kick and bass
I'm not a pro recording engineer so, anything I know or have done is of direct recommendation from the well known pros.
When it was time to do a serious demo for one of my bands I did some hard looking into how to handle the kick and bass as an entity. One approach was to first choose the one that will dominate the lowest frequency range. Should you boost that range in either the kick or bass, pull an equal amount of that frequency range from the other. Then, take a look at what frequency range is desirable in the one that is not the deepest, boost that some and also pull that same frequency range out of the one you choose to be the deepest. And repeat that process moving up the frequency range until you have covered the relevant ranges of both. What you are doing is really carving out holes for the kick and bass to fit into each other, like two combs sliding and fitting into each other. What this does is to not have competing frequencies vying for the sonic real estate, and it will also allow their "effective" volume to be much greater. There isn't really a "one size fits all" in terms of exactly what frequency ranges you would boost in one and this cut out in the other so, have fun experiment.
As an example, I found that the bass drum was relatively higher in content than the bass guitar (it has alot of low mids for a kick (120-200Hz) so, I decided to let the bass guitar be the dominate one in the lowest frequencies. So I lifted the 40Hz to 80Hz or so on the bass guitar. Since I boosted that range on the bass guitar a few dB, I made a complimentary cut on the Kick a few dB of that same frequency range. Then, I heard the fundamental kick Frequency being around 90-100Hz, so I boosted that range on the kick, and pulled out that range on the bass guitar to make room for both at that frequency range. I don't recall exactly what happened after that but, I gave each instrument a listen and decided which frequency ranges should best belong to either the kick or bass, give that a little boost, and again, cut that same thing out of the other. It worked really good. It made the low end really full, punchy tight and rich without having to turn them way up.
Also, sometimes the colliding of 2 frequencies will cause a mathematical subharmonic that wasn't there to begin with. Not as likely with non acoustic sources that have been well recorded but this is where playing with some high pass EQ could help.
And if it the strange frequency was still there, you could try coming in from the other way, and do the process again making the other one be the dominant lowest frequency. If nothing else, you'll probably learn alot about working in the low frequency range. I sure did.
Good luck!
Phil
Last edited by pjd3; 11-02-2018 at 12:44 PM.
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