Low-end arrangement

There are many production tricks to cure kick and bass problems, but nothing beats choosing the right sounds and programming them appropriately to begin with. We’ve already talked about this at length, but it bears repeating: if your bass is deep and boomy, your kick should be punchier and thinner, and vice versa.

Another vital consideration is the musical key of your elements. If you’ve decided that your bass part will be assuming the low-frequency role in your mix, then you’ll need to ensure that at least some of the notes in your bass riff reach low enough. For example, many DnB tracks are written in the key of E and F, meaning that a sub bass hitting the track’s root note is guaranteed to shake subs and sound systems. This isn’t to say that you can’t write a track in a higher key, of course, as long as you make sure a few notes of your bass riff descend into lower registers now and then. The opposite is also true: if your kick is taking the lead subsonic role in your track, then it may benefit you to program your bass (and track) in a higher key such as A-C, or transpose them if you’ve already begun writing.

Another thing to listen for is phase cancellation when your kick and bass are playing at the same time. If you aren’t sure whether this is happening, solo the kick and bass and program one kick with the bass and another without. If the kick sounds less punchy when it strikes with the bass, it’s phasing. Try reversing the phase of one or the other or, if that doesn’t work, try some of the other tricks below.

Naturally, the most obvious problems usually occur when kicks and bass sound at exactly the same time, and so in the tutorial below, we look at simple solutions, both for avoiding problems in the first place, and for fixing them once they’re made. Don’t try to force a solution, though – if it isn’t working, follow these steps, and if none of them work, ditch your bassline and try something else. You should never settle for second best when it comes to kick and bass!

“You’ll need to ensure that at least some of the notes in your bass riff reach low enough”