How to EQ Kick and Bass for Better Low End | LANDR Mix Tips #9

Kick and bass can be the most difficult things to get right in a mix.

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In this video, I’ll show you some of the best ways to EQ kick and bass to get the low end you’re looking for.

Before we start, the specific EQ frequencies we’re using in this video are just starting points. As always you have to use your ears to determine the best ranges to apply EQ.

Beginner and intermediate producers almost always underestimate the effects of their listening environment.

You could perfect your mix in a bad sounding room—only to realize that it’s completely wrong when you hear it in a different environment.

Your low end is particularly affected by your mixing room. But there are a few things you can do to make sure you’re judging your bass frequencies as accurately as possible:

Mix reference as often as you can: Referencing different tracks in different environments will help you get an idea of where the biggest flaws are in your room.

Use good open headphones to check lows: If you know your room is flawed, a good pair of headphones can go a long way to help you make mix decisions.

If you have a good idea of what frequencies are problematic, you’ll know to be careful when EQing them.

When you first start mixing with EQ, it seems like you could just boost the low end to get that powerful bass you’re looking for.

Too much low end energy in the mix can actually make your tracks sound weaker.

All speaker systems have a limit of how low they can go. If there’s a lot of sonic information at a lower frequency than a speaker can play, it will struggle—and fail—to reproduce it.

If your kick or bass instruments have too much sub bass, you’ll need to use a hi-pass filter to reduce it.

By bringing up an EQ on this bass track I can see right away that there’s a lot happening at very lowest frequencies.

I’ll start with a 48 db/octave low cut at 30 Hz. The timbre of the bass hasn’t changed at all, but I can already hear a bit of a tightening effect when I add the kick back in.

I’ll gradually move the frequency of the hi-pass filter up until I start to hear a negative change in the sound of the bass.

It’s actually best to do this with your eyes closed since the visual feedback from an EQ can affect how you judge low end.

I’ll backtrack a bit right as I start hear the body of the bass get weaker . That should be a pretty good spot for the high-pass filter.

Sculpting

EQing a track is like putting together a puzzle. You have to shift things around to make space.

For your kick and bass to punch you need make space for them in the mix.

The inverse is also true. If your mix doesn’t have the right space for your bass, you’ll never get the beefy sound you’re looking for.

Example: This kick drum sounds great solo’d, but I can tell that it’s fighting the other elements when I listen in the mix. The low-mids is especially congested.

To deal with this, I’ll carve out some of this area in the kick to let the rest of the mix sit. I’ll start by sweeping a fairly tight Q, -10 db cut in the 200-500 Hz range.

As I sweep my EQ band I can hear the other mix elements becoming more clear right around 300 Hz, so I’ll park the filter here.

Lows are the foundation of great kick and bass tracks, but that’s not all there is to the story.

“Big” and “punchy” kicks and basses often have a lot going on in other frequency ranges.

Experiment with EQ in ranges other than the low end to find which frequencies bring your kick and bass into focus.

As I’ve been EQing I’ve noticed that the kick lacks the presence it needs compete with the rest of my mix. I’ll take another EQ band, but this time a more bell shaped 6dB boost.

Sweeping from 1kHz-5kHz, I can hear the point of the kick pop out at about 2kHz. In the mix, this gives my kick a ton of authority and provides nice separation from the bass.

In some cases, adding a bit top end detail can bring out the articulation in the bass. I’ll check it out by sweeping an even gentler broad Q boost around the high end—listening from about 5k-10k.

With this bass sound, there’s not a lot going on in the top end, so I won’t bother boosting any frequencies here.

That’s why you always have to rely on your ears first to find out where to add EQ.

General guidelines can be helpful, but they may not always be perfect. Make sure to decide for yourself in the context of your own tracks.

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Learn how to get kick and bass sitting right in your mix: https://blog.landr.com/eq-kick-and-bass/
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