Mastering Bass

Effective editing and management of the low end of a mix are among the most important techniques for bringing power and impact to your music. Mark Cousins delves deep.

Whether or not it has been produced or recorded digitally, the bass end of a mix has undoubtedly always been one of the most difficult parts of any audio production to get right. If you listen to a commercial recording you’re likely to hear tight, room-filling bass, while lesser-quality home recordings often seem to be characterised by a muddy, ill-defined bass. And although it’s easy to be overly hard on yourself when comparing your own skills to those of commercial engineers, it’s important to remember that the relative success of professional sound engineers is down to their many years of experience – they’ve had the opportunity to learn how best to control and represent bass in their recordings and live shows, as well as time to accumulate an understanding of the unique problems presented by the low end of a mix.

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 70
Filed under General Features

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