Hi there
Can some of you good people give some general bass/low freq advice on this? (other mix stuff also welcome)
Here it sounds fine but I guess I am not fully attuned to my new amp, speakers and sub yet
For instance: the bass drum here has plenty beef on my listening but that might not come through on a hifi system without a sub etc
So I just don’t know. Too thin, too fat?
get it here:
http://chaptereight.bandcamp.com/track/altered-state-2011-test-01
As always; all the best, Kim
It sounds fine to me, you managed to get the bass very distinct and clear, it usually sounds very muddy when I try 
Hi Kim
Listening on a pair of Fostex PM0.4’s without a sub, I think the bass is lacking a bit. The kick sounds really “clicky” compared to other tracks on the same setup. In my far less than ideal listening position I’m (now) used to hearing a lot of action around 80Hz, but not on your track.
Really like the guitar mix.
Oh, and after years of advising people in the old LE forum to get a pair of self powered monitors, I finally followed my own advice a couple of weeks back.
Thank you so much for listening
Kim
aarrgghh! there it is
I have the bd click here too but with the sub it sounds fine (lots of ompfh going on in the sub area here)
Crikey, what can I do then… buy better fuller speakers and ditch the sub for mixing?
Kim…thinking and wondering…
Why not back the sub off a little in gain and eq a little differently, then try it here again, once you get positive comments, you work with that until your brain compensates for each time you mix.
Thank you, great advice.
Hmmm…
I know how to mix but I need the proper listening environment
I question mixing with a sub. Don’t we want to mix on as accurate a system as possible, so we’re not fooled into making possible mix mistakes? I would have thought that using a sub might hype the lo end and leave one with a weak sounding bass on other systems… just like how in my setup a significant bass mode at the mix position tends to cause me to mix the bass too high.
However, mixing using a sub could sure sound fun. Just not accurate. If it were me, I’d mix the regular way but definitely check it using the sub. I say this because I’ve had a few mixes that sounded okay over nearfields but when played back using a sub, the sub was crapping out.
Surely a sub should be accurate if it’s setup properly AND you’re listening in a suitably treated environment?
But I agree they could be ‘risky’ to use unless you match the roll-off and SPL with your main monitors.
Hey Kim,
I think it sounds ok. The kick does seem a little separate from the mix though, kind of like it is hanging off the end of the spectrum by itself.
If this helps, I look at bass and kick as a marriage. You have to set a special crossover point for the 2 to lap onto each other which varies with different bass/kick combos. I think this may be what you are lacking because the kick seems separate of the bass?
Try a gentle high pass on the bass and open the kick up to it. If you are boosting sub-frequencies, back them off to marry the bass and kick.
You’ll know when you have it when the kick drives the bass guitar’s resonance out of the speaker.
Listening to it 4 times, I think your bass can reach lower…
clicky cus ya kanty here de bottom end. The level of the click did not seem overbearing or to loud in gelation to the other elements.
Fair comment Tom, I can’t hear the real bottom end of the kick, no argument there. But we do agree that it isn’t quite right- even though you can hear stuff that I can’t.
Kim … I just woke up with some thoughts: When you got me to listen to it, I kept telling you that it was coming through solid. My sub was moving - and it is balanced Genelec sub for my monitors. It was sounding ‘fine’ … however, not a lot of bass energy. You’ve described ‘lots of oomph going on in the sub area here’ … And I suddenly got a question: Is your sub just ‘getting down there’ ith direct power? Or is it working on a ‘folded bin’ format, where cabinet resonance will ‘be’ a lot of the appearance of bass? I used to have Wharfedale Active diamonds … Small speakers which got to sound ‘bigger’ because of how their back-port. I’m not tech savvy enough, but my bets attempt at describing what was going on was that they were ‘doing stuff’ which transformed low mids in to bass energy. When I got my genelecs, it was as if ‘real bass’ was bass and those low mids sat back a bit to join the other frequencies.
Kim and anybody else … am I making any sense here? I’m only too well aware that I’m treading out of my depth.
All the best
Glyn
If you are working in an untreated room and especially with a sub, your low frequencies could be 6 to 10 decibals higher than what is really there. Also setting up a subwoofer volume can be a very tricky thing as you may be fooled into having it set too loud, if you hear the sub distinctly louder than your speakers then it’s probably too loud. I don’t use one in mixing but do have one set-up in my home theater system in the living room and it took a lot of adjusting to get it just right. I would say listen to a lot of different commercial mixes on it and work on the levels.
Peace,
Billy
The bass response is fine. The lack of presence of the kick is a mixing issue, but the bass guitar is quite clear in both my 3" driver near fields and my new Grado headphones in spite of the fact that they’re still a tad bright (haven’t yet hit the 100h mark ).
(haven’t yet hit the 100h mark >
Patience, patience 
It needs more cowbell. 
Thank you for the replies folks, it really helps! 
I’ve exchanged the BD for another more “normal” BD now, witch makes it easier to mix ( I really wanted to make that deep BD work in the mix though, hehe)
So now I am using the BD from the Nashville kit,the rest is from the metal thing that Toontrack did
Enough of that… I’ve gotten Håkon to sing the new version (he did the original too) and man it rocks!
On the original from 2000 I was so new to this digital DAW thing, so I did not dare to be bold, but now it is really swinging.
There are many people out there believing that Håkon can only sing pop. This one will set them right
I hope to post this within a week or two. There is still a lot to do on it, I want to expand it by at least 1 minute compared to the original. And all of those 60 seconds must count musically or else I won’t do it.
For Tones and others like him I can say: the lead has 8 new bars with new content already, it might turn into 16 bars if I come up with something extra cool
Thank you all again!
All the best, Kim
I want to moderate what I said about mixing with a sub. In some cases, using a sub can mitigate problems that both ported and non-ported monitors can present. So if it’s set up correctly I think it can help to use one
Hi again people, long time no see
I’ve uploaded a new test, it’s called “Altered State 2011 test 02 Håkon vocal”
You can get it here:
http://chaptereight.bandcamp.com/track/altered-state-2011-test-02-h-kon-vocal
I’ve changed the drum kit again. This time using the allaire kit for Superior Drummer.
I’ve also erased most of the guitars to redo them properly.
The reason I post another unfinished version of it is that I wanted to show you how cool Håkon sings on this IMO
This is all raw takes. No melodyne or other “help”, hehe
There will be both some cool intro and outro stuff on this song too. I hope to finish it soon
What do you guys think?
All the best, Kim