Kick + Bass: Nailed in 3 Steps

Introduction

Nailing the low end can feel like one of the hardest parts of a mix.

Ostensibly though, it should be one of the easiest. After all, the low end is usually comprised of just two instruments: kick and bass.

When you’re struggling to make the low-end work, often, it’s not a mixing problem. It’s a sound selection problem.

If your kick and bass sounds don’t complement each other, that’s when mixing them becomes a drama. Choose your sounds wisely, and the mix becomes light work.

Here is the three-step method I use.

Choose your kick and bass as a pair

When producers select their sounds, they often choose them one at a time, thinking of them as discrete units.

That kick sounds great.
That bass sounds great.
That snare sounds great.
That synth sounds great.

Then they put everything together and worry about mixing it later.

This is often where mix problems start.

Your kick and bass are not just two separate sounds. They are a pair. They create the foundation of the track together. So when auditioning sounds for your track, instead of asking:

“Do I like this kick?”

Or:

“Do I like this bass?”

The better question is:

“When I play this kick with this bass, does it already sound close to the low-end mix I want?”

When you take this approach, you aren’t just choosing sounds. You are designing the mix before the mix stage even begins.

A kick with a lot of sub energy might work beautifully with a bass that has more harmonic content. A bass with a huge low fundamental might need a kick that sits higher and punches in the chest rather than fighting for the same sub space.

The key is separation.

You want the kick and bass to feel like they belong together, but not like they are standing on top of each other. The kick needs to punch. The bass needs to feel rich, full, and controlled. The low end needs weight, but it also needs clarity.

If you get that relationship right at the sound-selection stage, everything else becomes easier.

Use EQ to refine, not rescue

Once you have chosen sounds that already work together, EQ becomes much simpler.

You are not trying to radically change the character of the kick or the bass. You are not trying to fix a bad pairing. You are just nudging things into place.

If sound selection has done its job, EQ should feel like refinement.

With the kick, I might use EQ to shape the tone slightly. Maybe there is too much unnecessary top end. Maybe it needs a little more weight. Maybe it needs a bit more punch in the upper bass region. Small moves can make a big difference.

With the bass, I am usually thinking less about shaping the sound and more about making room for the kick.

The kick doesn’t change pitch; the bass does (unless your bassline uses only one note). So if we’re using EQ to create separation, it makes logical sense to create space for the thing that isn’t a moving target — the kick.

I’ll often apply a single band of static or dynamic EQ to the bass to attenuate a relatively narrow frequency range where the kick needs to come through.

We’re not changing how the bass sounds or feels. We’re just making enough room for the kick to come through.

A lot of producers apply drastic EQ moves with a multitude of EQ bands because the sounds were fighting each other from the start. But when the kick and bass were chosen well, the EQ can be gentle.

Shape the kick.
Make a little space in the bass.
Small moves. That’s all it needs.

Use sidechain for separation or movement

Used in combination with judicious sound selection and gentle EQ, sidechain compression can help dial in your low end mix even further.

There are two ways to deploy it:

1. Invisible sidechain:

In this method, we use sidechain compression to momentarily move the bass out of the way when the kick hits. When the kick has finished, the bass immediately returns to its original level.

The idea is to make the compression imperceptible to the listener. To achieve that, we set up the compressor to react lightning fast. That means a fast attack and fast release. The secret sauce I use to get the compressor moving crazy fast is EQing the sidechain signal: boosting the midrange around 1kHz makes the compressor react to the transient of the kick.

The invisible sidechain method is well suited to tracks where you don’t want obvious pumping. In acoustic styles such as rock or folk, this method helps the kick to cut through without making the bass sound like it is breathing in and out.

2. Creative sidechain:

This is where sidechain compression performs double duty: functional and creative.

Functional, because — like before — we’re using sidechain compression on the bass to make space for the kick. Creative, because we’re also using it to enhance the groove of the record. In other words, it’s supposed to be audible, because we’re using it as an effect.

Using a slower compression release time, we can make the bass pump and swell in time with the tempo and rhythm of the record. How hard and fast we want it to pump is largely a matter of taste and style.

Extreme, rhythmic pumping effects are commonly deployed in electronic styles. Perhaps the most widely recognised use of this technique is within house and techno production, where the bass ducks on the beats and swells on the offbeats, as if the bass is ‘bouncing’ off the kick.

In electronic styles where the kick pattern is more cyclical or regular, using a plugin such as LFO Tool can give the same pumping effect as using a compressor, but with more granular control over the release curve. This allows us a greater degree of precision over the rhythm of the compression.

As with all mixing decisions, there are no rules to how you use sidechain compression, or alternative tools like LFO Tool. You can be as wild or as mild as you want — the key is to do it intentionally:

Create space for the kick.

Make the bass pump.

Or both.

The real work happens before the plugins

The biggest mistake is thinking mixing starts when you’ve finished the production.

It doesn’t.

As I often say: The first stage of mixing is sound selection. And it’s the most important step, because it’s the one that makes the most difference.

If the kick and bass already complement each other, mixing isn’t war because you are not trying to force incompatible sounds into the same space.

So that’s the 3-step method:

Choose the kick and bass as a pair.
Use EQ to refine the relationship.
Use sidechain to create separation, movement, or both.

The more discerning you are about the first step, the easier the next two become.

That is how you get rich bass, kicks that punch, and clean separation between the two.