Bass mixing help

Hey folks, a real new user here.

I have been reading around about different mixing techniques and one of the ones that seems very common place is slowly cutting out the bass on track a while bringing it in on track b. However I find that at one point the deep sound of the bass disapears and you are left with a kind of hollow thwack. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Also tried using the lowpass filter to bring in the hi hats ect and then slowly lowering it to gradually bring in the bass, but again I get a terrible period of that thwack noise. How do you avoid this?

Thanks for your enlightenment

 

If you do the gradual thing instead of just popping one out and one in, you usually can't just evenly fade one out while fading one in at the same rate. If you could see the crossfade on a graph, you'd see a big valley in the bass end.

If A is playing and I want to bring in B, I'll usually bring the bass down a tad in A and start bringing B in. When I can hear the thump from B starting to "fll in" the mix, I'll start bringing A down and B up, literally playing by ear. It's a bit of a juggling act and it's different with every mix because the kicks are different, but generally that works for me.

 

oi fobes - can you use a different login name coz you seem to have taken over my profile somehow.

cheers

 

Huh, isn't that wierd. Sorry about that fobes.

We must work for the same company or something, airline?

Ill change it up now.

thks

 

you'll want to cut the EQ when BOTH decks are pumping too much bass. Due to the harmonics, bass can clash. I think you are having both decks with the bass low/cut at the wrong times. If the bass (the kick or the bass drum) aren't competing, then you don't need to adjust the EQ. Hope that helps a little.

 

And re-reading my post I feel kind of dumb that I didn't make it clear that what I was talking about bringing up and down on A & B isn't the x-fader as much as it is the bottom EQ. Duhhh.

 

Right, here I am, handle problem fixed.

So from what I can gather you guys are saying that perhaps I am just cutting out too much bass before bringing in enough to compensate, is that right?

Maybe I can tell you my whole technique then you can see better. Got track "A" playing away happily, as thats going on I set up "B" with sync and set up a loop for it at a part that I want it to come in and let her play away. When it gets time for transition, say I want to bring in the high level for track "b" I use the filters so I only get the high tones coming through(The crossfader is pretty much in the middle or a little towards "A" by this point), then when I want to bring it in more by lowering the lo cut i get a period of that twack I was talking about. I could just whip it all the way back, or turn the amount knob right off, but their must be another smoother way.

I will practice with the lowering/increasing of the bass and see if I can get any better at it.

Thanks for your advise, I know I will be needing lots more because this is all totally new to me, but I have been bitten by the bug and its a compulsive bug indeed!

Cheers

 

P.S. Boysteve, thanks for that, I just reread your post and it makes more sense to me now. Practice practice practice!

 

Actually, I've only come in using the filter section to set my highs and lows a few times. Generally I use the EQ, and though of course every track is different, VERY broadly speaking this works for me:

Deck A is playing. Find where I want B to come in and loop it. Kill the bass on B and bring the high to about 9 o'clock, just in case the brass runs hotter on the speakers than it does in my phones (usually the opposite is true: highs come in much more true than lows -- but mismatched highs stand out a LOT more).

Start the fade (assuming this ain't gonna be a cutover, where everything has to be set the way you want it right out of the gate). toward the halfway mark I bring up the highs. Sometimes I'll start to bring down the high on A if there's any conflict and the B highs work fine, just to sort of train the dancefloor's ear for a new groove.

Then I start sneaking in the bass on B, until just before it starts to get too thumpy. I start bringing A down and then start bringing B up.

I have to say, though, that after all that practice to invisibly merge tracks, sometimes there's really good drama in just slamming in another kick, especially if it's got a nice low bass line that's been squelched by the low kill, too (the bassline from "Days Go By" is great to drop at the right time).

Doing it that way, you set your levels on the phones and pray a bit, loop A at some point near the outro, loop B usually a few bars before the bassline kicks in. Fader on A, kill the bass on B, fade to the middle, kill the bass on A, let it play all highs for a bit, end the loop on B, slam in the bottom EQ on B when the bassline comes in, or when you want the kick to start. wheee! I watched John Creamer & Stephan K use this to devastating effect throughout the night once (BTW, they also clearly used Ableton Live at points in their set).

 

all this much easier if you have a faderfox or other controller

 

Oh yes... EQing like that with the keyboard or a DM2 is hell. Most of my bassline mixing tends to be of the rough&ready kill variety because of it. Either bassline swapping or just killing both out to reintroduce the incoming song's bassline when it hooks. But I so want a faderfox

 

Yah, gotta like the faderfox. Although I think a simple MIDI controller that's just a collection of assignable knobs is a perfectly ok substitute. I used a PhatBoy up until a few months ago and it was fine in combination with using the keyboard for EQ kills.

 

Wow thanks a million for that.

It seems you condensed an entire book of how to mix into one post, much appriciated!

I am using an Edirol keyboard as my controler for the time being, so at least I can assign some of the controls to it.

Geeze cant wait to get home and start buggering about.

Cheers