Mixing Bass.... Where to Roll off?!?

[gemini8026]

Been doign some mixing on a new tune. Anyhow, I just had a mid-higher end car stereo in my car (MB quart's, all alpine gear, ported 12" sub)

When I listen to the black album, it sounds SWEET, its my reference for mixing sometimes. Howeve,r I put some of my tracks on there, and its mud city, and I think its due to the bass guitar not rolled off.

Any tips for where frequency, and how hard I should roll off my bass guitar?!?

To keep it soundign full, yet without being a slop fest down low?!?

Thanks for any suggestions

 

[AllanD]

I usually roll off around 100 or so.

 

[abyssofdreams]

I'm sorry but that depends on a lot of things and of course as to how the initial sound is and what processing you do.
Most of the times the bass doesn't need any rolling off and if so, rarely more than up to 40hz.

 

[Rex Rocker]

what do you mean rolled off? as in hipassed?

 

[Machinated]

I think its going to depend on too many things to give one answer......

 

[ahjteam]

masterbus at 35hz, kick at 40hz, bass at 50hz, everything else at +80hz. But my guess goes to that your problem city is mud city, aka lowmids. 100-600hz area

 

[egan.]

I hi pass my bass at 30hz which is the fundamental of the low B but most systems won't do that anyway. If you have a ton mud it is probably in the 60-120hz region, but as others have said it is really track dependent. My best advice would be to get a system where you can reference the lows....or burn a lot of discs and walk to your car often which is actually not a bad idea anyway.

 

[gemini8026]

thanks men, ill play around!

 

[seditz740novaprospect]

depends on the track, but usually at somewhere between 35hz-60hz on avg

 

[Proggm]

After rolling off at 40/60 hz, try removing some info in the region between 150 and 400 hz. That will help.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I usually roll off around 100 or so.

Are you sure? That would mean your mixes have basically no low end body at all, or at least not anything near a "normal" amount of low end body, unless it's an extremely slow taper down from 100Hz, which would also be kind of weird...

masterbus at 35hz, kick at 40hz, bass at 50hz, everything else at +80hz. But my guess goes to that your problem city is mud city, aka lowmids. 100-600hz area

I used to go for the whole "kick below the bass guitar" thing, but I eventually came to the conclusion that it sounds a whole lot better the other way around. You can still get a thick, punchy kick with the proper degree of roll off, even from like 60-65Hz. Especially with double kicks, I've found it virtually impossible to get those sub lows to really work in my favor at all, unless they are just barely there. I've been sitting the body of my kicks around 60Hz. And the bass guitar, in order to really get that deep, emotive fullness that it needs, I think those sub lows (between 40 and 50Hz) are crucial. It takes a lot of very small tweaking though, it's amazing how much "sound data" there is down there. There's almost an entire octave of sound between 40 and 60Hz, so it works well when the kick doesn't tread too much on those sub lows...

+1 to Egan about walking out to the car often... Buy a spool of CD-Rs when they go $10 for 100, so you won't feel bad using so many!

 

[Lonnie5]

Roll off at 40Hz on bass. Also set a low pass at 12Khz. As for kick drum, Hi Pass at 40Hz and Low Pass at 10Khz. This is to get rid of "rumble" from 40Hz and down, and the aliases in high frequencies the instruments don't have that may be boosted during equalization.To get rid of that muddy sound, attenuate some of the low mids in the kick around 275hz (attenuate 5-10db) Maybe add a couple db on the bass there. This well let your bass and kick not conflict with each other. Also possibly attenuate a few db at 300Hz on the stereo bus. This is where the mud seems to be in DAW's. You can here if it was mixed "In the box" by too much low mids. Guitars should be really the only instrument holding the low middle frequencies down. Hope it helps!

 

[Metaltastic]

+1 to Egan about walking out to the car often... Buy a spool of CD-Rs when they go $10 for 100, so you won't feel bad using so many!

My (aftermarket) car stereo has a USB jack on the front, so I can just put the bounce on a flash drive

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

You can here if it was mixed "In the box" by too much low mids.

What?

 

[006]

This is where the mud seems to be in DAW's. You can here if it was mixed "In the box" by too much low mids.

Damn that is probably one of the most ignorant statements I've ever seen/heard.

~006

Edited to be a little nicer with my words.

 

[Ben Johnson]

lol, what was the non-p.c. version?

 

[ahjteam]

Now that I think about it, that if you have a good highpass filter with selectable slope, you should highpass it from where the bass is tuned with 12dB slope. This because the sound doesn't stop directly where you put the highpass, but the octave below is only 12 dB quieter, so the subhit is still audible but gives you a lot more headroom.

Here is the list of the most common ones: E 82hz, D# 77hz, D 73hz, C# 69hz, C 65hz, B 61hz, A# 58hz, A 55hz

And the rest you can read from here: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

I used to go for the whole "kick below the bass guitar" thing, but I eventually came to the conclusion that it sounds a whole lot better the other way around.

I personally was at first "bass below kick", but then subwoofer changed my mind... Ever tried to listen to that kind of mix with a system with a subwoofer (a low end hometheather system for example)? Compared to "kick below bass" where you get a a single massive punch from time to time, you just get constant "booooooooooooooooom"

 

[alexrookie]

Roll off at 40Hz on bass. Also set a low pass at 12Khz. As for kick drum, Hi Pass at 40Hz and Low Pass at 10Khz. This is to get rid of "rumble" from 40Hz and down, and the aliases in high frequencies the instruments don't have that may be boosted during equalization.To get rid of that muddy sound, attenuate some of the low mids in the kick around 275hz (attenuate 5-10db) Maybe add a couple db on the bass there. This well let your bass and kick not conflict with each other. Also possibly attenuate a few db at 300Hz on the stereo bus. This is where the mud seems to be in DAW's. You can here if it was mixed "In the box" by too much low mids. Guitars should be really the only instrument holding the low middle frequencies down. Hope it helps!

wow, that are some secrets of mixing, i wish noone here would have ever mentioned.

what about the 'low mid mud' problem of a daw in general? are you serious?
and a dip at 300 hz on the whole mix sounds not like a cool idea for me.

don't want to offend anyone here, but this statement is obviously wrong and i don't want anyone who is new to mixing to believe in such information.

best,

alex

 

[006]

lol, what was the non-p.c. version?

It would make you cry if you saw it. Trust me.



~006

 

[006]

don't want to offend anyone here, but this statement is obviously wrong and i don't want anyone who is new to mixing to believe in such information.

Exactly.

~006