YOUR KICK AND BASS SUCKS! (And how to fix it like a pro!)
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
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Today I am showing you why your kick and bass sucks how to use reference tracks to fix it like a pro. This can help get your low end as big, clean and punchy as your favourite pro producers. I'm using Ableton Live, but all of these techniques and principles are applicable to Logic, Cubase, Reason, FL Studio, Studio One, Bitwig and all other popular DAW's.
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Contents:
00:00 Intro
01:00 The Intro Track ID
01:44 What We're Making Today
02:05 Example 1
22:08 Example 2
37:29 Download the Project Files
37:58 Watch This Next
I am a DJ, producer and Engineer living in Berlin. Music That I have made for myself and my clients has been released on labels including Toolroom, Spinnin, Defected, Mother Recordings, Saved, Realm, Solotoko and many more.
Whether you make tracks like Fisher, Solardo, Chris Lake, Camelphat, Artbat, UMEK, Solomun, Purple Disco Machine, Claptone or David Penn you can learn something from this video. And make sure you check out my other music production tutorials.
Instagram: / dilbydj
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Facebook: / dilbydj - Hudba
Very clear & concise examples on better sound selection, leveling and frequency separation. Very nice work, Dilby!
Trick: Instead of pitch-shifting to tune hits try using a frequency shifter. A pitch-shifter will shift all frequencies by the selected value changing all frequencies multiplicatively by that value across the entire spectrum, while a frequency shifter shifts all frequencies by a selected Hz value throughout the entire spectrum thus maintaining higher frequency information better and keeping much of the original character of the hit.
This is what we need. Appreciate the small details you're giving everyone. Love it bro
I love your channel Dilby - so much quality. Really enjoying binge-watching your back catalogue!
Dilby in the House! Thank you for your mentoring....Danny from Sacramento, CA, USA. Big fan!
I really enjoyed this video! I plan to rewatch and copy some of the workflow for my own tracks. Thank you! I like the way you show technical vs creative choices.
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome video, you have a great way of simplifying the steps which makes them easy to understand. Great work as always mate!
Glad you think so!
Finally! Somebody explains one of the reasons to NOT "tune your kick." First of all, if your kick is tonal enough that you can TELL whether it's tuned or not, then you are doing something special and all bets are off. A kick drum sample fundamental should not matter except that you want to avoid it building up with sub or bass or whatever, as you explain. Excellent! Kicks should be short in length to avoid sounding weird in the club.... There's a good video where desdmou5 explains the embarrassing way he discovered that kick samples should be short. Thanks for a great video!
Nothing short of amazing education here, thank you so very much! Love your style and production.
Glad you enjoy it!
Fantastic Tutorial. Great work and the attention to detail is amazing
Cheers Tom ✌️
massive tips - great tutorial !!!
very good master Dilby! I will definitely use these tips for my low end, I think I tend to over Sub my tracks, thanks again!
Happy to help!
Amazing stuff, thanks Dilby!
You're welcome 😁
Yo Dilby! Thanks for the amazing tutorial! What studio headphones are you using?
Class is in session :) … really useful advice on the most important stuff! Thanks man
Happy to help!
I focused on kick and base for a month and saw lots of video on how to do it and they all say to align your kick root note with bass for rolling bass, maybe there is some truth to that but i really like your approach and to me it sounds more melodic to have 2 different pitch in the low end, i love how you to treat the mids, i want to minimalist techno pysy trance so it always ok to remove so a thing that collides with another part, i found you so cool and professional, thank you!
Another amazing content! thank you
amazing and simple explanation !well done
Glad you liked it!
Just wanted to drop by and say your new track Seek Shelter is an absolute banger. 100% playing it next time I have a set
Nice one, thanks bro 👊
Thank you :)
Amazing😊
Danke!
Can you explain please again the trick with the comparisson of the kick and bassline key and trying to find the fundamenta and bringing it up 2 semitones?
That's really useful, thank you, man! I wonder though if there are bass sounds that work with a clean 808 kick and do not make it drown in the mix. 'Cause 808 sounds sooo nice.
Of course mate. But an 808 kick is generally long and subby, so a punchy bassline played in a higher octave would probably compliment it best.
@@dilbydj Higher octave sounds great to me, will definitely try it, thank you!
Usually kick and bass sucks because of lame layering of everything (3 basses 3 kicks sub mid high etc etc, stil getting generic timbres) and then trying to solve all that sh*t)
Couldn't agree more bro. If you get the right kick and bass sounds in and play a great baseline there is no need to layer in 90% of cases. People just overcomplicate things because they think it's "what the pros do".😂😂😂
Thanks Dilby, great stuff. Do you have a limiter on while making these changes or when mixing down a track? Aren't you referencing a mastered track? Just curious how to go about matching the the db level of the kick (or anything really) premaster. When referencing, I like to set the limiter and kick in place to match the reference and build/mix everything around it. Do you see any problems there?
I use a limiter and that's why I put the spectrum last on the master chain.
But you can do it with or without as long as you are comparing the relative difference. For example, the difference in volume between the kick and bass.
any reason to swap kicks rather than transposing when wanting them to hit at diff frequencies?
Great video, Dilby! At about 36:06, you started adjusting the levels of your two bass layers, and it really brought out the bottom end. I liked that a lot.
One thing I noticed is that when you soloed your bass sounds, there was a tiny click/pop at the start (even after you compressed out the transients). I sometimes get those in my bass sound design; I usually slide up the attack to about 5ms to combat it. But when you hear the bass in context, it's not really very noticeable. How important do you think it is to try to completely eliminate those clicks?
Hey bro, you are 100% correct on the click. It's actually coming from the sub and I should have increased the attack to solve the problem. I didn't realise this until I was editing the video. I try to do as much as I can while filming as the feedback from my audience is that they find this more helpful. The downside is that sometimes I miss things or mess stuff up like I did there.
@@dilbydj thx - I will make sure to cut those out in my sound design, too!
So if the key was A# you tuned the key to G or a mistaken it? 🤔 if so, what's the advantage to it?
Dilby, let me ask you, the kick can hit any note in the scale? I thought was every time on rude note or in the 5º
I'm asking this because of the first example , and what I saw you doing in the kick
Great tutorial, should you cut frequencies below 30 hz on the kick and should the key of the kick be tuned for example a 3rd or 5th from the root note?
If you cut the frequencies on your kick I suggest using a gentle slope on your eq. If you do it with a hard cut like the 48db/octave in Ableton you risk creating resonance in the area and this will probably cause more problems than it will solve.
Regarding tuning the kick. You can try. In a more melodic track with a kick with a very defined fundamental frequency it will probably sound good. In a tech house track with a bid 909 kick it likely doesn't matter. Every track is different so give it a go and judge for yourself.
So normally you try and be 2 semi tones above or bellow root note ?
Whatever sounds good. The more distance the better but not at the expense of the kick sounding too low or too high.
I don't really do things as hard and fast rules, more like things to look out for and then find the best solution.
I can sadly only produce on headphones (neighbors) and I tinker until it sounds perfect for me...
...until I go listen to my track on speakers...It's beyond awful. 😅
I got a great compilation of "headphone only" tracks, though 🤣 Hopefully this will help me out as my kicks and basses are deffo the culprits.
Haha, I feel you mate. It is possible to get good mixes on headphones. I produced primarily on headphones for years and even did mixdowns for people on headphones. It's a good idea for a video... 5 tips to get better mixes on headphones... or something like that.
My bass always sounds to quiet in the mix even though the gain is can be really high. I was told this means I've got too much dynamic range in my bass. But I'm at a loss on how to fix it.
That could be one reason. To lower the dynamic range you could try to use a combination of compression and saturation.
It could also be that your bass hits are too short or that your envelopes are too peaky, adding a little sustain or increasing the decay could help. Do this by listening in context of the track, not with the bass solo-ed. Lower frequencies not only require more volume to be "heard" they also require a bit more time.
Clipping the peaks allows you to gain the bass harder without losing headroom. It also adds (some) higher harmonics to the sound which tricks the brain into hearing the lower harmonics, helps especially on systems that cant reproduce bass as much.
Amazing video, as usual, @dilbydj
Thanks mate ✌️
cant understand how u reference a masterd track without lowering the volume
First things first. To achieve a nice low end, stop working with your $20 headphones 😂
Edit: I do work with cheap headphones and my low end sucks, it’s like drawing without seeing anything
My senheiser 280 pro (which is an entry level) just stopped working and no one in my small town could fix it, it is quite expensive here in Brazil, 800 reais, more than half of a minimum wage. Idk when i'll be able to afford another one and im just mixing with my monitors, and that sucks...honestly I'm a bit depressed
@@dodoarsenalfc Sorry to hear that mate. Referencing becomes even more important when your monitoring setup is not ideal. So maybe this is a good chance to get better at referencing. 💪
Haha 😂 You might be onto something there!
I just can't finish tracks. Arrangement is a bitch. Especially dynamics and transitions. 😢
A tip that works for me: As long the track is playing, go variating filter frequencys with automatization (red lines dots in Ableton) , changing volumes, in transitions delete some elements so the track can breathe, the use of sweeps fx works fine too. Try to enjoy those moments, and variating energy
Use reference track as your blueprint, then you do reverse engineering - that means almost copy excactly same things as you hear a little bit modified as your track style and key inculding arrangement, best way to practise and learn your own style, enjoy
If that's what you're struggling with then that's what you should be focusing on. Study reference tracks. Practice on your tracks. Try doing 2 or 3 arrangements for a single track and try to understand what works and what doesn't. If you don't lean into the things you find difficult that they will never get easier.
Beautiful content, many of us have no idea how much simple modifications can cause in the mix. But I leave negative feedback, so that you can analyze and help even more people, especially for those who don't speak English. Try to speak more slowly and also let the project within the arrangement be more organized, rename which channel is referenced and which channel is the song you are mixing. I got lost several times and you end up talking very fast a lot of the time, and I had to go back to the video.
A# is in itself an awful key for dance music...
Care to elaborate why? I have loads of great tracks in mycollection in A#....
@@dilbydj I trust that 100%! Of course you can write great music in any key! But getting that deep balls rattling low end punch with a fundamental at A# has always been a struggle for me, because the A# of the lowest octave is already too high in the frequency spectrum to give you that earthquake bass. Would you lower it one octave it would be way too low...I just don't like producing in this key
@@florianarndt In that case you might try a bigger kick tuned to F.
I think anything can work, it's just a matter of finding the right combination of elements.
Also worth remembering, bass is going to sound a lot bigger in a club or festival sound system. That's why I aim for balance above "huge". Most tracks that have an earthquake sounding bass on speakers or headphones just sound like rumble and you can't hear the rest of the track on a big system.
"@@dilbydj Earthquake" was actually a badly chosen symbol for what I'm thinking of. I'm more talking about that very precise, designed and bespoke low end you hear for example in "Twoloud - Lose Control". I would argue, that there is no way to achieve such a cohesive low end when writing a track in A#.
I get more gut punches when the kick and bass are rooted in the e - g area, while been perfectly separated or glued together in phase.
I guess my initial comment was far too vague :D
Why didn't you use the R button in the oscillator section in order to reset the phase of each note, this makes bass sounds far more stable!
That's not the function of the R button (or Retrigger which is what R stands for).
The retrigger button is used to set whether or not the envelopes retriggers when played polyphonically. When this option is on, the envelopes will restart with every new note played, even if you're currently holding other notes.
I had the Simpler device set to one voice (so monophonic) which retriggers the envelope automatically.