THE KICK AND BASS MIXING TRICK | How To Mix Low End

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome back. I'm Streaky. Today, I'm going to show you how you can get some good groove going in your low end and get some really important separation between your kick and your bass when you're mixing. I think you're like this one. It's all about the side chain. I know a lot of you are new here, so please make sure that you subscribe via the link below. I do these videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You're going to learn some top tips for me, who's been working top end of the music industry for the past 25 years. I'm giving it all away to you for free.

So here we are inside of Logic again. Now what we've got here is a kick and a bass. And to get these so that they work within the mix and so that we can get them so that they're not all blurred. And we're on a bit of separation in there. If we have a quick listen to see how that sounds blank before we start doing any processing. (Music playing).

So you can hear that little bit muddled. So I'm going to now show you a three-step process that will make it so that we can get separation with any bassline against your kick. So they're not blurred and mushed up. So first of all, step one is we need to get a compressor up because what we're trying to do is duck the base out of the way, every time the kick comes in. So all it's doing, we're making space for the kick. So otherwise, we're going to lose the transient from the kick. So what we want to do, we've got a compressor here, which is the standard logic compressor. We'll set the side chain up. So what we're going to do is side chain it from the kick itself. So it's just taking the kick as the trigger. So every time the kick comes in, the bass is ducked out of the way.

Now onto step two, which is how we set up the compressor. Now I want this compressor on full on, first of all, just so that I can really then mold it as it plays so that I can hear what it's doing. So I'm putting a ridiculous ratio on it. So it's like 30:1. I'm going to make sure that the threshold is fully on so that it's not letting any of that bass through. I want the attack really fast so that it grabs it. As soon as it hears it, it grabs it. And I want the release really fast. So lets it go as soon as possible. So let's just play that through and you'll see, as I'm playing it through, I'm just gonna open up that threshold so that it lets the bass come through until I hear that it's doing the groove, how I want it to groove against the bass. Because what it's essentially doing is ducking every time the kick comes in. So I just want to modulate that so that it's bouncing off each other. (Music playing).

So that's feeling pretty good. Now what I want to do is move the ratio out. So I'm not doing as much heavy compression. I want to make that a little bit lighter. So now you can hear how that sounds. (Music playing). So I think that feels pretty good around there as I'm poking in and out. Now that's grooving really well.

I want to keep the attack really fast still. I don't want to move that. But the release time it's works really well when you get this in exact tempo with the track. So, working with the BPM, which is 123 on this track. If I go to the website, which is called tomhess.net, on here, I can put the BPM in the top, which is 1,2,3. And then it will calculate the milliseconds that I can do the release time for. Now I want the quickest milliseconds. I don't want it to be holding onto the sound for too long. I still want it to release quite quickly. So the quickest one that is on here is 1/64 note. So I will take that, which is around 30 milliseconds, 30.4 milliseconds. I'll then put that into the release time on there. So about 30, move up, so around there. And then that will release it exactly the right time that we want to release. So, let's listen to how that sounds and I'll just move it in and out as I play it. (Music playing).

So as you can hear, that really gets the groove working properly so that it really is the timing is spot on. (Music playing). So I'm loving the way that sounding. That groove really coming together. It sounds really tight. It's moving. I can hear the bass to happening. I can really get in some good transient hits on the kick. So it's working. It's molding them together. It's keeping out of the way.

But let's move on to step three, which is a little secret tactic that I used, which is not just side chain the bass from the kick, but duplicate the kick. What I do is side chain it from that, don't have that on an output, but use it as a side chain because what I want to do, maybe with the kick, I want to change the level. I want to change how it sounds, things like that. And I don't want that affecting the side chaining at all. So I'm just using the kick now as a trigger for the bass.

So make sure that you have that secondary side trigger outputs to no output. You don't want that playing a double the bass. Also, something that I do more than this is, I'll usually get so I’ll have the trigger as a sine wave played via midi trigger. Because this way you'll have more control over the length of the trigger and you can move it around a little bit if you want to. It just makes things a little bit easier and a little bit more technical. But for this demo, this works perfectly. So just to show you why I do that side chain off another trigger rather than off the kick drum. If I am changing the sound. So for example, I'll take some of the base out of this kick, which you might do. You might filter the kick at some point and you might do some other tricks or put some delays on it wherever you want to do. That's more creative. You'll see, as I've got that on the kick. (Music playing).

Then the compressor just basically stops working because it's not getting the same signal to it as it would, if it was just a straightforward trigger. So, it's really good to have another trigger running rather than using just your kick. Because that way you can manipulate the kick throughout the track.

Just make sure that you've got the side chain now rooted from the actual side chain trigger rather than from the kick drum. Otherwise, you'll just confuse yourself and then you know that everything is running as it should, and you can manipulate the kick, however you fancy.

Now we've changed that to trigger from the side chain trigger rather than the kick. Let's play the track and we'll put that EQ back on. And then you'll see how, when you filter the low-end outs, the compressor will still move exactly the same way as if it was running from the kick drum itself. (Music playing).

And it just keeps the groove going. So the bass groove stays exactly the same and it keeps the beat of the track. So you get a lot smoother baseline that just keeps everything in time and it just gives much more motion to the low-end.

So there you have it. That's the three steps. Let's just run through those. You're getting, first of all, you're setting up the side chain compressor. Then you're setting up the different settings on the side chain compressor. You're getting the thresholds running at the right time. And you want your release time from where I sent you earlier, which is tomhess. I'll leave a link to that below. And then after that, you want to side chain it from either a duplicate kick or ideally you do it from a middy trigger on a sine wave so that you can then manipulate the trigger as much as you want to manipulate the kick drum. So now you've got this groove working and you've got the bass so it's moving in time with the track. You've got the kick working properly. Now, if you want to really tune up that sub-end, then you want to watch this video, that's coming out next. It's an EQ secret on how to EQ sub-bass. Check that out. Don't forget to like this video. So watch the sub-bass EQ secret coming up now.