Original Message 1/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  01:56 AM   -   Muddy mixing

lyday

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I'm making a drum n bass song, and my bass line is to too muddy and dominating. It sounds good on my bedroom studio monitors(ALESIS) and girlfriends home stereo, but it not so good on lower fi speakers like my car and simple computer speakers.

Mixing bass is a B*tch.
You should probably hear it, but what comes to your head right off?
I would really like to crisp it up a bit.
I've attempted to EQ and compress it already.


THank you,
Dustin Lyday

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Message 2/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  02:17 AM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

k

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well i wouldnt worry too much if it sounds ok on good systems... cars emphasis & muddy the bass unless they are top quality, and even then the box-like quality of the car isn't the best, & pc speakers dont have enuff grunt to represent the low-end well... if it sounds good on most decent hi-fi's then you are safe.

If the bass is dominating too much tho on those speakers, mebbe you're creeping it up into the low midrange too much, crap small speakers will miss the bass end, if it's dominating on those then there's prolly too much lo-mid emphasis... ramp it down therefore. Do you have any decent eq?.. or is this done in s/w or what? - and what is doing your bassline?.. what synth?

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Message 3/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  03:00 AM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

lyday

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I'm using the EQ in the Mixing section of cubase 5.0.

That's the best EQ I have access to I think. It's a pretty good EQ, but then again, I'm just now mixing at this level for the first time. I used to just make my music on hardware and not really get into in depth mixing.

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Message 4/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  01:25 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

k

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ah... well don't worry too much, take some time.. mebbe try this, instead of working on a whole track, just concentrate on making short experimental drums & bassline sub-mixes of a minute length - play them around various systems and get to know the VST EQ more and how it responds... keep notes on paper so you know what is what & compare & fine tune.

Generaly tho you want to hard shelve-off the bass-end at 30k so you get some oomph at 40k up, but not TOO much up, not .. however it depends what drum & bass styleee you are going for... if you listen to an old TRINITY yard plates such as on JAMAICA SOUND label ('Natty dread have the big contacts' etc) the bass is way way down at 20-40k ONLY, inaudible unless played on a big speaker, so there is styles too and drum&bass can go down lo like that... Mind you, you'd be hard pressed to get that without a 2" analog master.

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 5/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  01:26 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

k

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can we hear one of these tracks anywhere by the way?

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 6/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  03:18 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

lydaydustin

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Sure, I'll post it to my yahoo briefcase later today.

Thanks for the help guys. I didn't know that part about the low freq. shelving.
I made the bass ln with my xp-80. It was a big challenge to get a good bass line for d'n'b out of that thing.

My d'n'b sound is not very dirty. It's drum line is very syncopated after the first break and has a symphony of strings and later a sitar sound for leads. All of it was done in the xp-80 at first because it's all I had. Now I have a waldorf MicroQ and am a little more excited.

Thanks,
Dustin Lyday

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Message 7/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  05:03 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

bedwyr

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sign up & post it here!  

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Message 8/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  05:34 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

k

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yeah that'd be nice, but i also want a hi-fi version to d/l cos we are talking frequency analysis here

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 9/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  06:02 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

influx

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K...30k? you mean Hz right?

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Message 10/21                 Date: 18-Mar-02  @  09:20 PM   -   RE: Muddy mixing

Brett B

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something to mention is get the other low stuff out of the way and make sure your reverb isn't to blame. Higher synth patches have low harmonics that need to be removed , and the kcik needs to layer with the bass and still be clear. Reverb, especially if not high pass filtered can attenutate these lower hormonics of mid-range string and synths parts. Do your drums and bass first then mix in the samples and other stuff around that.

I mix breaks and the bass I use is very D-n B at times. I work on those and the kick first. I use plenty of lowend shelving with the vst eq's. I just starting using some studio head phones to a/b my mixes. They produce down farhter than my near feilds. I get a better idea of what my car sounds like on them.

One more thing, is using a higher bit depth and samaple rate. Since I switched to 24/48 for all audio other than bass,kick and snares which i do at 16/48. I have much more head room, and the fx are clearer when the audio engine is set to 44.1khz. You will use more cpu and disk space, but the added headroom is amazingly there.

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