Take Control of Your Low Frequencies

Music producers spend countless hours finding the perfect balance between the low, mid, and high frequencies. While lower spectrum frequencies can sound warm and appealing, but they can easily swallow other elements in the mix and muddy it. Many tools can help you balance frequencies in the mix. However, recently, we have been presented with some exciting new options. In the following tutorial, we will show you an alternative way that can help you take control of your low frequencies.

As you can see from the picture below, we have a project open in the SoundBridge: DAW. It contains all the essential elements of a full mix. Let us hear how it sounds.

~Full MIx - Unprocessed

Bassroom by Mastering the Mix

We could say that the mix sounds decent, but it lacks some clarity and strength in the low frequencies. We will fix that by using something new that we have recently come across. While some other alternatives are available, we have decided to guide you through a plugin called Bassroom, designed by MasteringTheMix. Let's talk more about it. In its essence, BASSROOM is a final mix and mastering EQ that helps the user control low-end. I do this by delivering exceptional sound quality and suggesting genre-specific EQ adjustments that a great audio engineer in a world-class studio would make. Let's drop a fresh instance of the Bassroom onto the master channel of our project to get to know its interface and features.

The Master Channel

BASSROOM uses complex algorithms that accurately identify how the human ear perceives low frequencies relative to the balance of the whole mix. For that reason, it should be loaded on your master channel. Like this, you can analyze and apply it to the entire mix. As you can see from the picture above, its interface looks a bit like a room with colored boxes. Each box represents one frequency range of the low-frequency spectrum.

Edit the Boxes

On the sides of the boxes, you can see the numbers representing the ranges, starting from 0 to 320 Hz. The boxes can be pulled up or back individually. When you station your mouse cursor on one of them, you will be able to see the dB value, ranging from -4 to +4, as well as the Q value, which can be set from 0.5 to 5. You can see a small speaker icon on the top right corner that can bypass the plugin and set the makeup gain.

Utilize the Presets

To get the most out of BASSROOM, select a preset that best suits the material you're working on. You can do that by clicking on the lower left part of the interface.

Bassroom Suggestions

By playing the part of your mix with most elements, the Bassroom will suggest the low-end value balance by automatically moving the block to different positions. Drag the boxes to the places pointed by the small vertical lines on the side of every box to dial in the recommended value. Lastly, you can set the makeup gain by clicking the speaker icon. This is important because lowering the original mix's low end will decrease the signal's peak and RMS value.

Audio Examples

After briefly explaining the Bassrom and its features, let's hear how it sounds. First, we will listen to the unprocessed and then the full mix processed with BASSROOM.