I suck at low end....how do I improve?

PolarityMan

I really struggle with getting a clean but powerful low end. It seems like the bottom of my guitar, the bass and kick drum all jsut mush up together in a wooly mess.

I've tried carving to put the kick above / below the bass etc but I still feel like I'm not getting clarity.

If I pull too much low end out of the guitars or reduce the volume of the bass everything feels tiny and lacks impact.

Any tips for getting the sweet spot?

octatonic

It is a very common issue.
A lot of it is simply you don't have a good sounding room.

If you can't hear it then how can you fix it?

Describe your studio space- dimensions, amount of bass trapping, if any, what monitors and headphones you use etc.

Do you know how to use a side chain compressor?

WiresDreamDisasters

Yep. Room is very important. Bass traps are important. Broadband absorbers too.

A lot of the time low-end problems are actually caused by instruments being too heavy in the mids - 200hz to 400hz - so that's a danger area to watch out for too.

Grab a copy of Izotope Neutron. It has a great EQ in it which shows you where frequencies are masking one another. Then you simply decide which has priority over each area.

And remember... tight cuts to control low-end usually works best. 80hz, 90hz, 100hz, 120hz, and 140hz, are all different frequencies. You may simply not be cutting enough.

This playlist might help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMV2xt2LnjQ&list=PLiDFWaUh9xYQYzEDfZ_eq9vk7VNsgkE_Q

guitarfishbay

Definitely agree with room.  Even with a reasonable amount of bass trapping I've still got issues, I use headphones and a subpac to cross reference.  But I wouldn't even try to get the low end right in the room without the bass traps.

Have you watched Joel's low end fast track on URM yet?

I also find this difficult.  What I've found as factors for my own stuff:

- Phase.  Don't forget to check it, don't forget to recheck if something sounds off after heavy processing.  If you're splitting your bass, make sure everything is actually aligned as sometimes they're not despite delay compensation.
- Tightness.  Both actual playing, and timing.  This really make a big difference, especially the playing (timing you can always edit to some extent).
- Referencing.  Check your song against others you like - ideally in similar tuning and tempo.  Make sure to level match so you're comparing like for like (something like Metric AB is great here).  Don't just focus on the bass, the whole picture matters especially if you have any muddiness going on, or any imbalances between instruments etc

Danny1969

I've always struggled with the low end, one of my problems was I was mixing all the time on NS10's so couldn't really hear what was going on below 70Hz or so. I ended up setting up a third set of speakers with bigger box and drivers to get round this. 
For kick it totally depends on the style of music, for a lot of metal there isn't time for a massive thud but carving out a gap for the bass normally did help me

My trick for bass is to track a DI and mic the cab, then low pass the shit out of the bass di track and highpass the shit out of the mic'ed track. When you put the 2 together it's generally pretty weighty but will the character of the cab. I got this trick from some guy on Youtube. 

PolarityMan

Some similar questions from a few people so ill try to hit them all....

Yeah Im primarily writing metal and my monitoring is not ideal I have KRK 6s and no bass trapping. Space itself is reasonmable size, oversized single garage However due to young kids actually spend more time mixing on phones cant recall if they are DT880s or DT990s. Fabfilter pro-Q2 has a mode where you can listen to just the area being affected by an EQ point so I use that to kind of focus in on the low end.

I do know how to side chain but don't tend to do it much.

Im already splitting my bass with high distorted and lows compressed to all buggery to get them consistent but I still feel like im getting either shit loads of masking or no power and cant seem to find the middle ground. 

Yes I have watched the low end fast track which is partly what lead me to trying the kick over/under bass thing. I feel like it might actually be the lower end of my guitars with the low mids of the bass as much as the really sub frequencies although obv my monitoring is not ideal so..... 

Are subpacs any use or just a gimmick? 

WiresDreamDisasters

Don't mix on headphones. At all. IMHO.

PolarityMan

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Don't mix on headphones. At all. IMHO.

Its certainly not my favourite...works for Nolly tho' 

WiresDreamDisasters

PolarityMan said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Don't mix on headphones. At all. IMHO.

Its certainly not my favourite...works for Nolly tho' 

You're not Nolly. None of us are.

Headphones just give you a false impression of what you're doing. Proximity effect through the wazoo. 

Check your mixes on headphones sure, but don't do them on them.

guitarfishbay

PolarityMan said:

Yeah Im primarily writing metal and my monitoring is not ideal I have KRK 6s and no bass trapping. Space itself is reasonmable size, oversized single garage However due to young kids actually spend more time mixing on phones cant recall if they are DT880s or DT990s. Fabfilter pro-Q2 has a mode where you can listen to just the area being affected by an EQ point so I use that to kind of focus in on the low end.

As noted by Drew earlier don't just focus on the lows as the low mids might also cause issues, plus it's always about the big picture.  You can definitely solo stuff out but I wouldn't be super narrow about it.

PolarityMan said:

I do know how to side chain but don't tend to do it much.

If you want to do sidechain compression I'd recommend going the drum keyspikes route for metal, I find it more accurate and repeatable/predictable.

PolarityMan said:

Im already splitting my bass with high distorted and lows compressed to all buggery to get them consistent but I still feel like im getting either shit loads of masking or no power and cant seem to find the middle ground. 

Yes I have watched the low end fast track which is partly what lead me to trying the kick over/under bass thing. I feel like it might actually be the lower end of my guitars with the low mids of the bass as much as the really sub frequencies although obv my monitoring is not ideal so..... 

Follow on question have you watched the Forrester Savell bass one?  It deals with split signals, a key point being aligning things and not just trusting that the delay compensation is giving the best tone.

PolarityMan said:

Are subpacs any use or just a gimmick?

I don't love it as much as some do, but I do think it is useful.  For my own tastes it's not very useful at low volumes, so it always kind of needs to be at a reasonably powerful volume to feel both the length of the kick drum and where the kick and bass are sitting relative to each other.  Sometimes this means readjusting levels, but again this might be me.  They make comfy backrests, but having cables going from your interface to your chair gets a bit annoying.  I often unplug mine for this reason.  I don't run it all the time even when it is plugged in.

WiresDreamDisasters said:

PolarityMan said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Don't mix on headphones. At all. IMHO.

Its certainly not my favourite...works for Nolly tho' 

You're not Nolly. None of us are.

What I've found with headphones is I need to listen extremely quietly for any kind of balance to translate.  If I listen loud my sides to centre balance is usually miles off.  If you're using open back headphones this can sometimes be a problem if there's any noise coming from elsewhere.

Some plugs to try that may help:

https://www.sonarworks.com/reference - You might already have this.  I find it super helpful with headphones especially.

https://goodhertz.co/canopener-studio/  - this is specifically to give crossfeed between your headphones to simulate what would happen if you were listening on speakers.  Sometimes it's given me better translation of centre to sides when mixing on headphones.

guitarfishbay

I do think lots of referencing helps in this area especially if your room has problems

guitarfishbay

Danny1969 said:

My trick for bass is to track a DI and mic the cab, then low pass the shit out of the bass di track and highpass the shit out of the mic'ed track. When you put the 2 together it's generally pretty weighty but will the character of the cab. I got this trick from some guy on Youtube. 

Neural Parallax is designed to do this inside one plugin, with a compressor for the low end.  It's the best sounding bass distortion I've found for my Stingray.

https://neuraldsp.com/products/parallax/

PolarityMan

Not unlocked the Forrester Saville one yet..got to do all the pre-reqs first but its def on my list for obvious reasons.

Once the kids are a bit older I'll build some bass trapping but sadly headphones are going to ahve to suffice for 80% of my mixing in the immediate future.

Danny1969

I know mixing in headphones is considered universally bad BUT if you really know those headphones ...as in know what to expect in terms of A\B ing commercial mix'es and yours you can actually make it work much better than a basically treated room. I have a friend who built up a bit of a rep mixing in my studio and a couple of other places then his Girlfriend wanted them to live in Thailand for a year ... She taught English over there, he did pro mix's on a Macbook pro and headphones for a year.  So it can be done. Especially if you take the time to cross reference it in the car, on laptop speakers, phone etc 

octatonic

I reference check on headphones, but nothing else.

thegummy

Here is a good tip for low end - put a low pass filter on your reference tracks so you're only hearing the low end then apply the same filter to your mix.

You might find a big difference, like maybe the bass guitar is a lot higher in that area on your mix so when you adjust it to match the reference then remove the filter, you could find that it sounds better.

The room is a huge problem for low end like mentioned but if the records you listen to in there have the low end you like then it's not the room preventing it.