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Mastering the low end with BASSROOM

Tom Frampton

This blog post will tell you how to get the perfect amount of bass when mastering audio using BASSROOM.

This is where so many potentially awesome tracks fail. Too much bass and your track will sound bloated and lack clarity. Not enough bass and your track will sound weak.

I have a process that helps me set the perfect amount of bass for my clients every time. Since I implemented this technique I can honestly say that my mastering business has dramatically improved (more than doubled!)

I hope that this technique helps you too, whether it’s growing your studio business or simply nailing the master of a track that will further your career as an artist.

 

Let’s start with why nailing the low-end is so difficult:

  • Monitors with great low-end response are super expensive.
  • Acoustic treatment is expensive BUT essential for any monitors (expensive or not) to be effective.
  • Even when we have great monitors and acoustic treatment how can we be sure of what the perfect low-end level is?

So we’re up against a few hurdles here, but the technique I’ll explain will improve the low- end of your masters, even in the most basic studio set-ups.


Step 1: Load Up Our Mixing and Mastering EQ BASSROOM on The Master Channel

BASSROOM uses complex algorithms that accurately identifies 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 so it can analyse and be applied to your whole mix.

Step 2: Choose A Preset

To get the most value from BASSROOM, start by selecting a preset that best suits the material you’re working on.

 

Step 3: Create A Target

Rather than choosing a preset, you can create your own target values by clicking the target icon in the bottom left corner and importing reference tracks. If you’re creating targets, we recommend clicking and dragging on the waveform to select the drop or chorus for the analysis, as this is usually the material with the best representation of the bass in the track. BASSROOM will create targets  based on all the tracks loaded into the analysis window.

 

Step 4: Shape Your Low End

Now monitor a bass heavy section of your production (i.e. the drop or chorus), and you’ll see the targets move to the suggested EQ positions based on the tonal balance of your mix compared to the tonal balance of your preset. Use the targets to get a great starting point, then adjust by ear to tweak your low-end to perfection. The algorithm accounts for differences in loudness, so the targets will be accurate and relevant whether you’re mixing or mastering.

 

Step 5: The Level Match

The EQ adjustments may have changed the overall gain of your audio. If the gain has changed by more than 2dB the speaker icon will turn orange. Hover your mouse over the bypass icon to open the output gain and level match pointer. Match the gain slider to the level match pointer to match the perceived loudness of your audio before it passed through BASSROOM.

HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!!

Not only will your low-end fall into place, but the level matching will give you a well-balanced sound across the whole frequency spectrum. Toggle bypass on and off to hear the difference.

 

Click here to get BASSROOM!

 

 

PreSonus Congratulates Winners of Pads ‘n’ Pods Giveaway!

 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, September 2012

PreSonus™ has announced the winners of its Pads ‘n’ ‘Pods Giveaway Contest.

Chosen from thousands of online entries, the winners – one in the U.S. and one in Europe – were awarded a complete StudioLive™ 16.0.2 / Apple® Remote Control Kit, including four iPod® touches and a 16 GB iPad® 3.

The winner of the European Pads ‘n’ Pods giveaway is Andreas Rösch of Nürnberg, Germany. Andreas mixes his band Segard using a StudioLive 24.4.2 console.

padspods EU Winner
Andreas Roesch 
Click for larger image

“Winning this prize gives us the freedom to use iPods® to mix our monitors on stage and enables us to rapidly achieve the best in-ear sound,” says Rösch. “What’s more, our sound engineer is no longer bound to the FOH location. He can now operate the console via iPad from anywhere in the venue. We’re about to embark on a tour across Germany and will be able to exploit the full potential of the StudioLive technology. Thank you, PreSonus!”

In the U.S., the lucky prize winner is Sean Menza of Lakewood, Washington. Sean uses a StudioLive 16.0.2 to mix and record his band Unified Culture. “The StudioLive console gives us everything we need to mix our band, from great-sounding preamps to onboard effects,” says Menza. “We’ve always loved the fact that it gives us more than enough aux buses to give everyone a monitor mix. With our new Pads ‘n’ ‘Pods prizes, we can use QMix™ to control our mixes up on stage. And I can use the iPad® to mix the band live from anywhere in the room. It doesn’t get any cooler than that.”

Sean Menza 
Click for larger image

StudioLive Remote software, available free from the Apple App Store, provides direct wireless control over PreSonus Virtual StudioLive software for Mac®and Windows®, allowing you to remote-control any StudioLive mixer. QMix software (also available free from the App Store) enables each musician to control their own individual monitor mix using an iPhone® or iPod touch®.

For more information on StudioLive Remote go to www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-Remote

For more information on QMix, go to www.presonus.com/products/QMix

For more information on Andreas Rösch’s band Segard,

go to www.segard.de, or www.facebook.com/segardrock

For more info on Sean Menza’s band Unified Culture, go to www.facebook.com/unifiedculture

New PreSonus Headquarters and Research Facility To Arise on Highland Road

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, August 2012… On August 22, 2012, PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc., hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for its new high-tech headquarters and research facility. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal led the list of guests of honor, attending in recognition of PreSonus’ contributions to the state and local economy.

A leading manufacturer of digital and analog hardware and integrated software systems for the professional audio market, PreSonus has expanded from 49 employees in 2009 to more than 130 employees worldwide, including the 80 full-time employees who are overflowing its current offices on Florida Boulevard.  According to PreSonus CEO Jim Mack, PreSonus has grown its revenues by more than 50% last year and is slated to enter new product categories to continue its growth.

Designed by local architects Ritter Maher, LLC, and developed by Moniotte Investments, the new 44,000-square-foot building—located at 19151 Highland Road—will cost approximately $8.3 million including land and development.  Completion is expected in the late summer of 2013. It will easily accommodate at least 125 employees—crucial because PreSonus is continuing to grow and hire—and offers many amenities that are not available in the company’s current space.

Among the unique features of this building will be a specialized high-tech recording studio/R&D space that is being custom-designed for PreSonus’ engineering and testing teams by the award-winning Walters-Storyk Design Group of Highland, New York. The 2,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art studio will feature a control room, a 500-square-foot live-sound room, two isolation rooms, a video-production suite, five test labs as well as a separate 1,500-square-foot live-sound room.

PreSonus’ rapid growth, local hiring, and emphasis on digital engineering qualified it for LED Digital Interactive Media and Software Development tax-credits. This program supports the creation of quality digital-engineering jobs that stay in the Baton Rouge community. Historically, companies like PreSonus have usually located on the East or West Coast. However, the tax-credit program has helped make it possible for PreSonus to grow and prosper in its home city, investing these funds in new engineering staff and in research and development. Many of the new hires are highly skilled digital-hardware and software engineers residing in the Baton Rouge area.

Much of the engineering team graduated from the LSU Engineering Department, and the company was recently named to the LSU 100 Fastest Growing Tiger Businesses. PreSonus also is working with LSU in an effort to develop local design talent through the university’s outstanding engineering programs and internships.

August 22 marks the beginning of the next stage of PreSonus’ growth and its continuing contributions to high-tech employment in Baton Rouge. Look for much more to come from this vibrant company.

Join PreSonus Live from Summer NAMM 2012

Nashville, TN, July, 2012…  Once again, PreSonus is bringing the hubbub and buzz of the music industry’s most exclusive and exciting trade-only convention direct to your screen.

PreSonus will be webcasting live from the Summer NAMM convention in beautiful downtown Nashville, Tennessee. On Friday, July 13, 2012, we’ll be providing continuous, live, anything-goes coverage of all the events at our booth, including hot gear, cool presentations, surprise interviews with famous, infamous and near-famous artists, and other excitement.

What’s more, our ever-so-slightly eccentric roving camera crew will be wandering the show floor, accosting guests, seeking out the coolest, strangest, and just plain bizarre musical instruments and other fun stuff, and doing our very best to scam free gear, free food, and maybe the odd bear hug from anywhere we can find it.

As a special added bonus, we’ll be giving away a free copy of Studio One Professional 2 DAW software (a $399 value) once every hour to a lucky online viewer.

So join us online at www.presonus.com/videos/presonuslive to catch all the action as it happens,  to view it later, or to schedule an e-mail reminder.

Visit the New PreSonus Web Site!

If you’re reading this, you’re already here.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, July 2012... PreSonus has completely redesigned its Web site, offering greatly improved navigation, deeper product information, and easy access to press releases, user stories, technical information, videos, tech support, user accounts, and much more.

Notes PreSonus Associate Creative Director Cave Daughdrill, “Truth is, a lot of us hated the old site. Working on it was worse than being stuck in traffic during the flaming-hot Louisiana summer. And it was starting to look old and dense-like the Gulf after BP got through with it. We’ve always made the kind of gear we want to use ourselves, so we decided it was time to do that with our site. Now, it’s fast and easy to find things, and the site is much more visual. The video display is huge, and you can even search and filter for results while playing the video. And the site works great with mobile devices. We think people are really gonna dig it.”

“From a back-end standpoint, the old PreSonus site was the organizational equivalent of a dozen meth’ed-up gerbils playing soccer with a marble inside a grandfather clock,” says PreSonus Web Engineer Luciano Ziegler. “Our new site is so smooth that it may actually revolutionize String Theory.”

 

Please visit www.presonus.com and check it out!

 

StudioLive Breathes Life into LifeWay Summer Camps

United States, June, 2012…  Summer camp is a ritual for kids and teens all across the U.S., and LifeWay Christian Resources is a familiar name for many of them. LifeWay hosts a wide range of multi-day summer camps at colleges and retreat centers throughout the nation, from recreation and Bible study for younger kids to workshops and mission-based camps for teens and young adults. As Josh Webb, LifeWay’s resident engineer and tech guru, explains, live music is a big part of the experience.

“There’s a lot of activities during the day, from team building to community service,” says Webb. “Then, in the evenings, there’s music. It’s usually a four- to six-piece band: full drum kit, bass, guitars, keyboards, and of course, vocals.”

For Webb, who coordinates sound and lighting for most of the camps, that means an ongoing routine that keeps him busy through the summer. “We’ll typically rent a facility for a few weeks during the summer, set up audio, lighting, and all that stuff; then we’ll load up the truck and move to another location,” he says.

Needless to say, it’s a big job keeping track of so many locations and crews, and LifeWay recently streamlined the process with the purchase of more than 30 StudioLive™ 24.4.2 digital consoles.

“Previously we had a whole bunch of different analog consoles,” says Webb. “We’d truck in our analog consoles, racks of gear, and cabling, and put it all together. Replacing them all with StudioLive consoles has been great on so many levels.”

click for hi-res image

The StudioLive’s fully integrated effects have really changed the equation, Webb reports.

“The PreSonus console is pretty much the heart of the audio system for us. We’ve literally got three or four warehouse palettes of compressors, limiters, and other outboard gear that we just don’t need anymore because everything’s built into the desk. It’s really lightened the load for the travel teams and has made setup and teardown a breeze.”

The StudioLive’s ease of use is another major asset. “It’s basically set up like an analog console, even though everything’s digital under the hood,” says Webb. “So the learning curve is almost nonexistent. They don’t have to run through pages and pages of menus – everything is accessible via the Fat Channel.”

Webb says they’ve only just begun to tap into the potential of the StudioLive’s capabilities. “We’ve got MacBooks® or iMacs® with every console, so we can do live recording via Capture™,” he says. “We’re using some of the tracks for a virtual sound check, especially in places where we’ve got multiple performances in the same place. It’s great for training people as well: We can have our newer engineers play back a multitrack recording and experiment with different dynamics and effects without the pressure and risk of doing it during a live show.”

“Eventually we’ll be implementing iPad® control and QMix™ for the monitor mix,” he adds. “This first year, we’re just starting with iPad control for a few teams, just to get our feet wet. Basically, we’re telling our more tech-savvy people that if they already have an iPad, they can go ahead and check out the remote-mixing capability. The information will trickle down to the rest of the teams throughout the summer.”

With so many different crews to coordinate, having everyone on the same console is more than just a convenience, he adds. “It’s a great thing for me, in particular, since I’m the guy who has to troubleshoot the setups. The consistency of knowing that every setup is now using a StudioLive console makes my life that much easier.” Webb is presently putting together a knowledgebase, to enable the entire team of engineers to share notes and get the most out of the StudioLive.

“In the past, we’ve been relatively old school as far as the audio is concerned,” Webb concludes. “But we’ve always tried to push ourselves forward and find ways to do things better, faster, and more efficiently. And the StudioLive consoles have been a huge step forward.”

Join PreSonus Live from InfoComm!

Las Vegas, NV, June 2012…  Join PreSonus for a very special live webcast, direct from the InfoComm Show in Las Vegas.

Tune in for Connecting Your Customers with StudioLive, a 30-minute presentation that will cover the broad range of advanced control and connectivity between PreSonus StudioLiveTM consoles and laptop computers, iPads®, iPhones®, and iPod touches®.

From iPad-based wireless mixer control with StudioLive-Remote and iPhone/iPod touch monitor control via QMixTM, to multitrack recording and production with CaptureTM and Studio OneTM Artist, PreSonus is the only compact digital mixer that offers such a wide range of software integration – for free!

The presentation will also take a look into the ever-expanding integration between PreSonus products and Rational Acoustics’ acclaimed SmaartTM audio-analysis technologies. Optimizing system EQ has never been this fast and easy.

Four 30-minute presentations will be broadcast live from the PreSonus Demo Room (N105) at InfoComm on Thursday, June 14, at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:00 PM. (All times are Pacific Daylight Time) A live Q&A from attendees will follow each session.

A special bonus for those attending the show in person: PreSonus will give away a free seven-port USB hub and free 2GB USB drive to attendees at the end of each presentation.

So join us online at http://livestream.com/presonuslive to catch all the action as it happens, or to view it later.

To schedule an email reminder, visit us at http://presonus.com/community/presonuslive/