Getting the bass right

[PonE-Sharp]

So I have this clip here:
https://soundcloud.com/pone-sharp/rock-thing-revised/s-g3YI7
And it seems to be brighter than I'd like no matter what I do. I have plenty of bass in there, but if I make it too loud it overpowers the rest of the song. The 'space' it SHOULD occupy seem very vacant as well. The only way I can describe it is like when you wear headphones, it should be the sounds you would hear near the back end of them, to give it that complete full sound.

A track I've noticed does a very good job at this and a good comparison of what I mean is Ken Ashcorps Rival


As you can see, there is a clear difference in fullness. I've equalized the bass to cut out the higher frequencies, and vise versa with the mid and high instruments to give it its own space, but I still can't fill that void in the back!

[ph00tbag]

It's a combination of things. Your guitar and hats are too loud, and your bass isn't loud enough. You may also want some compression on you bass to make the attack stand out more, and to give the bass more punch.

Generally, there's only one dimension that the ears distinguish for bass, and that's the volume, so when you make it louder, the ears tend to hear it as being more pervasive, and you don't need any stereo tricks to make that happen.

[PonE-Sharp]

It's a combination of things. Your guitar and hats are too loud, and your bass isn't loud enough. You may also want some compression on you bass to make the attack stand out more, and to give the bass more punch.

Generally, there's only one dimension that the ears distinguish for bass, and that's the volume, so when you make it louder, the ears tend to hear it as being more pervasive, and you don't need any stereo tricks to make that happen.

So something more like this?
http://soundcloud.com/pone-sharp/rock-thing-guitar-hat-bass-fix/s-tK9hg

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Use a bass enhancer like XBass4000 or UpStereo. They can really saturate your basses well and, if you don't overdo it, they shouldn't make it overpower the rest of the song.

[Captain Ironhelm]

These may not be a problem with your song, I'll let you decide. Just some random ideas:

a speaker that's working hard to produce a huge bass won't be able to hit the higher range quite as well regardless of how much "free space" seems to be available in the frequency spectrum, although a subwoofer can help, but don't rely on the listener to have one. it can only vibrate so much. (So many modern movies sound quite muddy on a lot of systems because of this imo)
making sure each instrument is EQd right (high hats really don't need a sub-bass range,and other stuff like that) can help clear up the frequencies.
also just because something shows up in the frequency spectrum doesn't mean it will sound like it looks. For instance, simply boosting the lower frequencies until it looks huge on a high-hat probably won't give your song the punch you want. You could test around with rolling off a lot of the bass range, and dropping in a bass sine wave in the area to provide your low end. If you have too much low end with a bass instrument, you can impact the punch of your kicks, so if you have a lot of a bass range outside of the kicks, sidechaining can help, or simply choosing a different kick that is more snappy and focuses on higher range.
Go by your ear, because in the end that what's important. If it sounds good, nobody cares what the frequency spectrum looks like.
also if you have multiple instruments competing for the spotlight in a frequency range, you're just asking for a muddy mix.

[cloudshovit]

^^^ this. also try getting the volumes of all the tracks first before even EQing. Get them to sound as good before on a low volume so won't be clipping.