Mastering The Mix / Bassroom

[Piet De Ridder]

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If you’re struggling more than you like with getting a good bass sound in your mixes — and who doesn’t from time to time (or always)? —, here’s a good one. And I mean a really good one: MasteringThe Mix’s Bassroom, a plugin whose entire focus is on controlling the low frequencies in a mix (the 20-320Hz range).

Initially, I thought this was another of those toyish substitutes for real expertise and know-how — the plugin was, I felt, introduced with a bit too much "How To Mix Like A Pro"-blurb which tends to make me suspicious rather than interested —, but after demoing it for a while, I couldn’t but agree with the near-unanimous enthusiasm that Bassroom has been received and reviewed with. It truly delivers what it promises to deliver, it’s very cleverly designed, it’s got transparent high-quality algorithms working under the hood and, assuming you’ve taken the time to learn to operate it, it invariably results in a better-sounding mix.

And it’s particularly useful, I find, for sample-based productions because in these type of productions you often have countless layers of stacked bass frequencies to deal with, confronting you with a low and low-mid range that’s incredibly difficult to keep clean and under control. Not suggesting that Bassroom will solve all such problems in an instant (nor should it replace the traditional techniques of keeping a mix free from too much boom and mud), but wise use of this plugin will most certainly make the battle with a difficult-to-or-out-of-control low end a lot easier.

It's very reasonably priced too. Do check out the free trial version.

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[Guy Rowland]

I'm a bit confused by this one. I never understand things based purely on presets, or even your own reference. Let's say I've done a terrible mix where they bass is way off in general. It's contemporary hip hop, so I choose that preset, or use my own reference source - doesn't much matter. It will guide me to increase 160-320 up a bit, 80-160 down a bit and so on. Now I move to a 2nd project which is the same genre but due to my terrible mixing skills this one is actually bass light going in. Won't Bassroom make exactly the same suggestions to both tracks? Unless I'm missing a trick, it never analyses your actual mix at all, just recommends generic settings. (???)

[Linos]

If I understood correctly the markers on the line on the sides shows you where your track is at when it is playing. The naming and the GUI suggest a toy, but if Piet likes it, it must have something going on. One to keep an eye on for Black Friday. In the best case this might be something like the Kush Clariphonic for the bass frequencies. Something to uveil the bass frequencies when used judiciously.

[Guy Rowland]

If I understood correctly the markers on the line on the sides shows you where your track is at when it is playing.

Ah thank you Linos, the scales hath fallen from my eyes - I get it now. I'll give this a trial I think - still for me the greatest need I perceive is low mids, but lows can definitely be troublesome, keeping the energy under control without it sounding under-powered.

[Ashermusic]

I am interested

[Piet De Ridder]

To add to what Linos said: Bassroom doesn't analyse the music that you're in the process of mixing, but in includes the option to analyse a reference track of your choice and then 'translate' that analysis into 5 target settings — those five markers, one for each of the 5 bass bands — which you can either slide towards or not. And it also includes a generous collection of preset targets which you might find useful as starting points to work with. I usually don't have much faith in preset solutions to tackle mixing issues with, but as a sort of rough indication of what you might want to work towards, these preset targets are not entirely without value.

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[Arcana]

Bassroom and Mixroom sits permanently on my master bus.

I've found them so useful, that I went back and ran 2 whole albums worth of tracks through them.

While presets can be useful, their power truly come in play when you load a reference track that's similar to the one you're working on.
The more similar, the better the results.
Even if they're not 'set and forget' type of plugins, they have really opened my eyes to how I mix. For example, I've noticed that my mixes often lacks top end and seem to be quite congested in the 1-2 khz range.

Instead of looking at these as 'auto mixing' plugins, I see them as a '2nd opinion' and that alone is very helpful.
Often I've found myself go 'ooh...that's how it's supposed to sound' after adjusting the mixes according to Mixroom and Bassroom's recommendations.

It's worth pointing out that Mixroom does tend to exaggerate the highs, but once you dial them back, it's surprisingly good.

The review of Basroom by 'Better mixes' in OP explains how to use it really well. Don't think of it as a mastering tool. Instead think of it as a mixing tool, as explained in the video.

[Guy Rowland]

To add to what Linos said: Bassroom doesn't analyse the music that you're in the process of mixing...

Now I'm all confused again because I'm now sure it does! I'm just demoing and it dynamically suggests different settings throughout the track, so it's a case of picking the most representative section.

And initial thoughts here are extremely favourable. The presets are kinda fascinating - on one of the 90s indie tracks I'm working on I tried 3 different preset suggestions for Indie, Alternative and Contemporary. Each were quite different, suggesting quite significant changes but each considerably different from each other. As it happened, I liked Indie the best for this particular track. It's not exactly night and day, but it is noticeably better. Glancing at the Tonal Balance plugin afterwards, most don't change the overall energy too much but just redistribute it a little within the target area.

I tried a quite different dance-based track which had a slightly tricky low end, and it helped focus it considerably. Again, the Dance preset was great, while Electronic didn't suit it so much. Maybe I'm just getting lucky, but the stock presets seem very well balanced, in time I'll try the user ones.

Thanks Piet, as ever another great suggestion.

[Piet De Ridder]

Well yes, you’re right, Guy, it does do a degree of analysing the incoming music — my mistake, sorry — but I meant that it doesn’t operate like, for example, Gulfloss where the processing of the signal is unbreakably linked to and defined by the analysis. Gulfloss’ analysis determines the way it will process the incoming signal, and that’s not the case with Bassroom which merely suggests targets (to do with as you please) as a result of its analysis.

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[Geoff Grace]

Speaking of Gullfoss, it seems like it might work well in tandem with Bassroom, although perhaps it would be better to tell Gullfoss to ignore the frequencies Bassroom is looking at.

Best,

Geoff

[Tanuj Tiku]

Very interesting GUI for sure!

Why and how is this different from EQ's and multi-band compressors etc? I can imagine it giving you a feedback based on a reference track if you are not hearing what the changes need to be to accomplish a similar sound.

I suppose, it's a nice thing to have but it probably already assumes that you have decent ears and a room where you can actually hear everything correctly. Bass in studios, specially project studios is a major headache and you are not always sure if its the room, the speakers or the track?

I think many such plugins may be very, very useful for compromised spaces.

[Guy Rowland]

Very interesting GUI for sure!

Why and how is this different from EQ's and multi-band compressors etc? I can imagine it giving you a feedback based on a reference track if you are not hearing what the changes need to be to accomplish a similar sound.

I suppose, it's a nice thing to have but it probably already assumes that you have decent ears and a room where you can actually hear everything correctly. Bass in studios, specially project studios is a major headache and you are not always sure if its the room, the speakers or the track?

I think many such plugins may be very, very useful for compromised spaces.

These are fair questions. At its most basic level, it's 5 eq bands, each going up in octaves from 20hz to 360hz. I guess there are EQs out there that divide in these specific ways, or you can set them up as such, but certainly I've never used that model. It seems to be a very successful way to approach it. What was most striking to me as I indicated is just how wildly different the suggestions are from one another - literally you can go from plus to minus 4db of suggestion in any band from one preset to the next. As such, I don't see it so much as a purely corrective plugin, but an adjust-to-taste one. So combine that with the 5 octaves of EQ, and it's a bit of a winning combination. It's really fascinating to try a few I've found, to road test subtly different feels.

I suspect it will be a bit less useful for orchestral than other genres, where the desired outcome is more corrective than taste-based, but I haven't yet tried it on orchestral so I might be talking nonsense.

You've got great ears and a great room Tanuj, so I'd be really interested to know if you found it of any interest in practice via the free trial.

[Linos]

Mixroom is rather quite useful for me on orchestral music. I'm testing the demos on these two. For purely orchestral music, Bassroom doesn't do that much. For hybrid, or anything that could have congested bass frequency, it'll be a great help. I share @Arkana's sentiment that referencing tracks is fantastic. If you aren't a mixing engineer by trade this gives you some clues to put you in the right direction. Very helpful. The presets are sometimes cool too. Many of them want to cut a lot of the highs though. That's a bit weird. It's not a problem as you can easily disregard that advise. Just something to be aware of.

[playz123]

Been using Bassroom for 'pop' music almost from the time it was released and in most instances it does a great job. BUT one still has to use one's ears, and sometimes not using it is better.

[woodsdenis]

I use both of them, great tools but always use your ears.

[Guy Rowland]

I think because my experience of just switching between those presets was so insanely variable, it seems beyond question that its an aid not an instruction. I basically view it as it saying "just take a listen to this - does it sound better or worse?"

[Arbee]

I must have a closer look at this. I trialled it but struggled first time around to see significant difference between this and doing a broad band sweep with a normal eq.

[kpc]

I do like it and bought a license. It’s very easy to use and it has improved my mix translation. I had a mix sounding pretty good, checked it in the car and it was a bit boomy and muffled. Apple Bassroom with some adjustments and much better.

I appreciate the clear, clean GUI