How to Set Levels - Bass

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[jorgesandoval]

Love the punch/sustain explanation between the kick and the bass!

[joaoantoniovione]

I've grown accustomed to balance electric guitars against drums, and then bring in the bass to stitch it all together. Quoting Greg from ubk, the nice trick of touching the speaker and feel the bass/kick relationship as well xD

[ashdeen]

Bass has always been hard for me and this video is a great help. Thank you

[marcmartel]

Thanks for that simple illustration that kick and bass should be thought of as twins, or extensions of one another. That makes the whole thing so much less daunting. And I love how you're just using your ears - that should be the goal for everyone! I found a cool trick back when I was still blowing up my car speakers that sort of fool-proofs the process if you can't trust your ears yet. After you've balanced out your drums, simply put a VU meter on your master track (mvMeter2 for ex.), solo the kick, now adjust the VU meter's gain until the kick is averaging around -3dB, then introduce bass until the VU meter is hitting around 0dB with kick and bass playing together. Once that's done, make sure to reset the VU's gain back to zero, or just disable it. Done. The idea is that 3dB of gain is the amount it takes to double perceived volume. If adding bass to the kick is making your VU meter go from -3dB to 0dB, then they are right around equal volume. Longwinded, but maybe that will help someone. Would you consider doing a follow-up to this video and talk about how to handle kick/bass masking?

[brandonboozer]

I'm always a fan of using your ears, but in this case, I like to add to this process, the "low end mix trick" that is sometimes attributed to Jaquire King. I can remember from my school days, learning that two audio sources with equal db output levels equate to a +3db output when played together. Physics of sound. Good stuff as always Joe!

[stevemorgan]

Excellent way to think of the relationship between kick and bass, very helpful. Thanks!

[MikMichael]

Agreed..Joe's advisement/ technique have been spot on w/ many of my home recordings. Even the older recordings.

[鄭華漢]

Right after 10 seconds watching this clip I decided to hit the subscribe bell icon, GREAT pro leveling on voiceover speaks itself about your skill! Thanks for sharing!

[MrDan]

Great video and explanation. I always like when the kick drum and bass sound as one.

[slowbrain]

Joe...Does this suit for all genres?. Like edm

[janka]

really helpful information. thank you so much for sharing this!
keep making such 'How To' videos - your explanations are one of the best that i've seen all over youtube!

p.s. greeting from Belarus :)

[JedWunderli]

Love your videos, Joe and I agree - B-OOM should be a t-shirt.

[ronnyb]

@Joe Gilder - Home Studio Corner very helpful video Joe, thanx, i have a question tough, how did you conjure up an EQ on your bass insert without drag & drop?

[ergophonic]

Another great trick to make the kick and bass play nicely together is to very gently decrease the attack of the bass to allow the transient of the kick to really thump through.

[JedWunderli]

Just curious - what are you using for your drums here? Human drummer? Drum programming? Which program?

[john]

Bass and drums = Siamese twins joined at the beat! 👍😎👍

[Max_B]

Having trouble lately finding the right tone for a vocal. Not sure if I’m choosing the wrong saturation or it’s just not sitting well tonally with eq

[cnking]

Silly question maybe but why does the bass audio track look asymmetrical top and bottom? It looks totally different from the drum tracks (and my own bass tracks).

[ChrisGilland]

It would be incredibly helpful, especially as somebody who is totally blind since birth, if you could demonstrate not just with kick drum and Bass, but with a full mix like vocal, piano, strings, drums, bass, and guitar the workflow for simply balancing levels with no plug-ins in the equation.

[rajakhan]

Is there any way to to automate multiple parameters with single automation?