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Controlling Bass and Mud is a hard process in a untreated room. You will need some kind of treatment to reap the benefits of this post. I wanted to continue on the topic of Bass and Mud because there are so many tricks to help achieve the sound you want. I have a few more tips that can be helpful to your journey for audio bliss. The low end can make or break a mix so paying extra careful attention to this area is most important especially for Hip Hop. Here are a few more tips.
Compressor
1. Another tip for making a kick sound soft is to turn the attack on your compressor all the way down to zero. This usually helps me achieve a softer kick or bass.
2. You could setup a compressor on the bass track and side chain it to the kick drum track in your mix. When the kick drum signal hits the compressor you can compress the bass to move it out the way of kick drum. You can eliminate mud that way and let the kick and bass co-exist.
EQ
1. Another way to eliminate mud is to cut certain frequencies and letting other frequencies be dominate. Most of the time I find the strength of all instruments is at 250hz so it best to cut the one, more or all. I should have included this in Part 1 but it I just realized you guys will need this. You can cut both in different areas to achieve a good balance.
2. You can use the same concept with high pass filter in the same fashion. Sometimes you might want to leave more sub frequencies in kick and less in bass or vice versa.
Reverb
Some may not believe but effects can help with smoothness and mud also. Applying reverb to a kick can put the kick in its own sonic space. Be careful when applying reverb to kick because the kick is the driving force to a song. Be light with reverb. Use reverb as a way to massage the kick instead of a effect.
Chorus
I use chorus for bass sometimes. After cutting some sub out of bass sometimes the bass need a little chorus to smooth it out and help with mud also. Putting effects on sounds put things in its own sonic space.
Hopefully the tips in this post will help. If you have heavy drums or bass, sometimes you might have to roll more sub bass off. Always trust your ears and make sure to play back your mixes in the car or boom box. Use anything you can get your hands on to hear what you need to hear. It doesn’t matter if you have room treatment or not. Play your mixes on any system possible.
Photo provided by Sansumaria
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