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Re: Music Tech-Recording Forum



>>  I'm never really happy with the way my bass tracks  and
>> drums lay in my recordings-compared to the pro recordings. I'm not a
>> slouch and have pretty good ears and experience, yet it is still a
>> mystery.


It is impossible to carry out a recording if drums and bass both  
carry prominent sound in the same frequency band. A key technique in  
producing recordings is to filter out enough of an instrument's sound  
that otherwise would collide with sound made by another instrument at  
the same time.

Another common technique is side-chaining. Usually this is used to  
duck the bass channel by the signal of the kick drum channel,  
resulting in the the level of the bass going down just a little bit  
whenever the kick hits. Think of this as "creating a pocket in the  
bass sound for the kick drum to fit in". This is heard on many disco  
songs and also useful in funk. Devices and plug-ins that can be used  
for side-chaning are noise gates and compressors.

By poly rhythmic musical arrangement (as in modern dance music,  
reggae and traditional Brazilian music etc) this "clashing of low  
frequencies" can be avoided without the need for filtering or side  
chaining, as mentioned above.

Generally think about the complete music as "layers of sound", each  
instrument representing a unique layer. If they sound at the same  
time they have to occupy different bands of the frequency spectrum.  
Traditional music on folk instruments tend to use instruments that  
naturally complement each other well. This is also true to the  
symphonic orchestra. Rock music, however, has a tradition of layering  
sound to create a "dense mass effect". The point is not only to make  
every instrument come through, as in dance and brazilian, but to  
create a greater summed impact "in sound" and not only "in music".

My personal view is that it's not all bad with clashing frequencies  
in music. A lot of the music I like actually draws on overtone  
phenomena that occur when related sounds collide. But speaking about  
the bass frequencies in particular, as in this thread, there isn't  
really much headroom for "ghost notes" to appear.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)