Ducking Bass

[Joshua RodrigueParticipant]

Hi everybody. I'm pretty new to mixing, which may be obvious by my questions. I remember Warren saying something about ducking the bass out of the way of a kick or a snare if they fell on the same beat? Can someone help me understand this a little better? I'm using Cubase Artist 11, but general mixing technique here would be helpful. Thank you!

[CJ [Spectrum424]Participant]

Hey Joshua,

Since the kick and bass occupy the same frequency range in the low end you can use a technique known as side-chaining or ducking to make the kick cut thru a bit better. You hear it mostly in dance music or EDM where the kick usually drives the song but it can be useful in many genres just to make more room for the kick in a dense mix.

You create this by putting a compressor with side-chaining capabilities, like the Waves Renaissance Compressor (R-Comp), on the bass track and feed the compressor from your kick track. A ratio of 4:1 is a good place to start, use a fast attack and time the release for as long as it takes for the kick to deliver it's sound. Then lower the threshold  until you see about 2-4dB of gain reduction. Then adjust until it's making the desired effect which depends heavily on context.

Good luck and happy mixing!

/CJ

[Joshua RodrigueParticipant]

Hey CJ. Thanks so much for clarifying that. I have figured out how to side chain my reverb so this makes sense to me. Most of the music I'm working isn't too heavy and uses organic instruments, so I'm might need to do a bit more eq-ing on the bass and kick instead. But I'm definitely going to experiment with this also.  Thanks.

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