Need a low end mix check…

[David Rossi]

I have spent wayyyyy too many hours trying to tame the low end in this song.  The floor toms and kick just ate up all the space where the bass guitar would normally sit, making it just disappear or be way too boomy in the low end.  
 

I think I’ve gotten it to a point where my self loathing is finally minimized.  if anyone with a good monitoring setup or car system wanna turn this up and help me out a little, it’d sure be appreciated.  
 

Faith / The Underhills 
 

https://theunderhills.bandcamp.com/track/faith-2024

Edited August 9 by David Rossi

[David Rossi]

Landr is just a stepping stone with light processing before I go to my mastering guy.  It’s better than grinding / limiting thru the mushy L2.  
 

…and thanks so much.  Translation is important esp for phone speakers.  

Edited August 6 by David Rossi

[mark skinner]

 Killer song !  You did a Fantastic job on the vocals and acoustic guitar around the outro. I'm kinda on the fence about the intro EQ.  Listening on laptop with somewhat hyped bass headphones. The low end does get a little confusing in some spots , but in the chorus(s) I thought the bass guitar came thru a lot better.   I downloaded and will check it out further on my monitors in the morning.    Mainly ..  just to hear it again.                        

I'm sure you've listened to this a thousand times. I normally have to get away from one for a while to get a grasp of what is bothering me about it.   I recently found a proQ  preset for bass that helps a lot for situations like you think you have.

Loved the song ..   mark

[David Rossi]

Hey Mark, thanks so much for the listen And kind words.  
 

The intro Eq is just that basic lo fi vinyl EQ ear trick to make everything sound so impactful when It all comes in!  It’s changed a few times and I’m narrowing In on it.  

I’ve spent a ton of time trying to get everything in its place and the bass guitar has just been a problem child.  It’s much closer than it was tho.  I’ve used every re-amp and bass plug I have.  Finally found a path forward and I'm trying to narrow down!!  Thanks for the listen man…

 

[jack c.]

at the start acoustic guitar has lots of bottom.how are you panning each instrument?electric guitar adjust bottom and toms bottom eq both.jack c

[mark skinner]

 David , I'm going thru the same problem with the kick/bass and low end on a song that I've already posted. I'm not much of a bass player..   I tend to play on the heavy hittting 1 beat.  I just slid my bass and kick track next to each other and realized I've got Way too many spots competing with each other.  I slid "most" of my bass track down stream a 1/4 beat to the downbeat.  The problem was nearly 100%  solved.  Not sure if this is related "at all" to your song , but there were a few spots I've listened to in yours where I think it would help.   I got Tired as well with fighting with EQ and plugins.        best of luck ..       ms

[David Rossi]

22 hours ago, pwal²³ said:

have you tried side-chain compression? duck the toms/kick with an input from the bass

^^^^ in your case swap "kick/toms" and "bass"

here's the webpage with more words, altho it's talking about izotope plugins:

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-sidechain-compression.html

/goodluck

Hey Pwal, yes, I’ve tried side chain.  The issue I have with the drums is that I only have a stereo track to work with.  So it’s a bit trickier not effecting everything in the kit in the frequency range!!  
 

Thanks for all the comments.  
 

I rolled off on the low end on the drum mix and on the bass and hi pass filtered all the guitars.  it’s a lot more palatable…
 

https://theunderhills.bandcamp.com/track/faith-2024

[equality]

I have no issues with low register listening in pretty cheap bluetooth in ear phones. I just wanna say that this tune has high quality all over. Love the harmonies, melodies and arrangement. 

[Old Joad]

I like the sound of this, great snap on the snare👍🏼

[Wookiee]

The bass is a little OTT here on my Adam A7x, through the ARC Studio.  Have you tried a little narrow cut around 80Hz on your Bass guitar and a little lifft on your kick in the 3 to 4kHz can really help the kick stand out on systems without and bottom.

Nice track, mix worked for most of it. Like Mark not keen on the fake vinyl hiss, perhaps some natural sounds, gentle wind, a few birds twittering.  

[steve@baselines.com]

You get a 'like' simply for the self loathing comment - funny and relatable.  The song is really nice, but as you have stated, the bass is not really present (at least to my ears).  I'm no expert, but the kick drum sounds too loud to me.  If I was working on this, I would try to define the bass guitar a little more.  Generally, I have the bass feed into a buss with something to accentuate the high end (I use Maserati Bass - Waves).  Then I create a send to another buss with RBass on it, which adds the bottom and some of the distortion that warms it up. I send both busses to an 'ALL BASS' buss for final eq and compression.  In this case, I would also do some work to make sure the kick and bass have their own space, and that other instruments were not interfering with the bass.

 

[Bajan Blue]

Hi

This could be a really great track.

Agree the Bass is getting lost.

I also am not a lover of the fake vinyl crackles etc - but that really is a personal thing.

The song itself is excellent

Nigel