eq of bass & bass drum in mix

[JohnL]

I've seen a couple of articles dealing specifically with eq-ing the bass and drums in the mix so they both cut through (mainly regarding bass drum and bass guitar) without cancelling each other or sounding dissonant. But now that I need it, I can't find it, and a forum search here didn't find what I'm looking for. I've never really been concerned with it before as my past studio experiences dealt with just plugging in and letting the engineer and whoever was paying for the studio time to handle it (with varying degrees of success in the final mix. Now the guy I play with has his own studio, and I'm not sold on the way the rhythm tracks sound on our last session. We played around with the eq some, but I don't think either of us was really happy with it. The drums are Roland V-drums and I'm using a stock USA Fender Jazz, recording to ADAT format. Can anyone suggest a thread or a link to some article dealing with recording drums and bass? Thanks!

[Murf]

Not sure about drum recording but here's a link to an interesting article about recording bass

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/article...25665000797D4D


Hope this helps.

[SuperDuck]

I don't have a link to an article, but I can sum up some useful information for you.

The problem when recording a bass drum and bass is that they can "step on each other", so to speak, and the result is a muddy mess. Obviously, these are both low frequency situations, so the object is to balance the two.

Try boosting the low-mids on the bass drum to bring out more of the "thock", and bringing up the deep bass on the bass guitar. Or, try the reverse, and put more of an emphasis on the low-mids of the bass guitar.

By lows, I'm talking about the 40-100hz range. Low mids can be anwhere from 200-800hz-ish. If you have a parametric or graphic eq, you should be ok. I'm not sure how flexible your setup is.

And remember, if you can cut rather than boost, always cut, and do small changes at first. Listen to the parts you are worried about a few times before you change them again.

Good luck!

[Hugh Jazz]

I'd emphasize the 80 Hz band (for the power) and the 1 KHz band (for the percussive "click") on the kick to get a nice powerful sound. Of course this would vary depending on your taste, room acoustics, and recording techniques. For bass, I'd boost around 120-160 Hz for the low mid punch, and somewhere in the 800-1.6k range for cutting through. Of course if you don't like high mids, you would really need to do much of that, if at all (I'd still recommend a slight boost at 800 Hz).

Hope that helps.