Craig Anderton
Well-known member
It's time for another preview tip from v1.1 of The Huge Book of Fender Studio Pro Tips and Tricks. I still don't have an ETA for the free update to v1.0, but I'm planning on Q1 2027. Meanwhile, I'll post more previews here.
Being able to differentiate between kick and bass is a common issue, because their frequency ranges overlap. There are many proposed solutions that involve EQ, gating, or stereo positioning. The following takes a different approach by differentiating based on timing. Although the difference is subtle, the big advantage is that the bass and kick sounds are unmodified.
The limitation of this approach is that it assumes the kick and bass are quantized to the grid, but that’s often the case in many musical genres. I’ve been showing this at seminars for years, and when I play an audio example, people are always surprised at how well it can work.
This technique takes advantage of the way the human ear works. It’s most interested in a sound’s first few milliseconds. This is probably perma-coded in our brains from the days we had to know instantly whether rustling grass was the wind, or a predator looking for fast food. (Trivia note for synth veterans: Roland’s D50 took advantage of this back in the days when memory was horribly expensive. For example, a string sound would have a very short sampled attack, but then morph into a synth waveform that took up virtually no memory.)
Here’s how the process works:
1. Don’t move the kick.
2. To emphasize the bass, move it 15-25 ms ahead of the kick. To emphasize the kick, move it 15-25 ms later than the kick.
The timing shift is small enough that you don’t hear any problem with the rhythm, but your ear gets the cues needed to differentiate the kick and bass better. With EDM, my default is bass ahead of kick—but for sections when I want some instant four-on-the-floor oomph, the bass goes behind the kick.
The forum doesn't default to uploading .mp3 examples, but I’ve cross-posted part of this tip and included an audio example in my forum (free to lurk) at musicplayer.com. The audio example’s first half moves the bass ahead of the kick. The second half moves the bass after the kick. The kick sounds more prominent in the second half. If you don’t hear a difference, go back to the first half and you’ll hear there’s less kick.
To nudge Events by an exact number of milliseconds, you can create a Macro. I’ve attached macros for a -25 ms shift (earlier on the timeline, shortcut Ctrl+Shft+2) and a +25 ms shift (later on the timeline, shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+2). This seems to be the sweet spot for timing, but the macro can can be any desired number of milliseconds. Here's the macro’s structure.
It’s pretty simple. The first argument is crucial, because it turns off snap. This makes the default nudge amount 1 ms. Then, add one Nudge per millisecond for moving an Event later, or one Nudge Back per millisecond for moving an Event earlier. That's all there is to it!
Being able to differentiate between kick and bass is a common issue, because their frequency ranges overlap. There are many proposed solutions that involve EQ, gating, or stereo positioning. The following takes a different approach by differentiating based on timing. Although the difference is subtle, the big advantage is that the bass and kick sounds are unmodified.
The limitation of this approach is that it assumes the kick and bass are quantized to the grid, but that’s often the case in many musical genres. I’ve been showing this at seminars for years, and when I play an audio example, people are always surprised at how well it can work.
This technique takes advantage of the way the human ear works. It’s most interested in a sound’s first few milliseconds. This is probably perma-coded in our brains from the days we had to know instantly whether rustling grass was the wind, or a predator looking for fast food. (Trivia note for synth veterans: Roland’s D50 took advantage of this back in the days when memory was horribly expensive. For example, a string sound would have a very short sampled attack, but then morph into a synth waveform that took up virtually no memory.)
Here’s how the process works:
1. Don’t move the kick.
2. To emphasize the bass, move it 15-25 ms ahead of the kick. To emphasize the kick, move it 15-25 ms later than the kick.
The timing shift is small enough that you don’t hear any problem with the rhythm, but your ear gets the cues needed to differentiate the kick and bass better. With EDM, my default is bass ahead of kick—but for sections when I want some instant four-on-the-floor oomph, the bass goes behind the kick.
The forum doesn't default to uploading .mp3 examples, but I’ve cross-posted part of this tip and included an audio example in my forum (free to lurk) at musicplayer.com. The audio example’s first half moves the bass ahead of the kick. The second half moves the bass after the kick. The kick sounds more prominent in the second half. If you don’t hear a difference, go back to the first half and you’ll hear there’s less kick.
To nudge Events by an exact number of milliseconds, you can create a Macro. I’ve attached macros for a -25 ms shift (earlier on the timeline, shortcut Ctrl+Shft+2) and a +25 ms shift (later on the timeline, shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+2). This seems to be the sweet spot for timing, but the macro can can be any desired number of milliseconds. Here's the macro’s structure.
It’s pretty simple. The first argument is crucial, because it turns off snap. This makes the default nudge amount 1 ms. Then, add one Nudge per millisecond for moving an Event later, or one Nudge Back per millisecond for moving an Event earlier. That's all there is to it!
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