How to Mix Kick and Bass
to Fit Together in a Full and Crowded Mix?
How to fit kick and bass together in a tense and crowded mix? Many a times especially a kick can be buried underneath a bass. It’s not cutting through as much as you hoped it would. In this video you’ll learn a mixing trick to help you with that:
Sometimes it’s hard to fit bass heavy tracks together as they’re fighting for the same spot so to speak. Of course the first step is to EQ and compress them to get the balance right.
The thing is that in a crowded mix that might not be enough and the kick gets buried underneath the bass and other instruments. In a situation like this, you can use side chain compression.
What this means is that a compressor listens to one track while compressing another one. In this case, you want to add a compressor to a bass track and set it to listen the kick track. This way the bass track is compressed every time the kick hits.
The amount of compression and the settings can be adjusted to fit the song. Sometimes just a tad of compression is enough to help the kick cut through. Other times the bass have to be compressed pretty hard.
Usually a fast attack and medium to slow release time work well. The lower the ratio, the more subtle and transparent the compression is. In the end you have to use your ears to find the right settings.
Hopefully you found this video helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. Ask if there’s anything unclear or if I left something out. Cheers!
