Mixing Bass Tutorial

Hey Friends, I hope you’re doing marvelously well!

As a lot of you may already know, we’ve recently launched a new series of tutorials for our youtube channel:

I’m mixing a complete pop/rock song from start to finish, walk you through every single element and show you how I mixed it. I’m doing this mix completely in the box, not using any outboard gear, so you can achieve the same (or better!) results no matter what setup you’re working with.

You’ll get to download the multitracks of the song for free, follow along with the tutorials and mix the song for yourself. – Fun!

Today, we’re getting into our second lesson: Mixing Bass.

Sculpting your low-end to sound punchy, big and powerful can present quite a challenge and it’s often said that the low-end separates the “men from the boys”.

Why is that?

Firstly, the low-end is the one area in the frequency spectrum that can cause phase cancellations most easily. When that happens, you’ll lose weight and the lows will sound sloppy and undefined.

Secondly it’s also the area that you’ll need to be most careful about when it comes to eqing and compression. Because the low-end has “limited space” (if too many instruments are competing there, phase issues will occur and you’ll lose definition), you’ll need to make very sure your bass and kick are living nicely together to get a full and punchy sound.

The low-end is also the area that provides the most energy in the song level wise, which means too much low-end can distort your master chain, pump compressors, dull out the song or make you unable to get to a competitive loudness.But too little or less controlled low end will make your song sound tiny and cheap.

Lastly, the low-end is also the main area that will cause room modes (uneven frequency response in your room due to reflections from the walls). That’s especially true for smaller rooms. So that can present an additional challange, because the sound you’re hearing in the low-end might not be accurate.

Lots of trouble! But sculpting a punchy and full low end can be one of the most rewarding experiences as a mixer as well as your listeners. So let’s dig in!

Topics discussed in this tutorial:

• Controlling the low-end and picking noise of an uneven, but highly energetic “rock ’n’ roll” performance.
• Evening out dynamics to make your low-end consistent and powerful.
• Help your bass cut through the mix and add color by using parallel distortion and overdriven amp tones.
• Taming transients by using saturation.
• How to blend a DI signal in with your amp tone.
• Controlling phase relationship to maintain a full bodied low-end.
• EQ, Compression, Limiting + Multi-band Compression, Saturation, VST Amp tones.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please make sure to download the multitracks, mix the song for yourself.
You can post your mix on the Produce Like A Pro Facebook page and tag the band Little Empire, so they can listen and comment on your mixes!

Have a marvellous time recording and mixing,

Warren