Adding Power to my tunes

Performance & Techniques Music Production
1

Adding Power to my tunes

I’ve been interested in producing for a while now and recently been delving into the wonders Ableton live. What I’ve noticed among many other things is that I’m having trouble with my bass and drum tracks not having enough punch or power. They seem loud enough, just not powerful enough. (I’m using Massive for most of my sounds.) what I’m looking for is to get a little more impact out of my bass and drums. I’ve experimented with a bit of EQ-ing and mixing in Massive and Ableton and it has helped a little. But the overall sound is still weak.(Especially the kick drum.) I’m essentially trying to add power without volume, to avoid clipping the master and having to turn everything else down.

Sorry If I’m not really being specific or detailed enough, Ableton is overwhelming my brain and I’m not really sure what or how to ask. I’m sure an edit will be posted soon enough..

2

Try layering kick drums, you can get a lot more weight that way a lot of time.

3

There are tons of online articles talking about this.

Anyway, my favorite bass line tricks. It’s not that the bass is usually week, look at the graph output from the master track – it’s that it’s not heard in the mix.

Solutions:
*EQ out other parts so the bass is heard

  • Bump up a higher frequency range on the bass track, let’s say 500Hz (but you need to experiment)
  • Double the bass midi track and use another bass sound that is more clear in the upper registry. Mix the two bass tracks for what balance you want.
4

cool thanks ill try some of that stuff out

5

yes what ksandvik said. Mixing down your track properly is what is going to give the sound you want. Check the “genre name ?” thread in general discussion or the “ableton audio volume” thread in this section. I posted information that’s relevant to your interest

6

compressor

try sidechain compression on your other sounds. so when the bass drum hit they jump out of the way and let it through. it might help.

7

There are a number of other things you can do besides sidechaining these days that will give you better results, I don’t understand why people always fall back on that

8

Yep, that’s good as long as you don’t go overboard with the today worn out Daft Punk sound.

The other thing is to sparingly use a multi-band compressor on the master channel to lift out the low end so it has more presence. Again, little does a lot.

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Agreed, it’s the buzz word these days, everyone thinks it’s the solution to all production problems. :slight_smile: Getting about as played out as T-Pain autotuned vocals IMO…

10

Exactly!