May 20, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Ben & Carl get into the gritty business of making bass actually work in a mix. Not just technically — but emotionally, musically, and physically. We challenge each other’s instincts, admit when we’re wrong, and debate who should own the sub: the bass or the kick?
Spoiler: it depends — but we each have our go-to moves and a few spicy disagreements.
Discover:
Ben and Carl's Weekly Inspiration Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IpnxDVoTY44JBV1j19H4h?si=0f80e020d8ae497e
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Spoiler: it depends — but we each have our go-to moves and a few spicy disagreements.
Discover:
- Whether bass should be felt, heard… or both
- The kick vs. bass power struggle (and how we each resolve it)
- Why sub-bass and electric bass don’t always play nice
- Dynamic EQ, sidechaining, and the art of subtle carving
- What frequencies actually matter most for bass perception
- “I Used to Be Cool” — and other producer identity crises
Ben and Carl's Weekly Inspiration Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IpnxDVoTY44JBV1j19H4h?si=0f80e020d8ae497e
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If something's coming through, regardless of the frequency, it needs
to be something that's intentional and musical and not something
that was just a byproduct of the physicality of making
that sound.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh, it's a good rant.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
That was a good rant.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you, Carl.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, that's we're gonna chop that one up for the GRAM.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and you're listening to Secret Sonics,
Honest conversations chock full of tactical advice to help you
build your dream career in music and audio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Whether it's skill development, mixing, mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Let's get started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi, Ben, Hi Carl, we're back.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's good to see you. After fifty seconds, it wasn't
even fifty seconds. This was like thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was a week Ben of not seeing you. Don't
break the fourth wall. It was a whole week. It
was a whole week.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm wearing the same shirt and you hell crap, and
you're wearing the same hat, and they should they match?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
No, and they match.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We should have done a wardrobe change. We should have
pulled a Lady Gaga.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know what, I want our listeners to know how
cringe we are, and if they don't appreciate that about us,
then that's their problem.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, I feel like my children, if they heard you
say the word cringe, they would confirm that with Beard
saying cringe is indeed cringe.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Listen. I ain't going to hide my age. I'm thirty eight.
I don't even try to be cool.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You young buck.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I just hit the four to h Yeah, congratulations, thanks,
I survived. I have all my fingers and toes. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, there's this new artist I've been listening to a
lot recently. Not new, he's not new. It's called Bahamas.
It's amazing. I'm super into it. It's like I've discovered
like my favorite new musician a really long time, Like
I haven't had like a even though I'm Jewish. I
want to say this, come to Jesus moment with an
artist in a while like this, you know, this is like,
this is good stuff. Carl's face fond. This is the
(02:08):
best moment of Secret Sonics of all time.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well that was love.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I'm just taking that. I'm taken that from other podcasts,
not even from like obviously not from the church.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, we should make this episode titled Juke Comes to
Jesus and then no context or subtitle.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But he has a song called not Cool Anymore, which
I clearly am not cool anymore. I used to be cool.
That's great. Oh that's I love that. Yeah, that's great
for the listeners. Carl is holding up a flag that
says I used to be cool, and it looks like
high school or something.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's like a little pennant flag. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I got this a couple of years ago at a
this is a cool little shop downtown here, and I
just haven't found a good place to hang it yet.
But I brought it back over from the studio and
I want to hang it up somewhere.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
But any I do like that. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Anyways, you're not cool anymore. But let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yes, So, before we forgot our wardrobe change, we were
talking about bass and how, you know, our different approaches
to bass, and we've ended up kind of spending more
time just talking about production and like the internal wranglings
of how to get the bass to sound good and
feel good and work for the song, but we didn't
(03:21):
really get too much into how we approach it in
the mix and how we get the bass to you know,
feel great with the other instruments, to like really fit
in the bigger context of the song. I think I
left the last episode talking about trying to wrangle the
electric bass when it's combined with a sub bass, like
(03:42):
with the synth bass, And that's kind of like the
first you know, like the beginnings of talking about how
to get these to play well with others. But I
want to toss it to you and I want to
hear your approach to actually getting the bass to feel
good in the mix and like in the greater context
of the song. So what is your mentality towards getting
the bass to feel right for the song?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Hmm, Yeah, I don't think I overthink this at all.
I'm going to maybe give you like a really boring answer,
But it's just about balance, Like what's the level of
the bass compared to the vocal and the kick drum,
especially like kick base vocal. Getting that stuff to really
be at the right levels from one to the other.
Is really about getting the base to feel good in
(04:26):
the context of a song, and so I think we
spoke about this even on the drum episode of like
getting the bass and the drum and the kick drum
like sort of locked in with the vocal and then
you can kind of bring everything else up around it.
I think that's the most important thing for making things
feel good, specifically, like like on a frequency level, getting
the kick and base to lock in in a nice
way that they're overlapping but they give each other space
(04:48):
is obviously really important. And it's like, I know, it's
like you know, duh, everyone does that, and so you know,
whether you're side chaining or equing. I usually just do EQ,
but sometimes I'll do like dynamic EQ, and I'll side
chain the dynamic EQ to the kick, so I'll like,
like I don't know, one hundred hertz and down on
the base they'll be like a shelf and it'll get
(05:09):
like side chained by the kick drum to give the
kick a little bit more space. That's something that i'll
do sometimes. Generally speaking, though, I usually like to have
my kicks more subby and my base more basy. And
there's a good reason for that, and I think it
has to do with what you were when you were
talking about the eight to eights or those sub basses,
getting them to really match. I feel like having a
consistent kick drum that hits that sub frequency just right
(05:33):
every single time is like an easier way to get
it done than to have the base take care of that.
And it's actually easier for the base to live in
the range where you're actually playing, because like the E
string on a base is an is eighty hertz, so
eighty hertz is not really sub department. I mean, it's
like getting it's approaching sub department, but it's not so
like getting the base to be where it is really
(05:54):
seems to work a little bit better for me, like
getting eighty one hundred hertz in the base sort of
locked in, whereas in the kick drum it might it
might occupy closer to sixty or forty hurts, giving it
more of that fundamental sub. So generally that's kind of
the breakdown I usually do. I'm not against giving the
bass the sub, but generally it works easier for the
bass to have because I'm using like electric bass and
(06:15):
not like sub bass.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I'm gonna fight youre real quick, you can fight me.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That doesn't seem right to me, Like eighty seems really
high to me, and I googled it real quick and
it's forty one point two.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So on an electric bass is google shore about this
because four forty okay, what is the fundamental of a
bass guitar? E really says forty one hurts? No shit, okay,
I take everything back.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Oh wait, actually you know what here? It is?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, So supposedly when you play the low e, the
pitch you actually hear is eighty two, which is an octave.
It's a first harmonic. Oh so like you perceive the
eighty two, but you feel the forty one.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So I don't know if you want to go back
and like tweak what we were saying.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
No, let's leave the as it is. I'm learning and
people should know that we're humans and we earn. But
that's cool.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, well especially I'll be the first person to tell
you I'm not like a numbers guy for recording. Like,
I'm so bad at remembering like a lot of these specifics.
I remember eight four forty obviously, and I'm like, oh,
crazy person for tempo like bpms. But when it comes
to this, I was like, I just it sounded. It
didn't sound work, so I felt like, like Lobe's when
base can get so much more full. So I guess
(07:27):
it does make sense that the first harmonic is in, like,
you know, in the the eighty estrange eighty two. I
think it was something like that. So anyway, sorry that
was her little sidebar, but it could.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, it could be. I'm gonna keep looking into this.
I was pretty sure it was eighty, but I mean,
eighty is what I hear so exactly. Yeah, so maybe
someone in the audience can help us out here. But yeah,
but generally speaking, the base feels really good in the
eighty hurts two one hundred and twenty hertz range, and
the kick drum can feel good with like the you know,
(07:57):
lower sub area unless of that kind of punchy one
hundred area. And that's sort of the usual breakdown of
the bass and the kick for me. But it doesn't
always happen that way. It's just something that tends to work.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, And I end up typically doing kind of the
opposite well, because I'm when it's synth bass, especially like
the bottom end is way low and like really consistent,
you know, way lower. And for my kicks again, I'm
using ninety nine percent of the time. They're electronic kicks,
so like they're samples, right, so way more consistent, way
(08:29):
more predictable as far as like the any kind of
dynamic variation and things. So I tend to do like
a high pass at like six dB proactive from like
thirty two or thirty three hurts. And this is actually
per the suggestion of friend of the show Nick de Lorenzo,
(08:51):
cause I think I might have mentioned this before where
it was something where I was getting feedback from him,
like for a bunch of mixes in a row that
I was having like too much like super low sub
and the kick, and I started doing this on my
kick bus is that it's just like ninety nine times
out of one hundred, like it makes the kick better,
and it makes the kick a little bit more controlled
(09:11):
and allows it to have just like the punch that
I want, but then getting out of the way for
the big bottom of the of the sin so I
can side chain it and I'm not worried about the
frequencies clashing. It's more of like a volume envelope sort
of side chain, so that way when the kick's hitting
the bass is like just moving a bit out of
the way for that little moment in time, but that otherwise,
(09:35):
like the bass is giving that big, full consistency, and
it's it's not that it's right or wrong. I think
it's just kind of coincidentally for a lot of the
styles of music that I'm working on, when it's more of.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Like that vibe.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And I think also, you know, from an emotional standpoint
and from like a arrangement dynamic standpoint, I think that
works because a lot of times if I do have
electric bass and synth bass, usually the tones tend to
change from versus the chorus. So maybe the verse doesn't
have the synth base in it, or maybe it has
like just a respace or something, and like the actual
(10:10):
like big subs don't get into the chorus. So doing
it that way, where I have the bass really filling
up like the bottom extreams of the mix, the kick
can be going the whole time, but then it feels
like when the chorus comes in, like it feels like
the frequency range like expands or so then it feels
like it gets bigger, as opposed to having the kick
(10:33):
being like carrying that really extreme bottom weight and having
that go through the song. Then the bass doesn't really
like elevate the chorus as much. So even in that case,
I would probably end up doing some sort of you know,
high pass on the kick for the verses, so that way,
the bottom end of the kick gets a little bit
(10:53):
more bigger earth in the choruses. But I think that's
kind of like maybe I'm having the really right now
of why I tend to have the base carry the
very bottom extreme, and I think it's because it gives
me a more impactful dynamic range for the bottom end
from you know, section a section of the song.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, that's really cool. That's not something I do. Yeah,
and that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's a totally different style.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, I don't work on songs that usually need that.
Although like I'll like enhance a kick drum when we
get to a chorus, and it could even just be
for the first kick drum, right, Like I'll add an
extra sub boom to that first kick at the chorus.
So it's just like you feel like, oh, now we're
in a big section. But then the bass and the
kick might go back to what they're usually doing, or
I may just raise the level of the kick drum
(11:40):
and the bass there, you know, so there's always the
volume knob that's also very effective. But that's really cool.
I want to experiment with that also, so thanks for sharing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
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(12:09):
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Speaker 3 (12:32):
Try it out for free the links in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Also another big thing that I've been doing that's been
really really helpful, especially when I'm managing multiple layers of base,
and especially if it changes from section to section. The
low end focus module or the standalone plug in whatever
in ozone eleven is so so good at it's almost
like a volume rider for specific frequencies. So having that
(12:59):
on my bus that all of the bases that I'm
going to helps me to kind of keep it either
keep it more consistent if I want to, or maybe
make it even more drastic if I want to make
it more drastic, which is nice, but it's a way
for me to control that in a way that most
regular compressors just don't quite do, especially if I want
(13:19):
to keep the low end controlled without a big bottom
coming in, and then that's compressing the entire frequency range,
and then all of the cool texture that I was
creating in the electric base, like the chorus and the
distortion whatever it is, instead of that getting brought down
because of the compressor, it's allowing that to stay untouched
and really just focusing on getting the bottom end to
(13:41):
not go crazy on my tape sim On on the
mixed bus or like the compressors or the limit or
at the end, you're.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Kind of using it like a like a multiband compressor almost.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, yeah, and just with a little bit more specialty
to that. I found it just works way better than
anything else I've used so far.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, I find like I don't the multi bands don't
usually work for me, But I think it's also because
I'm usually working on real bass that I've played myself
and I've played consistently, and so for me, it's not
the right fit, but it could be in the right
context of the right production.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I don't think we've like explicitly said it, but I
hope that our listeners are smart enough to know that
none of these things are hard and fast rules, Like
these are just yeah, they're all contexts dependent, but they're
like based on the kind of stuff that we're working on,
and like, I think we're doing a pretty good job
of trying to like give.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
That context totally.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
You know, the things that work for me are probably
not going to work for Ben, and things that work
for Ben are probably.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Not going to work for me.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And anybody telling you that there's one way to do
it or one way to not do it is you know,
full of shit or absolutely that doesn't listen to enough
music to know that there's a lot of different ways
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It, but also I want to just like highlight the
thing about like the high passing things is I think
I think that's like really underrated for low you know,
instruments that are in sub harmonic territory, because you probably
can't even hear it, so you're more likely than not
making a mess down there, especially if you can hear.
If it's like I don't hear much but below forty
in my room, it's a good thing that's going to
(15:12):
a mastering engineer to kind of make sure. But filtering
out the bottom of those kicks is probably a good idea.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I think that the two places that could be really
helpful would be like for the stuff that I'm doing,
where it's usually sample based, pretty much every sample or
not every sample, but like most samples you get on
splice or anywhere, like any sort of plis like that.
They're so overhyped. There's a huge frequency range, there's like
really big transy and a lot of bottom. Like there's
(15:41):
usually too much of something too. There's usually too much
of like a couple of different things. So sometimes we
need that really huge bottom it, but usually we don't,
you know, And it's going to be different than when
you're recording real kick. But usually in real kick, you're
you know, trying to like emphasize the base frequencies, like
the sub frequencies you're trying to emphasize that make that
(16:02):
feel bigger, because a lot of times, like the actual
mic doesn't really sound like that when you just hit
play untouched, but when you're adding that, you're doing the compression,
and you're also not just getting the sound from the
you know, the kick itself, but you're also getting like
the physical vibrations from the kick pet like your foot
(16:24):
hitting the kick pedal, the kick pedal hitting the head,
Like there are these other really low frequencies that are
coming through that are not necessarily musical, just like with
high hats. Like that's why there's usually a weirdly huge
amount of subfrequencies in a high hat track, not because
the high hats have you know a bunch of low
(16:45):
end when you hit them themselves, but it's because the
physical vibration of the stick hitting the high hat, moving
the entire high hat stand, rumbling through the floor, going
over to the mic stand. So it's like you have
these they're not musical rumbles, but they're like, they are
still physical manifestations of the action that you took that
(17:07):
we need to try to take out, because it's not
just removing rumble to remove rumble, it's not just doing
a high pass because you're supposed to do a high pass.
It's just trying to listen through and make sure that
if something's coming through, regardless of the frequency, it needs
to be something that's intentional and musical and not something
that was just a byproduct of the physicality of making
that sound. That was a good rant. Yeah, that's we're
(17:31):
gonna chop that one up for the gram.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Hell yeah sweet. So what else do you do to
kind of get the base feeling nice in the context
of like take either a drum kit or the mix
or or something.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, usually, I mean side chaining almost always helps. I
tend to also side chain not just to the kick,
but also to the snare because well, I'll say this,
if it's like a four on the floor kind of
like dance sea track, I usually don't need to side
chain it to the snare because the snare is hitting
when the kick's hitting, so there's usually not a lot
of wind in the snare because we don't need a
(18:01):
lot of low win in the snare when it's happening
in unison with the kick. And also like the snare
wouldn't be triggering any new rhythms, it would just be
doubling up with the kickside chain's doing, so that's not necessary.
But in stuff where it's more like rock based, you know,
almost like like rock rhythms versus dance rhythms, think of
it that way. A lot of times, Like the snares
(18:22):
have a lot of bottom for the stuff that I
work on, so I also want to make sure that
I'm not neutering the snare sound just so that it
doesn't fight the base. I would rather get the base
out of the way for that little moment, let the
snare have its you know, a couple milliseconds of bottom end,
(18:43):
rather than you know, throwing the baby at with the bathwater,
and yeah, getting rid of the bottom end of the
snare just so so the bass can cut through better,
like for that one little tiny anibitty moment.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
When you're side chaining, are usually just side channing the
whole volume or are you like focusing on the base frequencies.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Typically the whole thing, but it's usually very quick. I
usually use either like a kickstart or something like that,
where it's like a volume envelop and it's a lot
more controlled and more controllable as opposed to like a
traditional like compression side chain, so it's more like triggered
versus the release time of the kick affects like the
(19:22):
decay of the kick affects how slow the releases of
the side chain, So it usually ends up being just
very fast so I can use it. It can go
pretty deep and you don't even notice it, you know,
that's really the goal. Like with the side chain stuff,
like there's like there's two ways you can use it,
you know, especially when you're dealing with with the bass.
(19:44):
You can do it in a way that is creative
where you're going with like the you know, the classic
like daft punk, getting everything to completely duck out and
that pumping is part of the creative experience of the song.
Or you can use it which is more how I
tend to use in the mixing context, where it's more
like a utility, where it's just like when you're using
(20:04):
the side chain multi band, you know, or you do
something like that where you're just trying to you're trying
to be transparent with it. You're just making sure that
you're not overloading or overloading things, you know, like making Yeah,
like so if you're doing it well, you don't even
notice that it's there until you bypass it, and then
everything starts to like get too crunchy and bloated and
(20:25):
far mushy.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, you lose your focus. Yeah, I dig it, I
dig it. Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely genres of music
that are created around side chating. I'm thinking like future
bass and stuff. So yeah, awesome. Anything else that we
should share before we wrap this episode? I know you've
got to go soon.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, So I know these are both short episodes, but
I'm glad that we got deep into them.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I think it was it was very rapid.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
These are two rapid episodes because we we ran out
of episodes.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
But the time it's a it's a it's a crazy
time in the season, the season of life, and we
would rather.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I'll take the blame here because of like various random
Jewish holidays. But I do want to say, like before
we wrap this, just like ah, I forgot to talk
about like in the mixing, maybe we spoke about this
a little bit in the drum episode of just like
saturation and combining things together and like stuff like the
black box and tape emulations and that kind of stuff
that kind of really often glues the drums with the
(21:21):
bass really nicely together and gives the base that extra
depth and makes it feel cohesive in the track. So
I just I just want to put that out there. Also,
that's also a big part of what I'm doing, and
that also helps kind of make it all gel and
feel good together. So that's just a quick little rant.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Now, that's great.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I've actually had a harder time getting black Box to
work on my overall base. I have subbuses for my
electric base tracks and my like synth based tracks, and
then they both go to like kind of like a
master base bus, and then that goes off.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
To my mixed bus.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So I've had better luck with black Box, for example,
putting it on just the electric base bus or just
like the synth based bus, because what I've found is
that like when I put it on like all the
bases as a whole in the way that I would
with the isotope low end focus, where I'm intentionally putting
it there to try to help everything kind of stay
more consistent when I use black box or any kind
(22:19):
of saturation like that, I've just found it impossible for
me to take steps forward without also taking steps backward.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah no, no, I get that again. And I'm not
much less frequently using synth based and real base together,
so I'm just putting it on the base.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, and that's what what I'm going to say, is
like me putting it on like my electric base bus
to sound amazing. Me putting it on this like the
synth based bus can sound amazing. But I've found that
I need to like kind of compartmentalize it or get
more granular with it than I normally would do. I
love doing as late in the mixed chain as I
possibly can.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
That's where I want to do my decisions.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I want to try to only make things as you know, surgical,
as I am required to because of the nature of
what I'm trying to fix. Like if I can make
a big picture, I want to make a big picture,
and this is just one thing, like the saturation and
like the any kind of like tube stuff that has
the potential of getting fardy and mushy in the bottom end,
Like I just I need to have more specific control
(23:20):
because of for sure, what's coming out of the synth
based bus is just fundamentally so different than what's coming out.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Of the electric because when you're combining stuff, these plugins react
to like the culmination of all those things, and then
you might have to strip things back earlier in the
chain if you're not careful. So you really got to
you really do need to be careful. Yeah, I feel
like we can even go deeper on this, but we're
out of time. Can I do like when Pensado's place
question for you, like batter's box, Yes, okay, electric base,
(23:47):
go to compressor, go.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I would either say the brain works, townhouse compressor, even
tied omnipressor, or usually I hope this is not a
cop Audi answer, I'd probably go for an AMP SIM
before I went for a compressor. I'd probably like, you
get an AMP SIM to do it's it's thing, because
even I'm thinking about it now and like even then,
I usually use a townhouse or an omnipressor after an AMP.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
SIM, and that's usually the Cory wang Ansen.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Usually you know cool, I guess I mean for some stuff,
I'll use the I have the Knalli Sam as well
from their ODSP So it depends on like what's the
what's the style, Like am I going for real fucking
high gain or am I going for something that's meant
to be just more of a transparency. Because I really
do like the compression, like just the not necessarily even
(24:34):
like the compressor pedal part of the Corey Wong amp
sim But I think just going through an amp compresses
the base in a way that ends up feeling more natural.
So what if the sound natural, That's what I'm gonna do. Otherwise,
if I'm trying to like really intentionally fuck it up,
then I'm gonna go ham and intentionally fuck it up.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Cool. I like it, Okay, real quick, right back at you.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'm really into the In the virtual mixed rack from Slate,
it's the Blue Optical compressor. It's not an l A
two A. It's like maybe it's like a cl One
B or something. It's like their Deluxe Optical compressor, and
it's really really good. I use that also on vocals
a lot have like different there's like a warm and
a punchy and like a different versions of it. But
I use like the straight up like the natural one
on a base and it just like clues it and
(25:16):
slams it and it keeps the punch. So I really
like that one. That's like my go to these days
usually awes Yeah, not always, but usually.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Ben, you're the man.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Thank you for sharing your wonderful knowledge and experience and insight.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
And I am just likewise Carl.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
This is fun.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, I think we're gonna just keep going into these
nerdy episodes. We'll have a season of nerdiness for the
for the listeners. I think they might like it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, this has been weirdly fun. I usually don't get
nerdy about stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's why I'm here. I'm here to help you get nerdy.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, it's like tickling. It's like tickling a new part
of my brain I don't usually talk about.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Ben, You're awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You're awesome, Carl, No, I.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Said you're awesome. Thanks e all right, bye Ben, Bye, Carl.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.
If anything here resonated with you, please share this or
your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
At Ben Wallace Music and at.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Carl Bonner until next time.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Bye Ben, Bye Carl. That was good.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
I think the outro is great.
If something's coming through, regardless of the frequency, it needs
to be something that's intentional and musical and not something
that was just a byproduct of the physicality of making
that sound.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh, it's a good rant.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
That was a good rant.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you, Carl.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, that's we're gonna chop that one up for the GRAM.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and you're listening to Secret Sonics,
Honest conversations chock full of tactical advice to help you
build your dream career in music and audio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Whether it's skill development, mixing, mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Let's get started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi, Ben, Hi Carl, we're back.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's good to see you. After fifty seconds, it wasn't
even fifty seconds. This was like thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was a week Ben of not seeing you. Don't
break the fourth wall. It was a whole week. It
was a whole week.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm wearing the same shirt and you hell crap, and
you're wearing the same hat, and they should they match?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
No, and they match.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
We should have done a wardrobe change. We should have
pulled a Lady Gaga.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know what, I want our listeners to know how
cringe we are, and if they don't appreciate that about us,
then that's their problem.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, I feel like my children, if they heard you
say the word cringe, they would confirm that with Beard
saying cringe is indeed cringe.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Listen. I ain't going to hide my age. I'm thirty eight.
I don't even try to be cool.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
You young buck.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I just hit the four to h Yeah, congratulations, thanks,
I survived. I have all my fingers and toes. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, there's this new artist I've been listening to a
lot recently. Not new, he's not new. It's called Bahamas.
It's amazing. I'm super into it. It's like I've discovered
like my favorite new musician a really long time, Like
I haven't had like a even though I'm Jewish. I
want to say this, come to Jesus moment with an
artist in a while like this, you know, this is like,
this is good stuff. Carl's face fond. This is the
(02:08):
best moment of Secret Sonics of all time.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well that was love.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I'm just taking that. I'm taken that from other podcasts,
not even from like obviously not from the church.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, we should make this episode titled Juke Comes to
Jesus and then no context or subtitle.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But he has a song called not Cool Anymore, which
I clearly am not cool anymore. I used to be cool.
That's great. Oh that's I love that. Yeah, that's great
for the listeners. Carl is holding up a flag that
says I used to be cool, and it looks like
high school or something.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's like a little pennant flag. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I got this a couple of years ago at a
this is a cool little shop downtown here, and I
just haven't found a good place to hang it yet.
But I brought it back over from the studio and
I want to hang it up somewhere.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
But any I do like that. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Anyways, you're not cool anymore. But let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yes, So, before we forgot our wardrobe change, we were
talking about bass and how, you know, our different approaches
to bass, and we've ended up kind of spending more
time just talking about production and like the internal wranglings
of how to get the bass to sound good and
feel good and work for the song, but we didn't
(03:21):
really get too much into how we approach it in
the mix and how we get the bass to you know,
feel great with the other instruments, to like really fit
in the bigger context of the song. I think I
left the last episode talking about trying to wrangle the
electric bass when it's combined with a sub bass, like
(03:42):
with the synth bass, And that's kind of like the
first you know, like the beginnings of talking about how
to get these to play well with others. But I
want to toss it to you and I want to
hear your approach to actually getting the bass to feel
good in the mix and like in the greater context
of the song. So what is your mentality towards getting
the bass to feel right for the song?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Hmm, Yeah, I don't think I overthink this at all.
I'm going to maybe give you like a really boring answer,
But it's just about balance, Like what's the level of
the bass compared to the vocal and the kick drum,
especially like kick base vocal. Getting that stuff to really
be at the right levels from one to the other.
Is really about getting the base to feel good in
(04:26):
the context of a song, and so I think we
spoke about this even on the drum episode of like
getting the bass and the drum and the kick drum
like sort of locked in with the vocal and then
you can kind of bring everything else up around it.
I think that's the most important thing for making things
feel good, specifically, like like on a frequency level, getting
the kick and base to lock in in a nice
way that they're overlapping but they give each other space
(04:48):
is obviously really important. And it's like, I know, it's
like you know, duh, everyone does that, and so you know,
whether you're side chaining or equing. I usually just do EQ,
but sometimes I'll do like dynamic EQ, and I'll side
chain the dynamic EQ to the kick, so I'll like,
like I don't know, one hundred hertz and down on
the base they'll be like a shelf and it'll get
(05:09):
like side chained by the kick drum to give the
kick a little bit more space. That's something that i'll
do sometimes. Generally speaking, though, I usually like to have
my kicks more subby and my base more basy. And
there's a good reason for that, and I think it
has to do with what you were when you were
talking about the eight to eights or those sub basses,
getting them to really match. I feel like having a
consistent kick drum that hits that sub frequency just right
(05:33):
every single time is like an easier way to get
it done than to have the base take care of that.
And it's actually easier for the base to live in
the range where you're actually playing, because like the E
string on a base is an is eighty hertz, so
eighty hertz is not really sub department. I mean, it's
like getting it's approaching sub department, but it's not so
like getting the base to be where it is really
(05:54):
seems to work a little bit better for me, like
getting eighty one hundred hertz in the base sort of
locked in, whereas in the kick drum it might it
might occupy closer to sixty or forty hurts, giving it
more of that fundamental sub. So generally that's kind of
the breakdown I usually do. I'm not against giving the
bass the sub, but generally it works easier for the
bass to have because I'm using like electric bass and
(06:15):
not like sub bass.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I'm gonna fight youre real quick, you can fight me.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That doesn't seem right to me, Like eighty seems really
high to me, and I googled it real quick and
it's forty one point two.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So on an electric bass is google shore about this
because four forty okay, what is the fundamental of a
bass guitar? E really says forty one hurts? No shit, okay,
I take everything back.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Oh wait, actually you know what here? It is?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, So supposedly when you play the low e, the
pitch you actually hear is eighty two, which is an octave.
It's a first harmonic. Oh so like you perceive the
eighty two, but you feel the forty one.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So I don't know if you want to go back
and like tweak what we were saying.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
No, let's leave the as it is. I'm learning and
people should know that we're humans and we earn. But
that's cool.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, well especially I'll be the first person to tell
you I'm not like a numbers guy for recording. Like,
I'm so bad at remembering like a lot of these specifics.
I remember eight four forty obviously, and I'm like, oh,
crazy person for tempo like bpms. But when it comes
to this, I was like, I just it sounded. It
didn't sound work, so I felt like, like Lobe's when
base can get so much more full. So I guess
(07:27):
it does make sense that the first harmonic is in, like,
you know, in the the eighty estrange eighty two. I
think it was something like that. So anyway, sorry that
was her little sidebar, but it could.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, it could be. I'm gonna keep looking into this.
I was pretty sure it was eighty, but I mean,
eighty is what I hear so exactly. Yeah, so maybe
someone in the audience can help us out here. But yeah,
but generally speaking, the base feels really good in the
eighty hurts two one hundred and twenty hertz range, and
the kick drum can feel good with like the you know,
(07:57):
lower sub area unless of that kind of punchy one
hundred area. And that's sort of the usual breakdown of
the bass and the kick for me. But it doesn't
always happen that way. It's just something that tends to work.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, And I end up typically doing kind of the
opposite well, because I'm when it's synth bass, especially like
the bottom end is way low and like really consistent,
you know, way lower. And for my kicks again, I'm
using ninety nine percent of the time. They're electronic kicks,
so like they're samples, right, so way more consistent, way
(08:29):
more predictable as far as like the any kind of
dynamic variation and things. So I tend to do like
a high pass at like six dB proactive from like
thirty two or thirty three hurts. And this is actually
per the suggestion of friend of the show Nick de Lorenzo,
(08:51):
cause I think I might have mentioned this before where
it was something where I was getting feedback from him,
like for a bunch of mixes in a row that
I was having like too much like super low sub
and the kick, and I started doing this on my
kick bus is that it's just like ninety nine times
out of one hundred, like it makes the kick better,
and it makes the kick a little bit more controlled
(09:11):
and allows it to have just like the punch that
I want, but then getting out of the way for
the big bottom of the of the sin so I
can side chain it and I'm not worried about the
frequencies clashing. It's more of like a volume envelope sort
of side chain, so that way when the kick's hitting
the bass is like just moving a bit out of
the way for that little moment in time, but that otherwise,
(09:35):
like the bass is giving that big, full consistency, and
it's it's not that it's right or wrong. I think
it's just kind of coincidentally for a lot of the
styles of music that I'm working on, when it's more of.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Like that vibe.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And I think also, you know, from an emotional standpoint
and from like a arrangement dynamic standpoint, I think that
works because a lot of times if I do have
electric bass and synth bass, usually the tones tend to
change from versus the chorus. So maybe the verse doesn't
have the synth base in it, or maybe it has
like just a respace or something, and like the actual
(10:10):
like big subs don't get into the chorus. So doing
it that way, where I have the bass really filling
up like the bottom extreams of the mix, the kick
can be going the whole time, but then it feels
like when the chorus comes in, like it feels like
the frequency range like expands or so then it feels
like it gets bigger, as opposed to having the kick
(10:33):
being like carrying that really extreme bottom weight and having
that go through the song. Then the bass doesn't really
like elevate the chorus as much. So even in that case,
I would probably end up doing some sort of you know,
high pass on the kick for the verses, so that way,
the bottom end of the kick gets a little bit
(10:53):
more bigger earth in the choruses. But I think that's
kind of like maybe I'm having the really right now
of why I tend to have the base carry the
very bottom extreme, and I think it's because it gives
me a more impactful dynamic range for the bottom end
from you know, section a section of the song.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, that's really cool. That's not something I do. Yeah,
and that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's a totally different style.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, I don't work on songs that usually need that.
Although like I'll like enhance a kick drum when we
get to a chorus, and it could even just be
for the first kick drum, right, Like I'll add an
extra sub boom to that first kick at the chorus.
So it's just like you feel like, oh, now we're
in a big section. But then the bass and the
kick might go back to what they're usually doing, or
I may just raise the level of the kick drum
(11:40):
and the bass there, you know, so there's always the
volume knob that's also very effective. But that's really cool.
I want to experiment with that also, so thanks for sharing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
One of the things I've noticed over the past twenty
years being in the industry is that audio school usually
leaves most graduates completely unprepared for entering the industry. I mean, sure,
you learn how to rewire a patch, bait or sleep,
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and attract the kinds of artists that fuel your passion
for recording, appreciate what you bring to the table, let
alone pay their rates you want to get paid, and
(12:09):
YouTube university is full of people telling you that their
way is the right way, and it doesn't help you
apply things to your unique struggles, personality and ideal clients.
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Speaker 3 (12:32):
Try it out for free the links in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Also another big thing that I've been doing that's been
really really helpful, especially when I'm managing multiple layers of base,
and especially if it changes from section to section. The
low end focus module or the standalone plug in whatever
in ozone eleven is so so good at it's almost
like a volume rider for specific frequencies. So having that
(12:59):
on my bus that all of the bases that I'm
going to helps me to kind of keep it either
keep it more consistent if I want to, or maybe
make it even more drastic if I want to make
it more drastic, which is nice, but it's a way
for me to control that in a way that most
regular compressors just don't quite do, especially if I want
(13:19):
to keep the low end controlled without a big bottom
coming in, and then that's compressing the entire frequency range,
and then all of the cool texture that I was
creating in the electric base, like the chorus and the
distortion whatever it is, instead of that getting brought down
because of the compressor, it's allowing that to stay untouched
and really just focusing on getting the bottom end to
(13:41):
not go crazy on my tape sim On on the
mixed bus or like the compressors or the limit or
at the end, you're.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Kind of using it like a like a multiband compressor almost.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, yeah, and just with a little bit more specialty
to that. I found it just works way better than
anything else I've used so far.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, I find like I don't the multi bands don't
usually work for me, But I think it's also because
I'm usually working on real bass that I've played myself
and I've played consistently, and so for me, it's not
the right fit, but it could be in the right
context of the right production.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I don't think we've like explicitly said it, but I
hope that our listeners are smart enough to know that
none of these things are hard and fast rules, Like
these are just yeah, they're all contexts dependent, but they're
like based on the kind of stuff that we're working on,
and like, I think we're doing a pretty good job
of trying to like give.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
That context totally.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
You know, the things that work for me are probably
not going to work for Ben, and things that work
for Ben are probably.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Not going to work for me.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And anybody telling you that there's one way to do
it or one way to not do it is you know,
full of shit or absolutely that doesn't listen to enough
music to know that there's a lot of different ways
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It, but also I want to just like highlight the
thing about like the high passing things is I think
I think that's like really underrated for low you know,
instruments that are in sub harmonic territory, because you probably
can't even hear it, so you're more likely than not
making a mess down there, especially if you can hear.
If it's like I don't hear much but below forty
in my room, it's a good thing that's going to
(15:12):
a mastering engineer to kind of make sure. But filtering
out the bottom of those kicks is probably a good idea.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I think that the two places that could be really
helpful would be like for the stuff that I'm doing,
where it's usually sample based, pretty much every sample or
not every sample, but like most samples you get on
splice or anywhere, like any sort of plis like that.
They're so overhyped. There's a huge frequency range, there's like
really big transy and a lot of bottom. Like there's
(15:41):
usually too much of something too. There's usually too much
of like a couple of different things. So sometimes we
need that really huge bottom it, but usually we don't,
you know, And it's going to be different than when
you're recording real kick. But usually in real kick, you're
you know, trying to like emphasize the base frequencies, like
the sub frequencies you're trying to emphasize that make that
(16:02):
feel bigger, because a lot of times, like the actual
mic doesn't really sound like that when you just hit
play untouched, but when you're adding that, you're doing the compression,
and you're also not just getting the sound from the
you know, the kick itself, but you're also getting like
the physical vibrations from the kick pet like your foot
(16:24):
hitting the kick pedal, the kick pedal hitting the head,
Like there are these other really low frequencies that are
coming through that are not necessarily musical, just like with
high hats. Like that's why there's usually a weirdly huge
amount of subfrequencies in a high hat track, not because
the high hats have you know a bunch of low
(16:45):
end when you hit them themselves, but it's because the
physical vibration of the stick hitting the high hat, moving
the entire high hat stand, rumbling through the floor, going
over to the mic stand. So it's like you have
these they're not musical rumbles, but they're like, they are
still physical manifestations of the action that you took that
(17:07):
we need to try to take out, because it's not
just removing rumble to remove rumble, it's not just doing
a high pass because you're supposed to do a high pass.
It's just trying to listen through and make sure that
if something's coming through, regardless of the frequency, it needs
to be something that's intentional and musical and not something
that was just a byproduct of the physicality of making
that sound. That was a good rant. Yeah, that's we're
(17:31):
gonna chop that one up for the gram.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Hell yeah sweet. So what else do you do to
kind of get the base feeling nice in the context
of like take either a drum kit or the mix
or or something.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, usually, I mean side chaining almost always helps. I
tend to also side chain not just to the kick,
but also to the snare because well, I'll say this,
if it's like a four on the floor kind of
like dance sea track, I usually don't need to side
chain it to the snare because the snare is hitting
when the kick's hitting, so there's usually not a lot
of wind in the snare because we don't need a
(18:01):
lot of low win in the snare when it's happening
in unison with the kick. And also like the snare
wouldn't be triggering any new rhythms, it would just be
doubling up with the kickside chain's doing, so that's not necessary.
But in stuff where it's more like rock based, you know,
almost like like rock rhythms versus dance rhythms, think of
it that way. A lot of times, Like the snares
(18:22):
have a lot of bottom for the stuff that I
work on, so I also want to make sure that
I'm not neutering the snare sound just so that it
doesn't fight the base. I would rather get the base
out of the way for that little moment, let the
snare have its you know, a couple milliseconds of bottom end,
(18:43):
rather than you know, throwing the baby at with the bathwater,
and yeah, getting rid of the bottom end of the
snare just so so the bass can cut through better,
like for that one little tiny anibitty moment.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
When you're side chaining, are usually just side channing the
whole volume or are you like focusing on the base frequencies.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Typically the whole thing, but it's usually very quick. I
usually use either like a kickstart or something like that,
where it's like a volume envelop and it's a lot
more controlled and more controllable as opposed to like a
traditional like compression side chain, so it's more like triggered
versus the release time of the kick affects like the
(19:22):
decay of the kick affects how slow the releases of
the side chain, So it usually ends up being just
very fast so I can use it. It can go
pretty deep and you don't even notice it, you know,
that's really the goal. Like with the side chain stuff,
like there's like there's two ways you can use it,
you know, especially when you're dealing with with the bass.
(19:44):
You can do it in a way that is creative
where you're going with like the you know, the classic
like daft punk, getting everything to completely duck out and
that pumping is part of the creative experience of the song.
Or you can use it which is more how I
tend to use in the mixing context, where it's more
like a utility, where it's just like when you're using
(20:04):
the side chain multi band, you know, or you do
something like that where you're just trying to you're trying
to be transparent with it. You're just making sure that
you're not overloading or overloading things, you know, like making Yeah,
like so if you're doing it well, you don't even
notice that it's there until you bypass it, and then
everything starts to like get too crunchy and bloated and
(20:25):
far mushy.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, you lose your focus. Yeah, I dig it, I
dig it. Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely genres of music
that are created around side chating. I'm thinking like future
bass and stuff. So yeah, awesome. Anything else that we
should share before we wrap this episode? I know you've
got to go soon.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, So I know these are both short episodes, but
I'm glad that we got deep into them.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I think it was it was very rapid.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
These are two rapid episodes because we we ran out
of episodes.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
But the time it's a it's a it's a crazy
time in the season, the season of life, and we
would rather.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I'll take the blame here because of like various random
Jewish holidays. But I do want to say, like before
we wrap this, just like ah, I forgot to talk
about like in the mixing, maybe we spoke about this
a little bit in the drum episode of just like
saturation and combining things together and like stuff like the
black box and tape emulations and that kind of stuff
that kind of really often glues the drums with the
(21:21):
bass really nicely together and gives the base that extra
depth and makes it feel cohesive in the track. So
I just I just want to put that out there. Also,
that's also a big part of what I'm doing, and
that also helps kind of make it all gel and
feel good together. So that's just a quick little rant.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Now, that's great.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I've actually had a harder time getting black Box to
work on my overall base. I have subbuses for my
electric base tracks and my like synth based tracks, and
then they both go to like kind of like a
master base bus, and then that goes off.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
To my mixed bus.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So I've had better luck with black Box, for example,
putting it on just the electric base bus or just
like the synth based bus, because what I've found is
that like when I put it on like all the
bases as a whole in the way that I would
with the isotope low end focus, where I'm intentionally putting
it there to try to help everything kind of stay
more consistent when I use black box or any kind
(22:19):
of saturation like that, I've just found it impossible for
me to take steps forward without also taking steps backward.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah no, no, I get that again. And I'm not
much less frequently using synth based and real base together,
so I'm just putting it on the base.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, and that's what what I'm going to say, is
like me putting it on like my electric base bus
to sound amazing. Me putting it on this like the
synth based bus can sound amazing. But I've found that
I need to like kind of compartmentalize it or get
more granular with it than I normally would do. I
love doing as late in the mixed chain as I
possibly can.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
That's where I want to do my decisions.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I want to try to only make things as you know, surgical,
as I am required to because of the nature of
what I'm trying to fix. Like if I can make
a big picture, I want to make a big picture,
and this is just one thing, like the saturation and
like the any kind of like tube stuff that has
the potential of getting fardy and mushy in the bottom end,
Like I just I need to have more specific control
(23:20):
because of for sure, what's coming out of the synth
based bus is just fundamentally so different than what's coming out.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Of the electric because when you're combining stuff, these plugins react
to like the culmination of all those things, and then
you might have to strip things back earlier in the
chain if you're not careful. So you really got to
you really do need to be careful. Yeah, I feel
like we can even go deeper on this, but we're
out of time. Can I do like when Pensado's place
question for you, like batter's box, Yes, okay, electric base,
(23:47):
go to compressor, go.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I would either say the brain works, townhouse compressor, even
tied omnipressor, or usually I hope this is not a
cop Audi answer, I'd probably go for an AMP SIM
before I went for a compressor. I'd probably like, you
get an AMP SIM to do it's it's thing, because
even I'm thinking about it now and like even then,
I usually use a townhouse or an omnipressor after an AMP.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
SIM, and that's usually the Cory wang Ansen.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Usually you know cool, I guess I mean for some stuff,
I'll use the I have the Knalli Sam as well
from their ODSP So it depends on like what's the
what's the style, Like am I going for real fucking
high gain or am I going for something that's meant
to be just more of a transparency. Because I really
do like the compression, like just the not necessarily even
(24:34):
like the compressor pedal part of the Corey Wong amp
sim But I think just going through an amp compresses
the base in a way that ends up feeling more natural.
So what if the sound natural, That's what I'm gonna do. Otherwise,
if I'm trying to like really intentionally fuck it up,
then I'm gonna go ham and intentionally fuck it up.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Cool. I like it, Okay, real quick, right back at you.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'm really into the In the virtual mixed rack from Slate,
it's the Blue Optical compressor. It's not an l A
two A. It's like maybe it's like a cl One
B or something. It's like their Deluxe Optical compressor, and
it's really really good. I use that also on vocals
a lot have like different there's like a warm and
a punchy and like a different versions of it. But
I use like the straight up like the natural one
on a base and it just like clues it and
(25:16):
slams it and it keeps the punch. So I really
like that one. That's like my go to these days
usually awes Yeah, not always, but usually.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Ben, you're the man.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Thank you for sharing your wonderful knowledge and experience and insight.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
And I am just likewise Carl.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
This is fun.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, I think we're gonna just keep going into these
nerdy episodes. We'll have a season of nerdiness for the
for the listeners. I think they might like it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, this has been weirdly fun. I usually don't get
nerdy about stuff, and.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's why I'm here. I'm here to help you get nerdy.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, it's like tickling. It's like tickling a new part
of my brain I don't usually talk about.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Ben, You're awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You're awesome, Carl, No, I.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Said you're awesome. Thanks e all right, bye Ben, Bye, Carl.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.
If anything here resonated with you, please share this or
your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
At Ben Wallace Music and at.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Carl Bonner until next time.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Bye Ben, Bye Carl. That was good.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
I think the outro is great.
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