The importance of kick and bass
Talk to any producer and they’ll tell you that the most important element of any production is the bottom end. They’ll also tell you that, for a variety of reasons, it’s the most difficult element to get right. And it’s not just dance music we’re talking about – every genre of music that involves drums is going to require an intense focus to the way the low frequency parts interact and combine to form what is in essence the beating heart… the viscera… the sex… of a mix. Get it wrong and your music won’t resonate with the primal core; get it right and your music won’t fail to have an impact on the listener. The low frequencies in dance music are even more essential, because this is what drives a track and what drives you to dance. The volume levels in clubs are such that you’re experiencing the music, particularly the low end, through your body, not just your ears.
The kick and bass work together to provide weight, power, warmth and drive, as well as a few other more esoteric characteristics such as attitude, size and space. The way they’re made to work together is key to their success – too interfering and the low end becomes an indistinct car wreck; too disparate and there’s no cohesive substance. The clarity and definition of the bass is something that can be addressed and established in the mix, but that’s not always possible if the source sounds are wrong and don’t work together as one.
Heavy decisions
At the outset, you have to make choices as to the role of the kick and bass, and where each sits in that low band. One provides the weight at the very bottom, while the other gives the drive in the band just above that – and possibly into the mid and even top bands. If you try and have both performing each function, it will likely end in tears. Occasionally (in hip-hop, for example), you might just have a kick drum with a long decay and no bassline at all. More commonly, you will have a kick drum on top that provides the punch. It might well also have a transient click in the 2-6kHz region to cut through the mix, depending on the genre. Interestingly, the level of this clicky transient is a keen fashion signifier. In the 80s and into the 90s, the level of the click got so out of hand that some records, such as Herbie Hancock’s Rocket, had a ‘kick’ drum pattern that is almost entirely comprised of click. Since then, this has abated, particularly in dance music, although the use of it is still prevalent on radio mixes, to get the drum pattern heard on little speakers.
Pinpointing punch
The punch of the kick drum comes from the upper regions of the low end, around 100 to 140Hz, while above that, you can bring out the front of the sound in the midrange (500-700Hz) without being intrusive.
If your kick is providing the drive, then the bass will provide the weight, so too much of a front to the bass sound – or “nose” as players and producers often refer to it – might interfere with the kick when they overlap. Keeping that all-important definition in the bass while crafting a powerful kick is something we’ll look into later. The main ingredient that goes into a sense of weight, though, is the low end (sub100Hz) and how much there is of it. This bit is very easy to get wrong, and the fine balance of both the bass and kick frequencies can only be established by listening at different volumes on different speakers in solo and dropped into the track. You can get an amazing-sounding kick when listening in isolation on big speakers with a sub-woofer, only to find that it disappears in the mix on small speakers or simply sounds rotten. The answer is to forever flick between monitors in situ and in solo, in your studio and out of it, and reference tracks and artists that you know work well in your listening environment.
If your kick has any weight or decay, it will likely have a pitch element, so you have to be aware of that pitch in relation to the key of your song. Tuning the kick to fit the key is often necessary and can make a huge difference. The Holy Grail is to get the feel of the kick and bass working together as a cohesive, glued unit. As well as tone, you have to think about timing. Producers talk about getting the bass ‘in the pocket’ or ‘hitting the sweet spot’, and this is usually the relative timing of each. This pocket for the bass is usually a few milliseconds behind the kick transient. Experimenting with laying back the timing of the bass can shift the feel of the track into that magical zone.
“The Holy Grail is to get the feel of the kick and bass working together as a cohesive, glued unit”