Bass
How do I get bass to stand out? The question on all up and coming producers lips. When trying to get a bass that will sit in the mix while remaining clear and defined without cluttering the overall mix there are two things to consider. Firstly your original sound source and secondly your processing of the bass.
Even though good bass can be found on a sample CD, generally speaking sampling something directly from a good sound source is usually the best way to go. Some of the early Roland keyboards are excellent and producing solid and clean bass that make for good sound sources. The Roland SH5, SH2 and SH09 are great analogue keyboards renowned for their bottom end.
Modern keyboards that are popular with dance producers include the Clavia series of Nord Lead, the Access Virus and the Novation Supernova and Bass Station. Owning any of these will ensure tight and punchy bottom end.
Once you have found a suitable sound source processing and sampling these sounds are necessary to ensure they sit at a consistent level in your mix without interfering in the final mix down. Sampling through a compressor is an ideal method, see our compression notes further down this page.
Once you have a bass a typical method is to split it in to two frequency bands. For example, make two copies of your bass. Distort one of them and low cut it between 100hz and 400hz, now low pass your original copy at between 100hz and 400hz. Using both of them simultaneously will give you a bass which you can hear and feel. Play around with this method using different basses, distortion plug ins, eq and compression.
Thanks to Davide Carbone from www.bs1records.com for this article - See his great Sample collection at Loopmasters today.
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