Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Getting the low end right is one of th hardest things about doing a good 
mix, because so many factors affect it.  You have the speaker types and 
size, the room size, what materials are in the room, etc.  Getting a good 
mix doesn't mean it sounds good at home 9though that can be part of it). 
The real key of a good mix, is that it translates well to other systems. 
Like you said, it sounds good at home, but elsewhere it sounds too bass 
heavy.  This can be fixed with a few things:

- Keep back ups of your song's project file, don't just say you're done 
and that's it.  I usually need to go back at least a couple times and make 
some small adjustment to the bassline or BD levels to get them to sit well 
in the mix.

- Learn your speakers and room.  Sounds simple, but it takes a lot of time 
to do correctly, you need to listen to your favorite CDs again and again 
and compare how they sound in there with elsewhere..  If you know your 
mixes are bass heavy everywhere but your room, then maybe you need to 
compensate by lowering the bass levels until it sounds thin in your room. 
Again, remember the point isn't to make it sound good in one place, but to 
sound good everywhere.  Compromises have to be made sometimes.

- Use multiband compression during mastering.  That way, it's very easy to 
adjust just the lowend, you can tighten it up, even use it as a simple EQ.

- Try lowering everything below 30-40Hz when you're mastering.  Even a 
fairly steep cutoff curve will leave enough frequencies here to be felt at 
the clubs, without muddying up the song when played back on other 
speakers.  Also, I like to cut out the bass on all tracks where it's not 
critical.  If you've got some strings, or leads, try cutting out 
everything below 100-200Hz.  If it sounds weird without the info there, 
then slowly start adding back more until it sounds right.  I also use the 
30-40Hz trick on myu basslines while mixing, that can bring back a lot of 
headroom and clarity.

rEalm



for me personally i have a hard time laying bass in right.  it always 
sounds good at my crib, or even in another room in the house, but when i 
burn to cd and listen to it in someones car,  the bass is usually really 
deep and drowns out everything.  sometimes cutting the resonance down on 
the sound helps, but i feel the 
bass loses its bassyness.  i thought i may need to compress but everyone 
says add eq 
and compression lightly and as a last resort.  any tips on getting deep 
bass that sits in a 
track and can stilll be heard  even at low volumes?



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A couple more notes on Bass Heavy -
If you really listen to most bass sounds you will realize there is actually a
lot of mid and hi end content - this is what you really hear in a mix at low
volumes.  Many producers use a higher pitched bass sound then mix in a sine tone
an octave below it to give it that punch but still have the room shaking.

rEalm pointed out (Thanks rEalm!) that you should cut below 30-40hz, because
most people will never hear anything below this (Except some super elite DJ's or
Pop stars) and since it takes roughly 65 to 80 feet for these waves to cycle,
you will probably never find out how loud this range really is.  Most monitors
can't accurately play this back anyway. In fact most environments don't play
much below 200hz, especially at low volumes.  Usually anything below 200hz ends
up making your mix sound muddy anyway.

Bass trapping is another problem - if your speakers are up to playing low
frequency content, then you have to make sure your listening environment doesn't
end up causing the bass to hang out in a corner, or wierd parts of your room.
Bass is nondirectional mainly because the waves are so long  so if the wave
reflects off a wall it can cut itself out.  Make sure your speakers aren't in a
corner or too close to a wall.  Walk around your room and see if there isn't a
spot where the bass is radically different from the rest of the room.  Another
way to help make the bass more defined on your speakers is to fill the bass vent
port with a thick foam.  This helps tighten up the bass on most lower end
monitors.

Frequency analyzing is a good and quick way of knowing where your bass is - You
can quickly find out where your bass volumes are and at what frequencies.  If
the left side of the frequency graph looks like you should go snowboarding on
it, then you might want to trim it down and remove the very low frequencies
altogether.  Sound forge as one, there are many free frequency analyzers out
there and many packages such as FruityLoops actully have them as well.

Eq around your kicks - There is usually a lot of low end content in these, even
if it's not obvious in a mix.  If your bass competes with these neither one will
win.  You can use a notch filter on your bass mix and leave room for the kicks.
Using a frequency analyzer can definately help.

-----Original Message-----
From: erik_magrini@... [mailto:erik_magrini@...]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 8:41 AM
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [xl7] Bass heavy?


Getting the low end right is one of th hardest things about doing a good
mix, because so many factors affect it.  You have the speaker types and
size, the room size, what materials are in the room, etc.  Getting a good
mix doesn't mean it sounds good at home 9though that can be part of it).
The real key of a good mix, is that it translates well to other systems.
Like you said, it sounds good at home, but elsewhere it sounds too bass
heavy.  This can be fixed with a few things:

- Keep back ups of your song's project file, don't just say you're done
and that's it.  I usually need to go back at least a couple times and make
some small adjustment to the bassline or BD levels to get them to sit well
in the mix.

- Learn your speakers and room.  Sounds simple, but it takes a lot of time
to do correctly, you need to listen to your favorite CDs again and again
and compare how they sound in there with elsewhere..  If you know your
mixes are bass heavy everywhere but your room, then maybe you need to
compensate by lowering the bass levels until it sounds thin in your room.
Again, remember the point isn't to make it sound good in one place, but to
sound good everywhere.  Compromises have to be made sometimes.

- Use multiband compression during mastering.  That way, it's very easy to
adjust just the lowend, you can tighten it up, even use it as a simple EQ.

- Try lowering everything below 30-40Hz when you're mastering.  Even a
fairly steep cutoff curve will leave enough frequencies here to be felt at
the clubs, without muddying up the song when played back on other
speakers.  Also, I like to cut out the bass on all tracks where it's not
critical.  If you've got some strings, or leads, try cutting out
everything below 100-200Hz.  If it sounds weird without the info there,
then slowly start adding back more until it sounds right.  I also use the
30-40Hz trick on myu basslines while mixing, that can bring back a lot of
headroom and clarity.

rEalm



for me personally i have a hard time laying bass in right.  it always
sounds good at my crib, or even in another room in the house, but when i
burn to cd and listen to it in someones car,  the bass is usually really
deep and drowns out everything.  sometimes cutting the resonance down on
the sound helps, but i feel the
bass loses its bassyness.  i thought i may need to compress but everyone
says add eq
and compression lightly and as a last resort.  any tips on getting deep
bass that sits in a
track and can stilll be heard  even at low volumes?



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xl7-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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Wow I signed up for information on the mp-7 and the xl-7 and now I'm getting a mixdown education as well.  This has to be the best group ever!!!!

>>> andrel@... 05/14/03 04:28PM >>>
A couple more notes on Bass Heavy -
If you really listen to most bass sounds you will realize there is actually a
lot of mid and hi end content - this is what you really hear in a mix at low
volumes.  Many producers use a higher pitched bass sound then mix in a sine tone
an octave below it to give it that punch but still have the room shaking.

rEalm pointed out (Thanks rEalm!) that you should cut below 30-40hz, because
most people will never hear anything below this (Except some super elite DJ's or
Pop stars) and since it takes roughly 65 to 80 feet for these waves to cycle,
you will probably never find out how loud this range really is.  Most monitors
can't accurately play this back anyway. In fact most environments don't play
much below 200hz, especially at low volumes.  Usually anything below 200hz ends
up making your mix sound muddy anyway.

Bass trapping is another problem - if your speakers are up to playing low
frequency content, then you have to make sure your listening environment doesn't
end up causing the bass to hang out in a corner, or wierd parts of your room.
Bass is nondirectional mainly because the waves are so long  so if the wave
reflects off a wall it can cut itself out.  Make sure your speakers aren't in a
corner or too close to a wall.  Walk around your room and see if there isn't a
spot where the bass is radically different from the rest of the room.  Another
way to help make the bass more defined on your speakers is to fill the bass vent
port with a thick foam.  This helps tighten up the bass on most lower end
monitors.

Frequency analyzing is a good and quick way of knowing where your bass is - You
can quickly find out where your bass volumes are and at what frequencies.  If
the left side of the frequency graph looks like you should go snowboarding on
it, then you might want to trim it down and remove the very low frequencies
altogether.  Sound forge as one, there are many free frequency analyzers out
there and many packages such as FruityLoops actully have them as well.

Eq around your kicks - There is usually a lot of low end content in these, even
if it's not obvious in a mix.  If your bass competes with these neither one will
win.  You can use a notch filter on your bass mix and leave room for the kicks.
Using a frequency analyzer can definately help.

-----Original Message-----
From: erik_magrini@... [mailto:erik_magrini@...] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 8:41 AM
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: [xl7] Bass heavy?


Getting the low end right is one of th hardest things about doing a good
mix, because so many factors affect it.  You have the speaker types and
size, the room size, what materials are in the room, etc.  Getting a good
mix doesn't mean it sounds good at home 9though that can be part of it).
The real key of a good mix, is that it translates well to other systems.
Like you said, it sounds good at home, but elsewhere it sounds too bass
heavy.  This can be fixed with a few things:

- Keep back ups of your song's project file, don't just say you're done
and that's it.  I usually need to go back at least a couple times and make
some small adjustment to the bassline or BD levels to get them to sit well
in the mix.

- Learn your speakers and room.  Sounds simple, but it takes a lot of time
to do correctly, you need to listen to your favorite CDs again and again
and compare how they sound in there with elsewhere..  If you know your
mixes are bass heavy everywhere but your room, then maybe you need to
compensate by lowering the bass levels until it sounds thin in your room.
Again, remember the point isn't to make it sound good in one place, but to
sound good everywhere.  Compromises have to be made sometimes.

- Use multiband compression during mastering.  That way, it's very easy to
adjust just the lowend, you can tighten it up, even use it as a simple EQ.

- Try lowering everything below 30-40Hz when you're mastering.  Even a
fairly steep cutoff curve will leave enough frequencies here to be felt at
the clubs, without muddying up the song when played back on other
speakers.  Also, I like to cut out the bass on all tracks where it's not
critical.  If you've got some strings, or leads, try cutting out
everything below 100-200Hz.  If it sounds weird without the info there,
then slowly start adding back more until it sounds right.  I also use the
30-40Hz trick on myu basslines while mixing, that can bring back a lot of
headroom and clarity.

rEalm



for me personally i have a hard time laying bass in right.  it always
sounds good at my crib, or even in another room in the house, but when i
burn to cd and listen to it in someones car,  the bass is usually really
deep and drowns out everything.  sometimes cutting the resonance down on
the sound helps, but i feel the
bass loses its bassyness.  i thought i may need to compress but everyone
says add eq
and compression lightly and as a last resort.  any tips on getting deep
bass that sits in a
track and can stilll be heard  even at low volumes?



To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
xl7-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com 



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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xl7-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com 



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To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
xl7-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com 

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 


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Thank you.

If you really listen to most bass sounds you will realize there is 
actually a lot of mid and hi end content - this is what you really hear in 
a mix at low volumes.  Many producers use a higher pitched bass sound then 
mix in a sine tone an octave below it to give it that punch but still have 
the room shaking.

>>>The ear can be fooled too.  As long as you have at last 3 of the next 
sequencial harmonic series present in the sound, the ear will 
automatically think it hears a fundamental lower than it really is. So a 
lot of the deep basslines you hear in songs, may not really be that deep! 
<<<

rEalm pointed out (Thanks rEalm!) that you should cut below 30-40hz, 
because
most people will never hear anything below this (Except some super elite 
DJ's or
Pop stars) 

>>>Most elite DJ's are deaf anyway :) <<<

Bass trapping is another problem - if your speakers are up to playing low 
frequency content, then you have to make sure your listening environment 
doesn't end up causing the bass to hang out in a corner, or wierd parts of 
your room. Walk around your room and see if there isn't a spot where the 
bass is radically different from the rest of the room. 

>>>Keep in mind that you will almost always have parts of the room that 
are more bass heavy than other areas, so it's not neccesarily a bad thing. 
 It's only really any issue with nearfield monitors if that bass-heavy 
spot is right where the 'sweetspot' is in the studio. <<<

rEalm



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]