seriously... this is driving me nuts. HOW DO CLEAN UP LOWEND!?

[Emdprodukt]

I ALWAYS have lowend-rumble in my mixes. don't tell me to treat my room to hear the bass better... that's not a solution right now.

I always Export my "finished" mixes and listen to them through a speakersystem with a subwoofer. wooomph. I know it's the kick, guitars (I guess thats due to the low tunings I use) and bass that are fighting for frequenzies but could someone explain me how to give space for the instruments?

is it like: kick has it boom at around 60hz. so I let that area to the kick and cut the bassguitar at 60hz a bit (or a lot?)?

Where do you high/lowpass bass/kick?

I know it always depends on the source but there have to be some basics I just miss.

I just don't get it and it makes me crazy because whenever I get feedback from friends it's like "sounds awesome, but there is some rumble all the time..."

as a reference you can listen to my tracks at

http://www.myspace.com/blastbeatproductions

or

http://www.soundclick.com/vanityruinsger


thanks for any help!

 

[Sickan]

Have you A/B'd your mixes with other mixes, like the rock band moggs?

 

[Erlend_]

Well.. Seems like you should just adjust the highpass on both bassguitar and kick until
it doesnt rumble more. Dont worry about how much bass you remove. If it sounds good then you got it right.

Do that and the mix becomes too thin? Well then you need to reconsider your bassguitar and kick sound alltogether.

Let me ask you this: Is the bassguitar and kickdrum in time with eachother? I always have problems with the low-end if they are not..

 

[outoftune]

did you try to identify what's rumbling?!
Take any tool that will filter frequency ranges, e.g. one of the waves multibandcompressors, set a frequency range that you identify as your problem range, e.g. by looking at an analysis tools, and then solo through all your channels and see or hear where the problems are occuring and shelf them away.

 

[-Loco-]

Have you bussed the guitars and bass to different outputs? bus everything then try applying the filters till you get rid of it - i tried your most recent preset for pod on a mix of mine which should be on the first/second page of the 'rate my mix..' section so have a listen to that and see but i dont think its your guitars....i had difficulty letting the bass come through though with it. Hope that helps? let me know how it goes

 

[ahjteam]

I usually highpass everything else from 80-300hz and kick & bass (depending which is lower) at 35hz and 50hz and masterbus and subdrops at 35hz

 

[Emdprodukt]

I actually bus everything and use low and highpass filter. I just thought it's not good to set them too high.
masterbus at 35hz? thats interesting. I always did it at 20hz, not shure if it would be such a difference!

thanks for all you advice. will go and try it out right now

 

[Metaltastic]

Ditching the stock AD kick would help immensely right off the bat! (assuming you're still using it)

 

[Emdprodukt]

lol, I know you hate it, marcus. I just got S2.0 and started playing around with it. Let's see what my mixes will sound like with it.

 

[GarethSE]

the AD kick is SERIOUSLY hard to use though
i had trouble getting anything usable out of it

 

[ahjteam]

I actually bus everything and use low and highpass filter. I just thought it's not good to set them too high.
masterbus at 35hz? thats interesting. I always did it at 20hz, not shure if it would be such a difference!

thanks for all you advice. will go and try it out right now

The highpass filter ain't scissors. If you put the highpass filter at 80hz, it doesn't mean that you can't hear 79hz anymore, you usually can still hear even the 40hz, but its just a lot quieter.

In tracking I use the 80hz filter I have in the preamp for almost everything except kick and bass, but in the mix I usually set them so high, that if I goes 10hz above, it goes thin. Mathematics help in this one. With guitars this mean something like 12db/oct@145hz with D tuning rhythm guitars (because D3 is 146hz). On leadsolos it depending how low it goes, if its just wankfest in the top four strings, 12dB/oct@400hz is fine because the lowest he can play is G4 (which is 392hz) if in standard tuning

But for the masterbus thing... My subwoofer or headphones don't even play anything below 30hz, so why bother? I have found that 24dB/oct@35hz works nicely for everything I do (rock and metal) because the tempo of the songs just doesn't let you use the 20-30hz frequencies efficiently for anything else except maybe subdrops.

But here are two nice links for ya:

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm

PS: I think using the lowpass filter just for the sake of using it is totally unnessecary, because you lose all the upper harmonics and the +10khz is not a headroom hog like the bass is.

 

[Emdprodukt]

thanks man! that is a really helpfull explanation! how do you set your Q for the high-/lowpass filter? this is my setting for the bass. looks pretty much like scissors?

 

[MartijnPaauwe]

Don't know if it's helpful but i AL-WAYS put the SSL Compressor from Waves on the Masterbus during mixingprocess. It's just slightly peaking at 4db or so. It really helps me to smoothen the sound when used correctly (if you are overdoing it then it pumps like madness)

 

[ahjteam]

how do you set your Q for the high-/lowpass filter?

12dB or 24dB per octave

 

[Dom Ostarig]

Fast palm mutting + Low Tension Strings = weird ressonance (not just lowend, but even after your fundamental note frequency)..... that explain why could be too hard to get out with the rumble just hipassing frequencies. That's just IMO. But anyway your songs sounds fine to me.....no problem at all....and it sounds great.

 

[Emdprodukt]

thanks dom! I guess I will try higher tunings and see what happens.

ahjteam: could you explain me how I would do that with the plug-in I use for instance? I don't get it

 

[ahjteam]

ahjteam: could you explain me how I would do that with the plug-in I use for instance? I don't get it

If you can trust that graph, you can find out where the 12 and 24dB/oct are... put orange as highpass @ 100hz and then disable the yellow and put it -12dB @ 50hz and then adjust the Q of the 100hz until it is aligned. I think 0.8 might be close enough. To find out where the -24dB/oct just move the yellow to 75hz and you should find it out. I think 1.25 is there

 

[Emdprodukt]

thanks for helping a noob!

doesn't look too different to mine or is that yellow dot making a HUGE difference?

 

[ahjteam]

it doesn't do anything, its disabled.

 

[Emdprodukt]

it's just for finding the -24db/oct?