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Hello there!

My question for today is regarding getting the perfect sound of the bass guitar with the kick drum in Pro Tools.

I want my bass guitar sounds to sound like they are coming directly out of the kick drum. I want the bass guitar and the kick drum to be in perfect sync.

What is your suggestion? Side Chaining maybe?

Let me know please!

You can use the sidechain on an expander to enhance the bass guitar note everytime the kick is played.

Or use it the otherway round on a compressor to duck the bass guitar everytime the kick plays.

OR

If they are not in perfect sync then re-record them for the best results.

Also using EQ to get the two parts to sit together always helps.

Experiment and have fun.

A

Could you tell me exactly how this could be done. What exact steps in Pro Tools would I take? lets just use a kick drum track and bass track for reference.

What steps should I take to use the side chain here?

sounds like you want the bass to come in with the kick to reinforce it.
1 put a noise gate on the bass track.
2 send the output of the kick track to a bus for example bus 5 (you can create multiple outputs on a track by ctrl clicking on the output
3 set the key of the gate to the same bus (in our example 5)
4 set a fast attack on the gate, adjust the threshhold so the gate is triggered by the kick, now you can adjust the release to control how long the bass plays after the kick comes in.

(try making a TR-808 kick drum sound this way, with a 60hz sine wave for the bass part)