No matter what kind of bass you’re working with – electric, acoustic or synthesised – getting that perfect bottom end in the mix can be challenging at the best of times. Here are six techniques and ideas to help give you a leg up.

Make Space For The Bass

One of the easiest ways to ruin an otherwise perfectly good mix is by allowing low frequencies to build up across its component channels, thereby knocking the overall balance out of whack and eating up valuable headroom. By and large, there should only be two ‘bass’ sounds in any given track: the kick drum and the bass itself. Every other instrument that reaches down into the sub-100Hz range (which will be most of them – vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc) must be carefully shaped with EQ to ensure that it doesn’t clash with the bass. A spectrum analyser is helpful here, showing you exactly what’s happening right down to the sub-bass range, which your monitoring system might not accurately represent.

Incidentally, while it’s often suggested that high-pass filtering every track apart from the kick and bass ought to be standard practise, we’d suggest that that’s actually a very heavy-handed way of dealing with the issue. Far better to make shaped cuts as appropriate using parametric and shelving EQ.

What is worth considering, though, is the insertion of a high-pass filter on the bass channel, set somewhere between 20 and 30Hz. Not only can this improve the clarity of your bass tones, but it will also claw back any headroom taken up by inaudible sub bass frequencies.

As for that kick drum…

Sidechain To The Kick Drum

We’ve looked at carving out the necessary space in the frequency spectrum to allow the bass to stand proud using EQ, but when it comes to getting the bass and kick drum working together without compromising the low end and punch of either, a more – ahem – dynamic approach may be required. In recent years, sidechain compression has found its place as a ubiquitous solution for ‘ducking’ one sound out of the way of another, and it’s particularly helpful in establishing that all-important kick/bass partnership, which can easily overwhelm the bottom of the mix if both are left to do their coinciding things unchecked.

Fire up a compressor with a sidechain input on your bass channel, and key the sidechain off the kick drum. Set the ratio fairly high, and tailor the attack and release so that the bass drops in volume whenever the kick lands, then quickly rises again. If your compressor has a multiband mode, you can set it up to only duck the low frequencies, leaving the mids – where much of the defining character of the bass sound may well lie, as we’ll come to momentarily – intact. And if all that sounds like too much hassle, get yourself a sidechaining plugin such as Kickstart 2 by Cableguys and Nicky Romero, which simply modulates the volume of the input signal in a looping pattern (for four-square dance music), or in response to an external triggering audio or MIDI input (ie, the kick drum).

Don’t Overlook The Mids And Highs

Although it might seem counterintuitive, there’s much more to a great bass than just the low frequencies. While the part of the signal below around 200Hz defines the body and weight of the sound, key to its presence and character – not to mention its ability to cut through the mix and be heard on smaller speakers – are the mid and high ranges, which should be given just as much attention as the lows when mixing bass.

Although the specifics of EQing these crucial frequencies will depend on the sound in question, of course, a solid starting point for adding presence and attack is to apply a gentle peaking boost from around 1-5kHz. And a bit of a push just below that (around 600-800hz) can work wonders in terms of increasing punch and visceral impact.

The Power Of Distortion

Another way to bring out mid- and high-frequency presence in a bass sound is to treat it to some analogue (or analogue-style if you’re working in the box) saturation. Even dialled in at low levels, the harmonics introduced by a distortion effect can dramatically enhance your electric or synth bass in their own right, as well as giving the aforementioned mid/high EQ something to chew on.

Any distortion/overdrive pedal or plugin is good for this sort of thing, but there are a few superb specialists out there worth taking a look at, including Waves MaxBass, PSP Audioware MixBass 2 and the Fender Trapper Bass Distortion pedal.

Add A Sub Layer

Heading in the opposite direction, if you find that your bass is lacking in low-end welly, and EQ isn’t helping, why not layer in a doubled sub bass track? All you need is a single synth oscillator set to a sine or triangle wave, pitched down into the sub bass range and triggered by the same MIDI notes as your main bassline if it’s generated by a synth or virtual bass plugin, or a MIDI representation of your audio track if it’s a live recording. Balance the two signals in the mixer, and route them to a group bus for collective processing and/or sidechaining if required.

For a more integrated workflow, Waves Submarine offers powerful sub synthesis based directly on the source signal – highly recommended.

Keep It Central

You’ll often hear it said that, as a rule, the bass should always be kept mono, so as to ensure compatibility with mono club playback systems, avoid phasing issues and generally maintain clarity and power. However, that guidance really only applies to the sub-200Hz frequency range, and there’s no reason not to widen the mid and high components out beyond the centre of the mix should the creative mood take you in that direction. The easiest way to do this is to use a ‘mono filter’ plugin on the bass track (most DAWs include one as standard) to specify a cutoff frequency below which the stereo signal is monoised; but making a copy of your bass track and high/low-pass filtering each one to separate the low (mono) and mid/high (stereo) frequency ranges is just as effective.

Share your cone-rattling bass mixing techniques in the comments.

Photo by Rezli on Unsplash