Moulton Laboratories

the art and science of sound

Principles of Multitrack Mixing: The Kick Drum/Bass Relationship

Dave Moulton, assisted by Peter Alhadeff and Alex Case

February 1993

1. The Power in the Mix

2. The Basics

3. Bass and Drum Dialectics

4. Studio tricks

5. The Synthesis phenomena

6. Appendix: Examples of kick drum and electric bass

Comments (5)

Pop and rock means kick drum and bass. Mixing them well is essential.

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Appendix Sidebar

Table listing examples of usage of kick drum and electric bass as described in the article

Artist	Album	Year	Song Title	Producer
The B-52's	Cosmic Thing	1989	Cosmic Thing	Nile Rogers
The Cars	The Cars	1978	I'm in Touch with Your World	Roy Thomas Baker
del Amitri	Waking Hours	1989	Empty	Hugh Jones
Dire Straits	On Every Street	1991	Heavy Fuel	Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits
Michael Jackson	Dangerous	1992	Dangerous	Teddy Riley and Michael Jackson
Led Zeppelin	Led Zeppelin III	1970	Since I've Been Loving You	Jimmy Page
Annie Lennox	Diva	1992	Money Can't Buy it	Stephen Lipson
Bobby McFerrin	many good examples
Prince and the NPG	Diamonds and Pearls	1991	Gett Off	Prince and the NPG
Red Hot Chili Peppers	Blood Sugar Sex Magik	1991	Funky Monks	Rick Rubin
Seal	Seal	1991	Killer	Trevor Horn
Steely Dan	Gaucho	1980	Hey Nineteen	Gary Katz
Sting	Soul Cages	1991	Mad About You	Hugh Padgham and Sting
Tears for Fears	The Seeds of Love	1989	Woman in Chains	TFF and David Bascombe
Tina Turner	Private Dancer	1984	What's Love Got to Do with It	Terry Britten
XTC	Nonsvch	1992	The Smartest Monkeys	Gus Dudgeon

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COMMENTS

Ohio Jan 08, 2007 06:55 PM

Amazing article...

Thanks!

Joshua

Jan 27, 2011 11:44 AM

Hi, my compliments for this article, it really open mind.
i have a question for you; can you explain in dept the technic called "Pitched kick drum"?
for example:
what effect unit (from sequencer or 3rd part plugin) can make this?
how to choice what frequency target i have to set?

i hope it's no too late :D
thanks!

marco

USA May 02, 2011 06:23 PM

Just cruising around and found this site and set of articles - some good stuff here!!

marco - the thread is pretty old! the article is from 1993 - probably posted later AND the last comment was a thank you from 2007!!

but what you may want to consider is that your question has more than one answer depending on your process - If you are recording a real drummer then the entire kit should be tuned appropriately for the song AND room - it can be a challenge to discern the tonality of a kick, but that being said and with the knowledge that there is always a fundamental frequency - we push on-

Using samples, synthetics or combos (this might originate from software,hardware or realware) you may want to pay attention to the fundamental frequencies of your sound or layers of sound. Some software and hardware provides the ability to simply set.

A frequency analyzer may help you if the sound doesn't have strong harmonics near the fundamental.

Use a frequency to note chart or calculator- google will turn up these types of tools.

You might also use a vocode function to trigger a pitched sound with a kick envelope this could be mixed with or replace the trigger sound - a simple side chain setup can be used to trigger pitched sounds - sine waves have been quite popular for this.

If you are asking what the relative pitch should be - you will find no single "correct" answer. Key notes and the likely intervals as suspects could be tried.

Also don't forget about auto-tune - this can come in handy particularly if you want to change the sound/pitch according to song parts-

I'm pretty sure there are other ways to approach this-

audiodidactic

india Jun 26, 2011 11:50 AM

t's very Informative and helpful speacilly for the freshers, and i feel if it would have more questions added

seo

Sep 26, 2011 01:05 PM

Great Article, exactly what I was looking for.

Dane

Appendix Sidebar

Table listing examples of usage of kick drum and electric bass as described in the article

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