How to Clean Up Bass in Your Mix

All about bass.

For club/dance music it’s essential to have fat bass. No bass = No pressure on the dance floor. A good way to get that pressure and clean up your mix is to do a proper tuning of the low end. Bass specialist TOCADISCO gives us the rundown in preparation for his upcoming release, aptly titled ’All That Bass’.

Here is an analyzer screen shot of the track I’m working on.

This is the spectrum before the final mix and mastering. As you can see, the bass is very prominent in the mix.

When I take out the bass you see that the other elements only go to a certain frequency. Why? Because we need all the space that we can get in the bass area. Bass has the most energy of all the frequencies. So it’s important to keep it in check.

Below is a screenshot of only the kick and bass.

And for club productions I always add a sub-bass. Most home studios or project studios will not even have the right subwoofer to hear it. But on a proper club or festival PA, those sub-frequencies give you that extra earthshaking vibe.

Don’t add too much as it can quickly mud up your mix or distort it. Just the right amount will make your club track a monster!

Good luck and try mastering with LANDR, no limiter or maximizers on the master channel and minimum -5dB headroom on the 24-bit AIFF or WAV file for best mastering results!

Another tip, if you are like me and are traveling a lot or maybe you do not have the financial possibilities to create a mega studio at home, buy a proper analyzer so you can at least “see” where there could be a problem in your mixes.

Happy music making.

Toca 

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@TOCADISCO

soundcloud.com/tocadisco