side chain eq-ing a bassline to make room for the kick?

[beat you down]

since i don't like the idea of forcing an entire track to duck...

i was thinking... instead of side chain compression on a bassline to create some more room for the kick...

would it work/make sense to side chain eq the bassline... something like, when the kick hits, conflicting lows get filtered, like hi-passing it?

anybody tried this?
or did i just reinvent the wheel.

[E-Irizarry]

I just use low-end calibration plugs like Waves RenBass and Crysonic newB to work with that problem.

Just remember, make sure the calibration slope is 40Hz so the bass and kick are married at a frequency slope of approx. 145Hz. Make sure the calibration mix is 100 percent wet.

Use that in combination with a plug-in called Bass Chorus or Crysonic SINDO that is a bass widener.

I hope that i didn't miss the point of your thread. One.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by beat you down

since i don't like the idea of forcing an entire track to duck...

Do you not like the "idea", or do you not like the SOUND?

Engineers have been using that trick for decades because it works; if you're hearing a track pump unpleasantly it's probably because you're taking too heavy-handed an approach.

[beat you down]

Originally Posted by bgrotto

Do you not like the "idea", or do you not like the SOUND?...

well ofcourse i agree, if it sounds good it just sounds good end of story. but i was like, ducking can't be the ultimate solution, it seems so extreme.
i was trying to come up with a bit more subtle solution but execution is key i guess.

[idlabs]

Well, you can make it more subtle just by adjusting the ratio of the compressor your side-chaining too.

[spazdor]

Originally Posted by beat you down

well ofcourse i agree, if it sounds good it just sounds good end of story. but i was like, ducking can't be the ultimate solution, it seems so extreme.
i was trying to come up with a bit more subtle solution but execution is key i guess.

What you're describing is actually a fairly common way of processing the bass in dubstep and some styles of hip hop (Florida bass comes to mind).

Here's what you do. Take your bass synth instrument, and kill its bottom end. Apply a highpass filter somewhere between 100 and 200Hz (personal taste).

To replace what was lost, set up a new instrument using your favorite simple analog generator (3xosc, Operator, Subtractor etc). Since you already have a top end for your bass notes, stick with a massive sine bass and not too many overtones. Double all the notes from the original bass part onto this instrument. If you get the envelopes right on this sine-bass, the doubled part shouldn't sound too different from how the original did. (or if you like, experiment with longer attacks and get that swelling-pumping-bass house sound without losing the note attacks on your basslines!)

If your original bass has some unique bottom-end characteristics that you really want to preserve, you can instead use your original bass instrument with a lowpass filter. But I think 90% of the time, killing it and replacing it with a big sine sounds better and makes the mix far cleaner.

Now you can apply sidechain compression to this instrument (or else just send it onto the same track as the kick and compress them together), and now the bottom end of your bass notes will duck out of the way for the kick and you'll avoid that muddy bottom end collision between kick and bass. But the top half of your bass instrument will stay in the mix, so to the untrained ear it won't sound like the bassline is ducking.

[beat you down]

Originally Posted by spazdor

What you're describing is actually a fairly common way of processing the bass in dubstep and some styles of hip hop (Florida bass comes to mind).

Here's what you do. Take your bass synth instrument, and kill its bottom end. Apply a highpass filter somewhere between 100 and 200Hz (personal taste).

To replace what was lost, set up a new instrument using your favorite simple analog generator (3xosc, Operator, Subtractor etc). Since you already have a top end for your bass notes, stick with a massive sine bass and not too many overtones. Double all the notes from the original bass part onto this instrument. If you get the envelopes right on this sine-bass, the doubled part shouldn't sound too different from how the original did. (or if you like, experiment with longer attacks and get that swelling-pumping-bass house sound without losing the note attacks on your basslines!)

If your original bass has some unique bottom-end characteristics that you really want to preserve, you can instead use your original bass instrument with a lowpass filter. But I think 90% of the time, killing it and replacing it with a big sine sounds better and makes the mix far cleaner.

Now you can apply sidechain compression to this instrument (or else just send it onto the same track as the kick and compress them together), and now the bottom end of your bass notes will duck out of the way for the kick and you'll avoid that muddy bottom end collision between kick and bass. But the top half of your bass instrument will stay in the mix, so to the untrained ear it won't sound like the bassline is ducking.

nice one!
thanks.

[PettyCash]

Originally Posted by spazdor

What you're describing is actually a fairly common way of processing the bass in dubstep and some styles of hip hop (Florida bass comes to mind).

Here's what you do. Take your bass synth instrument, and kill its bottom end. Apply a highpass filter somewhere between 100 and 200Hz (personal taste).

To replace what was lost, set up a new instrument using your favorite simple analog generator (3xosc, Operator, Subtractor etc). Since you already have a top end for your bass notes, stick with a massive sine bass and not too many overtones. Double all the notes from the original bass part onto this instrument. If you get the envelopes right on this sine-bass, the doubled part shouldn't sound too different from how the original did. (or if you like, experiment with longer attacks and get that swelling-pumping-bass house sound without losing the note attacks on your basslines!)

If your original bass has some unique bottom-end characteristics that you really want to preserve, you can instead use your original bass instrument with a lowpass filter. But I think 90% of the time, killing it and replacing it with a big sine sounds better and makes the mix far cleaner.

Now you can apply sidechain compression to this instrument (or else just send it onto the same track as the kick and compress them together), and now the bottom end of your bass notes will duck out of the way for the kick and you'll avoid that muddy bottom end collision between kick and bass. But the top half of your bass instrument will stay in the mix, so to the untrained ear it won't sound like the bassline is ducking.

I do something sort of similar to this every now and then. To put it simply: I duplicate the bass track and treat one track to specifically enhance the bass' low end content, and then treat the other track to enhance mid and high content. That way if need be I can control the lower frequency of the bass and still allow the attack/presence/etc. of the bass to do it's thing and cut through the track.

This is something I do more with real bass though, as opposed to how I would normally approach mixing a synth bass. With synth bass I usually duck, except for the few extreme cases where ducking just wont do and instead I will try something like what the quote above suggests.

[smoke]

I also do similar to above, except I send the bass (about 50%) to an amp sim with a HPF before it. The amp adds crunch and space to the top end only. If I need to sidechain the kick and bass, I can just SC the low end without over ducking the highs and interrupting the ambience.