HOW TO PORPERLY USE 808's

[KomeKie]

It's the first time for me creating a forum, I am still learning and one thing I like the most about beats are the 808's and basses. I have this kind of problem with using them and I hope that more experienced beatmakers can help me. My major concerns are the following:

- Mixing: sometimes this low instruments don't behave as they should with the other percussion or even with the melody. Is like when I listen to them they sound dirty (as a bad thing).
- Volume: so I have been told that sometimes I give to much importance to this instruments, like they have a higher volume than they should but I don't really understand why. I think that all comes with time and that I will end up naturally lowering the volume on my beat's 808's but I feel that they are kind of my style and that from my musical influences and what I enjoy the most I have this kind of tendecy to make them sound higher. I need to know where the limit is so I can put my personal touch without making the beat unbalanced.
- Melody/Pattern: I have seen some tutorials but kind of struggle to use the 808's I don't know if I have to use them all in the same note or if I should make some variations and even when I think that I have something that feels as I want I don't thing it matches the beat. How can I fix this, or how can I improve this?

Thanks for your time and hope we can have a great forum about 808's

 

[TWU]

Great post. I'm not using 808's that often but here's my take on it:

808's usually take up the entire low frequency range. So if there's any other instrument/sample present at this range it's going to battle for headroom, which you probably don't want. So my suggestion is to cut out all the lows from these instruments/samples in order to let the 808 shine. The spectrum/range of these lows are track dependent so can't really say something usefull about that.

When it comes to mixing the kick and 808, I think using sidechain compression is a must. Usually the kicks have a short sustain, and a "click" sound (in the high frequencies) to contrast the 808.

Something to keep in mind is that some 808 samples already contain a kick. If you're using these to create a melody, the kick also gets pitched.

 

[Iron Keys]

Welcome, great question.

Firstly, let's cover some important aspects:
Bass (which is where 808s sit) requires a lot more energy to move air (create sound), so generally need to be turned up louder than other elements to be of an equal perceived loudness.
Monitoring - I'm not sure what you are using to produce your music, but if your monitoring lacks bass, you may end up compensating for this by pushing the bass louder than is ideal; check against your favorite records and how they sound --- a caveat to this, is that your favorite records may be using other methods to make the bass sound loud without actually overbalancing it.
Playback devices - similar to monitoring, how listeners are hearing your records depend on playback devices, so it's important to consider how to make your bass translate on smaller systems.
From what I gather from your post, a typical assumption would be that; 1) your monitoring may not be ideal and you're overbalancing the bass 2) your mix ability may mean you're not approaching the translation in an effective way.

A final very important aspect, is to trust your taste and lean into it. IF the style/flavor of stuff you make, from other artists (or fuck it, even if it's just how you like it) is to overbalance the bass, then that is what you should follow. Though if your record is broadly not received how you intended, it may be time to rethink that.


Now, let's clear some misconceptions:
You do NOT have to sidechain kick and bass - sometimes the 808/bass/kick sound better when they sum together. Sometimes it can be a useful tool, when it's needed.
When you do need to sidechain, sometimes there are better ways of achieving this, potentially by using envelopes or manual methods.

"low cut/highpass everything to make room for the bass" --- doing this runs the risk of 'thinning out' the rest of your sounds. Yes, it can definitely be useful to be mindful of what else is occupying the low end, but if it's not affecting the bass, leave it alone. If it's affecting it, try to find a compromise.

Finally, some mixing tips:
Check the phase - phasing basically can cause two sounds to cancel each other out. Without getting too technical, you can flip/invert the phase on either your kick or bass (808) and see which 'hits' better.

Don't just 'boost the bass' --- sure, if it's missing speaker excursion, boost that until you get enough of it. If we're talking about being audible in the mix, just boosting the bass will eat up shit tonnes of headroom, and still likely not be audible to those on narrow bandwidth playback devices. To make the bass more audible without overloading the bass, try these;
- saturation
- boosting the harmonic frequencies

Another tip, often overlooked, is your arrangement itself; to have 'big bass', it can be about contrast and space... the more things you have going on in your composition, the less other elements will stand out. The less elements you have, the bigger you can make the elements you do have sound. This could simply be to do with when the elements 'hit' too.

Dynamics/groove - a lot of people just smoosh the fuck out of their shit. Doing this can lead to a really 'flat' sounding bass/mix. Really find ways to make your bass move/groove, don't just limit/saturate it into oblivion. Many do so in efforts of chasing 'loudness/bigness' and in doing so, actually lose that. A more dynamic bass will sound more '3D' and thus 'bigger'.

Re your question regarding one tone/melodic --- do whatever sounds best. You may need to be aware when doing this tho, that the bass will likely serve as the 'root note' of whatever else is playing, and can change the chord feeling. Also, if you have other low elements playing when those bass 808 notes hit, unless they're hitting the same note, it can cause an undesirable 'dissonance'


All of this should give you more than enough to consider when working on your 808/bass parts. And you should start to notice significant improvements and differences when you start applying and experimenting with it.

Hope this helps.

G'luck

~ Iron Keys