Phase Cancellation

Hello Elektronauts,

Quite often when starting to build a new track I’ve noticed that the initial thump of the kick gets weaker and weaker as more layers are added on top of each other. I’ve figured that this is due to phase cancellation and too many bass frequencies competing for the space. To those of you who feel like sharing some insights: How do you tweak yourself out of the mess (ITB) and create a solid kick-to-bass relationship?

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Just don’t overlap the frequencies. pick a kick drum or synthesise one and balance the base with that using envelopes on your synthesizer/sampler.

short base sound allows more decay or release on your kick drum. Or vice versa.

So to sum it up its all about getting it right at the source, crazy ass tweaking should be a last resort imho

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by ITB do you mean inside the RYTM ? Or ITB like in DAW ?

There are MANY tricks out there that will fix your kick VS other low end muddiness I’ve spent quite some time watching youtube tutorials, reading articles in magazines (My fav publication is Computer Music Magazine).

If I was to sum up a few that I use regularly:

  1. Identify immediately which elements exist heavily in the low end freqs and make a decision on where they will sit in the spectrum. For instance if you have a kick, a bass, some low toms, and a subbass sitting under the whole thing - you can immediately separate them by octave (or even just separating them a few semitones can do the trick). IE: if my bassline is in the C2 octave range, I place my subbass in the C0 and my Kick up higher maybe closer to C1. A kick doesn’t always have to be the lowest in your song so I’ll swap it out and have it higher tuned than my bassline sometimes
  2. In rytm I make use of the bandpass filter SO MUCH. Find the fundamental frequency of your drum sound by sweeping the cutoff (in bandpass mode) while having the resonance very high. This will tell your where the main “life” or body of your drum sound exists. When you find it dial back the reso until it’s medium-low. This essentially removes most of the frequency content that isn’t what you need to hear in that sound. IE: frequencies lower than your drum or bass hit that will conflict with the subbass or kick drum that doesn’t need to be there
  3. Place your bass notes off the 4/4 kicks (simple but effective). If this isn’t possible because you have a groove thats really working then … on to step 4
  4. Use LFO’s to duck the sounds when the kick hits. I would have to be in front of my machines to give exact LFO settings, but I recently discovered a really nice timing that would duck my subbass on the 1/5/9/13 steps.
  5. Turn off LPF on your compressor in RYTM. When I first got the RYTM I Was using this a ton because I liked how it pumped the compressor when the kicks hit. I since have realized that you can’t fine tune it enough to trigger when JUST the kick hits … it triggers whenever anything low enough is playing so this can sometimes cause everything to mush together.
  6. Simplify your song. I often realize that as a great lover of designing synth and drum sounds, I can get wickedly carried away when layering sounds. Often if you feel your low end is muddy, it’s simply because you’ve followed all the steps above, but you simply have too many sounds playing at once.

Finally, if nothing else works you can go the route I’ve never taken ----> multitrack record your song into DAW and sidechain compress or sidechain EQ the kick on all your low end tracks.

Hope this is helpful :slight_smile:

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Thanks ON-OFF-ON for your clear and in-depth reply! With ITB I meant working only with the RYTM and the parameters available there, without doing any sidechaining in a DAW. Your answer not only solves the question but provides insight to a bunch of other stuff as well. Big thumbs up and thank you once again!

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What he said…
But also I find it helps to start with the compressor all the way off and then tune it in after you have your pattern going…

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You’re very welcome. Hit me up if you have any more RYTM questions :wink:

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