExecutiveRob]

Yep, a combination of boosting lower harmonics and copying the kick track and rolling all the top off seems to of done the trick quite nicely.

Quite nice to have a kick drum that sounds like a kick drum for a change!

 

[Mood Bender]

what does copying the track and rolling off the top do that a low shelving boost of 3db (or other) not do?

 

[Student]

Reduce the kick's volume...bounce your mix, boost everything, but that's the same as putting a brick wall limiter on the mix with makeup gain closer to 0dB full scale...although, if you just bring down the kick drum fader and rebounce, you aren't altering the waveform, just bringing amplitude down.

boost the 4k and make it a touch clickier so it peaks it's head above the bass guitar and it's distinguishable in the mix.

That's what I might mess with.

 

[Sloan]

BOOOOOOOOM

 

[JonWormwood]

You could always sidechain into a sine wave generator (MDA's Sub-synth is free and works perfect)

 

[fatalforce]

I like to limit my kicks. it helps control the peaks. I like the velocity of each kicks to be the same unless they are soft and limiting helps. Try messing around with that.

Then you could blend it with a sample or use the sine generator like someone else said.

 

[doc_backmask]

I just recently read a thread about this (don't remember where, maybe a little help?) and someone suggested adding a tone generator. I took up the suggestion and tried adding some 50Hz to the kicks, and it really made everything pop. I tried it on my mix of Machinated's song and also am using it on a demo I'm producing. Maybe try something like that.

 

[Let it burn...]

I've sampled the kick from pelican's "The fire in our throat..." and it sound freakin huge for sludge/postrock. I've you still want it, pm

 

[JonWormwood]

I've sampled the kick from pelican's "The fire in our throat..." and it sound freakin huge for sludge/postrock. I've you still want it, pm

You've got to post that up asap!