Pocketing your kick and bass can really tighten up your sound. This results in better fits for your instruments. Pocket EQing is a technique that makes small boosts and cuts in sounds that accompany the same frequencies. A common technique is taking the Q in a tight form and with a 10 db boost and sweet it across the frequency range. It is a great idea to do this will all instruments in solo mode.
Listening to each instrument by itself is a way to find the overtones, attacks, and general fundamentals. This will allow you do simple demasking with the sounds and make the mix come alive. Generally, where you give boosts in the EQ for one instrument, you cut in the other instruments’ EQ. Hence, a pocket is formed and filled with multiple instruments. For bass, a good pocket area is to dip around the 50 range. This in turns requires a boost in the 50 range for the kick. Accompany this with a slight boost/dip following after the counterpart. Reverse this on the other instrument.
Why you should pocket kick and bass
Pocketing your kick and bass will allow your mix to come across clean and punchy. When you let each instrument sit in the same frequency range comfortably, the mix turns out amazing. Kick and bass pocketing are quite common when it comes to hip hop songs. Sidechaining is similar to pocketing except pocketing can be done in very specific ranges.
When you are doing your sweeps you’re actually analyzing each fundamental frequency in your instruments. This way you can see where each instrument has it’s lowest harmonics that needs emphasizing. Finding the parts where you’re instruments can shine is very important if you want to fill up the spectrum effectively.
Conclusion
To conclude, pocketing the kick and bass can deliver a much tighter sound to your mix. If you want to really add some flavor to your bass and kicks, try boosting and dipping certain frequencies to complement each other. This EQ tip is a common technique for hip hop producers. Pocketing can be used for much more than bass and kick. It is also common in vocal mixing. Finding pockets can really boost the overall mix as you can separate each element and analyze it for yourself.