• Using EQ on bass guitar in Logic Pro X
• Using compression on bass guitar in Logic Pro X
• Using reverb on bass guitar in Logic Pro X
• Using sub-mixes to organize your bass tracks in Logic Pro X
• Mixing bass guitar with your kick drum
• Download my signal-chain (presets) for mixing bass guitar

Mixing bass guitar with your kick drum

I wanted to dedicate an entire section to mixing bass guitar with your kick drum because issues often arise between these two instruments. Can you guess why?

Since they both occupy the same “territory”, they’ll be fighting for the spotlight.

That’s why we need to be selective and organize our bass range into TWO fundamental categories…

• Sub-Bass
• Bass

That’s why one of the first questions I asked was whether to cut at 30Hz or 60Hz.

Sometimes, the kick drum is much more suited for the sub-bass range and sometimes it’s the bass guitar that fills that gap. It really depends on the genre of music and what type of kick drum you’re working with.

Either way, one of them will be cut at 30Hz and the other at 60Hz.

Make sure that this is TRUE or you’ll have issues during the mastering stage.

The other common issue that not too many people are talking about involves compression. If your attack time is identical for both your bass guitar AND your drum kit… You’ll essentially be creating a “gap” in your mix.

The transients of both your bass guitar and kick will be dimmed at the same time.

That’s why I make sure to set different attack times for my bass guitar (and other instruments). Think of it like layering events, but across the span of time…

I usually use 5ms for my kick drum.

That’s why I set my attack time to 10ms for bass guitar.