Hi!
I am working on a full-digitone project, and I have trouble making the bass sounds stick out. They sound good, wether I use presets or make my own, but as soon as I have other voices on top they tend to get a bit muffled in the background. Of course I tried pumping up Amp volume / level / drive / filter reso, one of them usually makes it better, but is there something I’m missing? Or is it the sound engine?
Any tips ?
Have you tried turning down the volume on the other tracks, panning of the voices making room for the bass with filtering?
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did you turn it to monophonic only?
use the second filter to roll off the low end of the other sounds…
trying unison would be another option to thicken the bass
I also tend to low cut reverb and delay… mix gets blurred in the low frequencies quickly if you keep them in the fx
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this sounds like a situation where something like EQ is needed
Have you tried turning down the volume on the other tracks, panning of the voices making room for the bass with filtering?
I did 
To a certain extent, because to get satisfactory results I feel like I’m loosing a bit too much cohesion…
I allocated two voices to the bass, which is in dual unison. It’s certainly much better this way, but I have some heavy polyphony on the other voices so I can’t really do much more.
I used the filters to make room for the bass, but I might be doing this wrong: any tip on the correspondance between the 1-127 scale and the frequency range?
Yes, totally. Even though there are the secondary filters, a three-band EQ on the master would certainly help me here. I’ll check the request thread ^^
I don‘t have a Digitone myself, so I don‘t know how this unison thing works.
But since you‘re using two voices for the bass, you can sort of do a diy EQ. Have one standard voice and another support voice with the filter and its envelopes wider open - brighter than you normally would - and have it running quiet along the standard voice. Maybe even give it some reverb or chorus, it will have more impact because of the broader frequency range. With the amp you can find the right dose.
These lowpasses are great tools, but sometimes they just cut away too much of the fine character that makes things come through in a mix.
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Sorry, it was confusing the way I said it: I use two voices of unison, not two tracks… otherwise, great tip, I’ll keep it in mind thx ^^
Well, mixing kinda revolves around finding a reasonable compromise and in isolation it might sound you’re cutting way too much lows/highs or whatever you’re doing on a soloed track might seem to drastic, but as long as the mix as a whole improves, those changes might actually be reasonable.
It’s also when we’re listening to a particular sound for a while, like a synth bass patch for example, we kinda adapt to that sound and even small changes can seem pretty drastic.
In such a case I’d usually take a break and then listen to the mix with fresh ears.
Sometimes I compare two versions of a mix with a break in between.
Especially mixing on grooveboxes can get reaally tricky some times^^
You could try to work on the arrangement/change some notes to make room for the bass.
Or use p-locks for mixing tasks, this way you could cut more lows/highs during the busy parts in the arrangement without sacrificing too much character/tone during quiet parts.
How skilled are you in mixing?
Do you have proper mixing environment?
Have you read Mike Senior’s “Mixing Secrets”?
These two last questions were key to me to gain quickness and accuracy in my mix. Especially with basses.
To answer your question, you can use the bandpass filter to let each track play in its own distinct frequency range.
If frequency ranges intersect, you can ensure tracks don’t use the same freq range at the same time (most famous example being sidechain pumping effect on the bass to let the kick prevail).
I was thinking more on a channel level. On the master might help, but for usual things like this get fixed on individual tracks
Sounds like it needs to be mixed a bit better, I would suggest cutting the bass on the other tracks a bit using the bandpass filter on FILT page 2, this is usually how I balance bass on the Digitone.
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You are absolutely right. I listened to it again this morning, and it didn’t seem so bad anymore. To improve it though I will follow your advice & make more drastic moves in mixing. Good thinking on the P-lock mixing! I am definitely trying that! Thank you
Yes, that definitely helped a lot.
Normally not too bad (though I’m no sound engineer). But I do better on a computer with my well-known plugins than on the DN ^^
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Some great advice here.
I like the linked track tip. But I would band pass the 2nd track extremely to pick out a desired mid range rasp or click element if that’s what I felt needed.
Taken to extreme the two voices can occupy their own band and have different modulation. A bit like layering a click over a bass drum.
So, after a while I think I hit the sweet spot I was looking for between filter Q, drive and volume to get my bass where I wanted it to go. I also reworked my bandpass mixing, which I had done but a liitle to coarsely. In the end, I have my boomy sub, and my vibrating PWM effect well out ^^
Thank you all for your help!
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