Bass Mastering (Electronic)

[MojoHamster]

I'm working on several remixes at the moment, and something I'm getting really frustrated with is mastering the bass. It's quite easy to please your ears with a Bass sound (melodic bass as opposed to drum) using headphones. However when I shift to speakers it tends to sound like a mess.

I'm looking for a great sound that has a balance of driving low end with melodic definition that doesn't over-power the other instruments. I've got Chorus and Compression on it atm, but perhaps could use a few pointers especially in the direction of EQing or even perhaps the types of bass sound that are best to work with.

Thanks to anyone for taking the time to look this over.

[dannthr]

I'm working on several remixes at the moment, and something I'm getting really frustrated with is mastering the bass. It's quite easy to please your ears with a Bass sound (melodic bass as opposed to drum) using headphones. However when I shift to speakers it tends to sound like a mess.

I'm looking for a great sound that has a balance of driving low end with melodic definition that doesn't over-power the other instruments. I've got Chorus and Compression on it atm, but perhaps could use a few pointers especially in the direction of EQing or even perhaps the types of bass sound that are best to work with.

Thanks to anyone for taking the time to look this over.

Some (many) speakers just suck at bass definition.

You might even want to try doubling the bass melody an octave higher and applying a high pass filter set fairly low to cut out some of the low, lows.

Too low a frequency results in some messy rumble.

[BlackPanther]

Never tried chorus with bass, that might be messin with your mixing although I've never tried so I wouldn't know. Also, make sure that you're eq'ing the bass and the kick so that they're not interfering. Meaning boost key frequencies while dropping the not so important ones. Also make sure that synths or other instruments aren't hogging some of those bassy frequencies, you'll get a lot clearer sound of the bass when you don't have so many clashing frequencies what people like to call "mud". Some basic stuff that may help. It would also help to give us a sample of a song or remix you're talkin about, you don't have to show the whole song, just sections.

[avaris]

One basic easy EQ thing to do is to cut out out everything 180-250Hz from any non-bass/kick sound in your mix. I'd take of the chorus for now. Also unless you absolutely have to do not boost a lot of frequencies. Cut what needs to be cut. If you are having to boost too much you prob need to pick a different kick or bass sound. Try cutting about 6-18db at 800Hz on the kick with a Parametric EQ. This will help clear up a lot of room for everything else in your mix.

Side-chaining the kick to the bass is also key. So you create a dynamically cohesive low-end.

[Moseph]

Leaving in or slightly boosting the 1000hz-2000hz range in the bass may give you a more defined attack and could potentially help with melodic definition.

[MojoHamster]

Wow some great responses in this thread, I'll look up some hosting and upload what I'm work.

Thanks all, given me plenty of inspiration. (I'm recently new to 'making space in the frequency range).

[MojoHamster]

Here's an upload of what I'm working on.

The download seems to be working, though not sure the stream is live yet.

http://soundcloud.com/mojohamster/sakura-mankai

[Moseph]

No real problems in the bass that jump out to me, although I'm listening on headphones and not speakers. I'm not hearing much kick drum, though. Bringing out the kick will also help the bass to sit better in the mix.

Maybe bring the lead instrument down by 3 or 4 dB from 0:07 to 0:28 or EQ the lead so it includes more frequencies in the 500-800hz range -- it feels really treble-y when it's on its own, although it's okay after the other instruments come in at 0:28.

[Nabeel Ansari]

It shouldn't matter for mastering on "listening" equipment, I mean unless your using high quality stereo monitors I'm assuming you're using some "bass enhancing" speakers. If your headphones do not amplify bass past what it ACTUALLY is then I don't think you should really care what it sound like on speakers. In any case, if your speakers have a bass knob just turn the bass down.