10 Simple Music Marketing Tips For Indie Artists

We live in a strange time. With the internet exploding in exponential chaos, we find almost all aspects of our lives are splintering to take new shapes and forms because of this hyper-connectivity. The music industry-and the artists creating within it-finds itself in a place of constant change. Finding target demographics is now a breeze with the multitudes of analytic software available. Music has changed from primarily physical product to almost completely digital. Traditional marketing has turned to social media marketing and branding for guidance.

How to Make Bass Guitar and Bass Drum Cut Through the Mix

TECHNIQUE 1: COMPRESSION AND GATING.

For bass, you can really squeeze the signal and still have the audio sound good and healthy. With a lot of compression you may bring up the level of unwanted noise at the parts the bass isn't playing, so remember to edit those parts out or use a gate to silence them.

For the kick drum, especially with a live recorded drumset, you can really tighten it up with a gate. Try setting the ratio to 100:1, having a pretty short attack time and have a 200 millisecond release time. (It varies per song.) It's important to blend this once long decaying kick drum into the overhead mic(s) to have a natural drum sound and not to make the drums sound too gated and dead. After using a gate on my bass drum I usually don't apply compression but if you want, throw on a compressor and use a slow attack time and fast release, and then visa versa, see which one makes your particular kick drum sound punchier and cut through the mix more.