Top 3 Reasons Your Low End SUCKS (...And what to do about it.)
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- Опубликовано: 25 сен 2022
- Fix your bottom end! The low end in your mix is both the hardest part to get right, AND the most important part to get right. Here's what's holding you back. And what you can do about it.
In this episode of the podcast Justin Colletti offers his take on the three things that mess up low end on mixes and what you can do differently for powerful, coherent kicks and basses.
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Your videos are the best mixing advices that I found on youtube. And I went through 1000 of them. All that without even opening your DAW. Thank you for your work.
So awesome to hear! Glad to have you tuning in.
-Justin
I agree.
you make a great point by explaining the concepts rather than opening your daw. Pure masterful and a hint to those to just listen and use their judgment. That's a lesson in its own!
So awesome to hear Sam! That's exactly what I'm going for.
-Justin
"...more audible and powerful lows that are actually doing something, making you move your body, tap your foot, and nod your head instead of *a big amorphous indistinct blob of low end* where you can’t make out anything that’s going on."
What a great description! 👍
Not trying to discourage anybody from buying his courses and all that but if you LISTEN!!! To this man hes tell you everything you need to know.
Been a big help in getting a career started thank you!!
Great job communicating these concepts! Thank you for sharing.
Again: the best and most detailled description with a lot of passion. Than ks mate!!!🙏
Reason No 1, was what I needed! I've watched so many other videos on low end and was pulling my hair out, going back and forth between studio and my car, bouncing countless mixes and not getting it right. This video explained it and fixed my problems with my low end!
Really good discussion today Justin. Nice info!
Great episode. As always very helpful!
My comment, because you asked, is, Justin, thank you so much for your incredible sharing of expertise. I never stop learning every time I listen in. There's always things mentioned that affirm that I'm already doing the right thing, and plenty more priceless nuggets of experienced and invaluable know-how to digest with every episode.
Thanks so much for the kind words! If you are enjoying it that much and it’s not too much trouble, please consider giving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sonicscoop-podcast-music-production-audio/id1448330690
-Justin
Really good video Justin, thanks very much! I thought your analogy about 3 families was excellent...
Thank you Justin for this VIdeo/POD CAST. Always GREAT Topics. George Amodei
Great tips...in addition hi frequencies also affect your perception lowend a whole lot..no lows without highs...
I would love to see Wessel Oltheten in your next mix con sessions...great job 👍👍
excellent observations! cheers
Awesome video, Thanks
If his podcast is this valuable, I can imagine how much more valuable is courses are...👏💯
That’s the idea!
-Justin
Also to add a thing or two: one may use what I call "locking in sound" via frequency (with saturation), and via dynamics (with limiting) on separate premaster groups. Works. In parallel too
That house/bass analogy was spot on, man, this is why I'm a new subscriber
Awesome to hear Elijah. So glad to be useful!
-Justin
Idk what it is, but somehow every time I have a question about my mix, somehow you post a video before I even ask. It’s like you’re reading my mind lol xD
Great material btw!! Keep it up! 🎧👍
Brilliant, thanks Jason....man, the most mysterious land for me is midrange....would be really cool for a tutorial about where instruments live happy in the midrange...ie if things were mixed between 200HZ and 5K...maybe an auratone only mix.....then add in the lows and highs. Thanks for all the great content and wisdom!
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Solid analogy!
This video is amazing! Hope one day we will have one about top end!
Great Analogy!
Ha ha. Loved your “house metaphor” all the landlords in the East Village chop up all the apartments to dormitory size and the NYU students don’t care! Thanks for your videos, a lot! Providing actual numbers is so helpful. I’m new to this and YOUR information is truly striking a chord and helping me to understand engineering on a brand new level.
Love the apartment/building analogy
This is the greatest channel on youtube. We're so damn lucky.
Last I had a mix, in the low end we found a big kick, a normal kick, a thunderous timpani and big toms, a synth bass and a normal bass, it was quite a challenge to get these good. And I used just an EQ to get things transparent and fat. On one, I used even a bass synth plugin, which turned up the big kick a few dbs. Worked well. So yes, filtering does the job for the low end. The percussion/ drum tracks were 11 tracks, like I said, a big challenge.
The thing that makes deep bass instruments easier to hear is often the first harmonic, a little saturation can go a long way in those cases…especially for hearing the instruments on small box systems or the infamous „Bluetooth boxes“, also try mixing on your headphones with your sub running too if you have one, use multiple reference tracks to set the level and be sure the volume of the sub goes up and down with the volume on the headphones, also if your sub is nearfield it is better for the neighbours, I made a drum seat that was basically a upfiring 12“ sub with a drum seat fitted on top, that was very effective….
I like this but it is important to note that harmonics relate to the fundamental, and since instruments play different notes that aren't necessarily related to the fundamental, you can't just mathematically boost the 1st and 2nd harmonic if the bass is playing a whole bunch of notes that aren't related to those specific positions.
Very very good way to check visually is SPAN on slope lets say 4,5. You manage to keep horizontal line, you are on the good way od proper tonal balance! Although still doesnt have to sound clear, but thats another topic (making proper separation), building family rooms :)
SPAN PLUS offers spectrum overlaping, so you can check if bass or kick have enough space to breath.
Learning so much
Thanks, low end has been one of my biggest problems!
My system works pretty well for me:
1) I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones I use for my initial mix. I can get the midrange and high end sounding pretty good in those.
2) Then I do a second pass on a pair of $40 Bluetooth headphones. The bass in those headphones is way overhyped, and they're kind of dull in the high end. But they're the headphones I've spent the most time listening to when I'm not mixing. At this point I've clocked thousands of hours on them. So I know what low end SHOULD sound like in them. I use them to carve away a bunch of mud.
3) Lastly, I check the mix through my tinny little laptop speakers. This is because sometimes panning and effects sound different on headphones versus speakers. Also, it lets me make sure I've got enough midrange in my bass and kick.
I'm not going to say this system is perfect. I often end up thinning out my mix too much during step #2. But I'm rarely "surprised" by the results. And tbh, with my tastes and the genres I like I'd rather have a mix have too little low end than too much.
have the same steps with HD600. I always double check with some cheesy JBL bluetooth headphones, really overbased. its so overbassed, that i know when it starts bothering you physically its too much of sub :D haha
My best „trick“ for clear and defined kick and bass is using Sonible smart compressor on the bass in full spectral mode being side chain fed from the kick, it’s the most transparent ducking I’ve ever used, the pumping effect that you can get with a full range compression virtually disappears, try it out..
I wish you would show us how to side-chain the kick with the bass like you were talking about. I'll look for more on that. Very cool idea.
Have you ever played around with sidechaining with Soothe 2? Curious your thoughts if any. I really like the precision of it frequency-wise. Thanks again for your wonderful channel 🙏🏼
That analogy is hilarious!
One of my issues is how much low end to carve out of other instruments to keep the low end clean but still keep things sounding full. Would love to see a video from you on this subject!
@Pitchfork Inc. solid advice
Great Video. Honestly i was fighting..and still fighting the fact sometimes that you actually have to give up sub space of some inatrument for another lowest instrument. Scooping eq in the sub sometimes help, but if you dont low cut eventually it sounds like thunder and messy…at least in epic/orchestral music, and funny is that it actually somehow eats up everything else in the mix in higher frequencies.
Question: If you dedicate sub for the bass 20-70, and then drum kick 70-100, is it that bass comes in the upper bass range ~100-200 or that should be split somehow as well?
Yeah.
Good analogy.
Awesome! Glad it is working!
-Justin
yeahh I know , sometimes low end sounds like horse doing poo and it sucks, I'm practicing my low end
Something I find difficult is to balance the low end between too "fluffy" and too "thin". One mastering engineer cut a bit from 40 Hz and below which made the track clearer and with more punch, but it probably depends on the mix how to cut or boost the low end.
I'm pretty sure maury is still on the air homie haha 😂 great analogy
Phew, I’m not AS old as I thought I was.
-Justin
Omg this happen to me last night. The bass was cluttering my low end. I cut some of the lows
The whole track open up. The bass sounded way nicer and clear now.
You should make a video on how to use your avantones . There is no videos on that out there
When I mix bass and sub stuff in my not so well treated room, i step away from monitors to a corners of the room and listen. I get up few times, but when I walk around the room and subs are not choking me, it just sounds right everywhere. Maybe this can help to someone
I love the tip about learning how to listen to any headphones, because I haven't figured out the sound of my new Sony headphones yet. Andrew Scheps may be an exception since he said he doesn't even use reference mixes, haha. But even without that kind of massive experience Andrew has it's probably useful to listen to a lot of songs on the same headphones.
Totally. Andrew may not do a lot of DIRECT back to back referencing while he’s mixing, but he’s still referencing by listening to TONS of great sounding records on his headphones so he knows what they should sound like.
Often, when I hear great mixer say “I don’t reference” what they really mean is “I don’t directly AB against other things while I am in the middle of mixing”… Which is not how most of the best mixers use references!
Often, when people of a high level say “I don’t use references”, they don’t mean what I mean by “references”.
Practically all of them do. Just not necessarily in the middle of a mix.
And those that understandably don’t do it in the middle of a mix, probably also did at some point in their careers when they were developing their ears!
Hope that helps,
Justin
Excellent video Justin. This is so densely packed with A-Z information, which is rarely done. And the information being accurate!
I’m just starting this stuff. I will use this information. Can you get frequency analyzers on a cell phone app? If so, what’s the best???
Why for your phone ?
A plugin based analyzer in your DAW is best for the specific purpose discussed in this episode.
One built into your phone will tell you more about what your room sounds like than what your mix sounds like.
Hope that helps!
-Justin
and without panels in my room but mixing with closeheadphones and monitoring , it is a good idea?
Generally speaking, open backed headphones are going to have better frequency response and are more optimal for critical listening. The ones I use have a semi-open design that really helps with low end extension, while still having some isolation.
There are only a couple of closed back headphones I would think of using for mixing myself, but that doesn't stop some people from getting good results with them. I just think it's more of a challenge.
Here are some of my top picks: sonicscoop.com/the-best-open-back-headphones-for-mixing-and-mastering
Hope that's helpful!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop thanks u so much for the info ,sorry about My english, I was wrong about closed or Open back, yeah i want to try it
You're the road map for my progress in music production. I follow you all the time and my production has greatly improved. I believe the Lord Jesus brought you in to this world just for me Justin.
When the kick hits don't play bass notes.
LMAO, that's one way to do it, but only if you're the one composing the music. It ain't going to work in almost any other instance when you're mixing other people's tracks. I think only EDM puts that much attention to separating the kick and bass in a composition.
A lot of rock bass playing is sync'd with the kick
My wife has been telling me to fix my bottom end for years
THEN GET ON IT!
Hit the squat rack, asap :-)
-Justin
Ugh I wish I’d seen this before I sent you my track
When the jz mic giveaway tho haha
... "you ARE the father!" 😆
The bass in my mixes often ends being too loud as a result of having no choice but to mix quietly. What a frustrating irony.
Dan Worrall did a good video about quiet mixing. Basically he uses an equal loudness curve in the chain while mixing. He uses Slick EQ Mastering by Tokyo Dawn. ruclips.net/video/wgogJmeQFvY/видео.html
@@danjohnsonstudio I love Dan's videos 👍
@@danjohnsonstudio Awesome. Thanks very much!
"badly managed low end" 🤔
This video is amazing! Hope one day we will have one about top end!