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11. Pro EQ tricks to slot kick and bass together

1 One of the best techniques for EQing kick and bass is to constantly A/B your material against a pro reference mix (or three!) with a low-pass filter applied to the master output so you’re not distracted by the upper mids or high frequencies. Here we’ve added Sample Magic’s MagicAB 2 to the master output, plus Sonalksis’ Creative Filter. We then assign shortcut buttons to the bypass of each plugin.

2 Remember, EQ is a tool, not a solution, so if you can’t get your bottom-end sounding heavy in five minutes with EQ and compression, it’s almost certainly playing in the wrong key. Listen to this bassline with a layer an octave (12 semitones) down… and then without a layer transposed four semitones down. The four-semitone version is clearly cleaner and weightier.

3 A simple trick to achieve that pro sound in the bottom end is by removing lower-mid boxiness. Here, we cut 1-3dB around 250-300Hz from all of our elements. Notice how our bass appears ‘warmer’. We dial out a little from the bass too, but are careful, as too much sculpting can remove a bass’s character.

4 Mixing kick and bass is easier when you make space for them, highpassing everything that doesn’t need those low frequencies. For dance mixes, we regularly find ourselves cutting below 250-500Hz on a lot of elements, but if you find the mix becomes a little thin, lower the cutoff on some sounds or adjust the steepness of the filter. Check out the effects of our filtering on this busy loop.

5 Don’t neglect your kick and bass when applying high- and low-pass filtering. In electronic music, you should almost always cut everything (channels and mix bus alike) below 30Hz, and often as high as 39Hz: it’s easier to put a bit of bass back in than to clean a bass-damaged mix. Also, don’t forget to roll the top-end off your bass. Just as making space highlights bass, so too does keeping it distinct.

6 We can make space for our kick by finding the kick’s fundamental frequency and dipping the bassline at this frequency. To find it we use a narrow 3-4dB bell boost – ideally with a frequency analyser – and sweep between 20Hz and 120Hz. The fundamental is the one that leaps out! Once found, we drag the EQ plugin over to our bass channel and pull the boost down to make it a cut instead.

7 In this example, our loop features a long, deep kick which requires space and priority. We can high-pass the bassline above its fundamental, which will reduce the level of that frequency considerably. The bass’ second harmonic, above the kick, now provides the perception of lowend. Harmonic generating plugins such as Waves MaxxBass or UAD’s Precision Enhancer Hz can help here.

8 If your bass needs priority, like in this example, you’ll need to thin the kick out with EQ. We raise the high-pass until the kick appears a little thin, then dial it back a little. You might then also want to add a little low-shelf to the kick at 100Hz to thicken the low end. Don’t be afraid if you high-pass much higher than you think you should – we regularly cut kicks below 70Hz, as long as it works in the overall mix.

9 But what if the bassline drops out of the arrangement, like in this example? The track becomes thin, but we can lower the kick drum cutoff with automation. Also consider adding a low sub kick to the mix very quietly, during sections when the bass isn’t playing. If it’s the kick that drops out, try high-passing the bass as well, so that when the two come back in together, it’s a real double whammy!