Thats pretty funny you asked that just now. Just the last hour I've been remixing some of my songs with great results. It's pretty obvious that when you have a bass drum and bass guitar, it all gets pretty mushed together, like i've personally found.

What I was just now doing was I used parametric EQ, solo'ed my bass drum and find the "sweet spot" of it that I think sounded good (~150hz). Then I notched that up (the bass drum at ~150hz) and then I went to the bass track and cut some with another parametric EQ at around the same frequency. I componsated by boosting the bass a little bit more around the mid range and some more lows, and I always have a lot of high end "tap" on my bass drum sounds so I raised up the high end a bit for that. Overall that really seems to work.

[quote=Maxwell]What's the best way to master the bass drum track to make it sound different from the bass?

Maxwell,

do I get this right that this is more of a mixing (even tracking) question than a mastering question. In other words, you're still working at a level where you have access to the individual tracks (rather than working on the finished two-track mixdown)?

I assume that you got your bass and BD signal "properly" EQd and compressed but have the problem of them fighting for place in the low to low-mid region. Here's what I do.

Use a compressor with sidechain which actions on the signal can be limited to a certain frequency range (the C1 does this). Set it so it only affects frequencies (in the signal, not in the key!) up to ~150Hz. Alternatively, you can band-split your bass track at 150Hz and copy the results to two new tracks.

Now use the low frequencies of your BD to control the aforementioned C1 by routing a send with the lowpassed signal to the key input of the C1.

What happens now is that every time the bass drum hits, the low frequencies of the bass get ducked. This is something you will not notice as "missing", 'cause the bass drum's bottom fills the gap, and the information about pitch etc. for the bass is still present in its harmonics (which do not get ducked).

Sorry for the OT,

Rainer

Maxwell wrote: What's the best way to master the bass drum track to make it sound different from the bass? And why is the bass i record, which i record directly, sound blurry and muddy and each note is not precise?

If it is a mixing/mastering situation (no more tracking) then the above fixes are available. I would probably prefer to cut frequencies at each frequency vs boost. IE, cut the bass gtr at 80 and cut the kick at 150 as a ballpark example. (your frequency choices will vary)

Or even set the eq for the bass gtr to "high pass" and just roll off everything be low a certain lower frequency. This depends on the music style and type of bass etc (5 strng/4 string etc) and its sonic responsibilities in the song.

For future use.... This is best solved when taken into consideration during the mic placement, kick tuning, etc during tracking for both instruments. That's one of the things that should be going on during that process, making sure your mic choice, position, or bass preamp settings etc don't step on each other to begin with. If this is achieved correctly, you'll never need the eq in the first place and arrive at a much cleaner, defined musical sound. Last thing... Sloppy playing sounds muddy also and if so, none of the above will actually cure the problem...

Best regards-

Karbo