Thanks, glad you like the site ! And, nice remix

The reason you can’t hear the bass on small speakers is that it’s almost all sub. Few hi-fi speakers reproduce anything useful below 50Hz, and many roll off from 80Hz down.

Try putting a high-cut filter over the mix and sweeping it up. With 12 dB/octave it removes the low note at 50Hz, and by 80Hz the top note is greatly reduced. At 100Hz both notes have gone, and so has most of the kick drum.

Now, I’m not saying it’s necessarily a problem – if you want that warm, deep feel these are the kinds of sounds you need.

But, you could experiment with adding some higher harmonics into the sounds – even just a little of the first harmonic (an octave up) can help. Pendulum have several higher-frequency sounds doubling the synth bass, which also helps, but this may not work for your mix.

For the kick, I’d be tempted to blend in another sound, more in that “heartbeat” 100Hz area, so that on speakers that don’t reproduce very low frequencies you can still feel it. Again, just a very little may do the trick.

Or, you could just tell people to listen to it on decent speakers ;-p

Hope something there helps,

Cheers,

Ian

First of all, great site you have, i learned already so much in the little time i’ve been following your site! I always wanted to make deep bass sounds, but find it difficult to do, especially to make them deep, wide and articulated at the same time.
Listen for example to my latest track (http://soundcloud.com/benignbastard/willitsflowersintostardustb9bmesmerized).
I spent a lot of time to that bass and when listening to it at home, it seems fine, but i cannot hear it on small speakers (Creative type). Is there anyway i can make it still audible on little speakers?
Thanks

Wow, that’s unlocked many a mystery, thank you.

I’m a D&B & Dubstep producer just venturing into the murky world of sound engineering. So really I am learning about music all over again.

Thanks again, great site!!

The dynamic range is very limited, though – when the beats kick in it’s barely louder than the intro, and there’s heavy pumping on lots of it. This brings the average level right up without massive distortion, but for my money reduces the impact potential of the beats.

Pendulum is also very controlled, but listen to what happens at 28 seconds in – the beat lifts in level so it really hits you – that’s the “ambush” effect. There’s none of that in the Noisia track – when the beats hit it actually seems to take a step back, which I think is a shame.

Noisia Exodus.. Video by Alexander Lehman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDS872M9Y9c

Both track and video are amazing compositions.

The truth is that the most of electronic dance music is highly compressed, although some producers try to change this achieving more DR, still compressed, but not so much. I think things may change in the future.

If you want to see what gear is Pendulum using, check this http://bit.ly/hR4Xu1, where they show their outboard gear.