How to Mix Kick and Bass Automatically

You have a kick that hits and a bass that rolls, and together they still don’t sound like a finished record. You could spend the evening on gain staging, a sidechain compressor, an EQ on the sub, a polarity check and a limiter. Or you could let one plugin measure the loop and set all of it in a few seconds, then decide with your ears whether you keep it.

Below are the real readouts from three sessions (psytrance, high-tech minimal and techno), what exactly changed, how to do it, and the two extra layers that turn a clean low end into a full one.

Before and After on Three Real Loops

These are the readouts exactly as the plugin showed them after one click. Nothing was tweaked afterwards. Very different starting points, the same destination: the kick about 3 dB over the bass, the pair near −11 dBFS, room for the kick after every hit, and peaks under −1 dBTP.

High-tech minimal, 125 BPM, 2 bars

The bass was louder than the kick (KICK-BASS −2.5 dB) and the pair was too hot at −8.3 dBFS. The plugin brought the kick down 0.95 dB and the bass down 3.45 dB, which put the kick 3 dB on top and freed 3.6 dB of headroom. The bass moves under the kick, so the phase changed on almost every beat: 73°, 3°, 131°, 131°, −1°, −126°, −8° and −126°.

High-tech minimal	Before	After
SCORE	61	81
KICK-BASS	−2.5 dB	+3.0 dB
LEVEL	−8.3 dBFS	−11.9 dBFS
GAP (after)	−10.4 dB
PEAK (after)	−1.5 dBTP
Phase per beat (after)	7 beats with their own angle

Psytrance, 142 BPM, 1 bar

The opposite problem: the kick was too far over the rolling bass. The plugin raised the bass 3.57 dB and the kick 0.89 dB, landing KICK-BASS at +3.5 dB, with a gentle −2 dB shelf on the sub. Every beat received the same 121° rotation, because the bass repeats the same pattern under each kick.

Psytrance	Before	After
SCORE	62	78
KICK-BASS	+6.5 dB	+3.5 dB
LEVEL	−11.9 dBFS	−11.0 dBFS
GAP (after)	−9.1 dB
PEAK (after)	−2.7 dBTP
Phase per beat (after)	121° on all 4 beats

Techno, 125 BPM, 2 bars

The lowest starting score of the three. The bass sat over the kick and the pair ran hot. After AUTO MIX the kick was 3 dB on top, the sum came down to −11.5 dBFS, and four beats got their own phase angle (115°, 28°, 0° and −8°) while the others shared one.

Techno	Before	After
SCORE	43	76
KICK-BASS	−2.5 dB	+3.0 dB
LEVEL	−8.3 dBFS	−11.5 dBFS
GAP (after)	−6.3 dB
PEAK (after)	−1.5 dBTP
Phase per beat (after)	4 beats with their own angle

// Hear it

Three Loops, Before and After

Press play and flip between BEFORE and AFTER. AFTER is one AUTO MIX plus a BASS TEXTURES mid-bass layer. Both go through the same master chain, so listen to the low end, not the overall loudness.

High-tech minimalBeforeAfter

HouseBeforeAfter

TechnoBeforeAfter

PsytranceBeforeAfter

What Gets Set When You Mix Kick and Bass Automatically

Kick & Bass Auto Mix listens to the bars you choose and sets six things, all measured on renders through its own processing, so the numbers describe what you hear:

• Levels. The kick lands about 3 dB RMS over the bass (accepted range 2.5 to 4 dB), and kick plus bass sit around −11 dBFS RMS together. Each track is measured only where it plays, so silence between notes does not fool the meter.
• Sidechain. Only the bass below 130 Hz ducks under each kick, from 0 to 24 dB. The duck follows the real kick signal, not a drawn curve, and its release is synced to the tempo. The bass above 130 Hz keeps its level, so the groove stays audible.
• Tone. A small low shelf shared by kick and bass, a balance between the bass sub and its top (up to ±3 dB), and a 30 Hz high-pass on the kick only when its deep rumble is clearly too loud.
• Mono low end. If the bass has stereo content below 120 Hz, that part is folded to mono. The kick is left as it is.
• Phase per beat. Each kick gets its own phase rotation of the bass, with no time shift. The full story is in how to align kick and bass phase in one click.
• Peak ceiling. The kick, the bass and their sum stay at or below −1 dBTP. If needed, peaks are soft-clipped a little; if that is not enough, the level stays below target instead of going over the ceiling.

Two safety rules sit on top. No beat is allowed to cancel more than 1.5 dB more (30 to 150 Hz, under the kick) than the plain level-matched tracks, and if nothing scores better than your original, nothing changes.

How to Mix Kick and Bass Automatically, Step by Step

1. KICK on the kick, BASS on the bass

Load one instance on the kick channel and set it to KICK. It adds no latency. Load a second instance on the bass channel and set it to BASS: this is the one that listens to both tracks and does the mixing. It adds about 80 ms of latency, which your DAW reports and compensates. Work on audio tracks when you can (bounce MIDI synths in place first); if something before the plugin adds latency, type that total into PRE-LATENCY.

2. Choose the bars and press AUTO MIX

Loop the section where kick and bass play the way they will in the drop, choose 1, 2 or 4 bars and press AUTO MIX. The plugin listens to those bars, analyses every beat and applies the result in a few seconds.

3. Listen, compare, keep or undo

Press play and flip A/B: the kick track switches on the same beat, so you compare like for like. If you want less of the result, lower AMOUNT. If you don’t want it at all, the X on the AUTO MIX button undoes it and returns to your settings.

// Watch

The Full Mix on Real Loops

Every setting from this guide in one walkthrough: AUTO MIX, the SCORE, BASS TEXTURES, STABS and the exports, on psytrance and techno loops.

Kick & Bass Mixed in ONE CLICK (Phase Alignment, Volume, Sidechain) | Kick & Bass Auto Mix VST3/AU

Extra Steps: Add a Mid Bass and Stabs

Once the kick and bass sit right, two more tabs unlock. They are optional, but this is where a clean low end turns into a full one. Both read the notes of your bass, so whatever they add stays in key and in time with your groove.

BASS TEXTURES: a mid-bass layer that follows your notes

Switch TEXTURES ON and the plugin plays wavetable voices on top of your bass, following its notes and velocities step by step. The layer is wide on top and mono underneath, so it adds size without touching the mono sub, and while it plays, the root bass above 130 Hz is turned down to make room. Press the dice for a new sound, or shape it yourself:

• WAVE: the oscillator shape (SAW, SQUARE, SUPER, FM, SPECTRAL or FOLD), plus WT POS to scan the wavetable.
• FILTER, AUTO and the LFO: the brightness, how much it moves on its own, and an LFO you can send to the filter or the wavetable position.
• NOISE and DIRT: grit and air layered on top.
• DIMENSION, REVERB and WIDTH: the space and the stereo spread.
• GATE, DUCK and LEVEL: how long each note rings, how much it ducks under the kick, and how loud the layer sits.
• PAN and OCT: where the layer sits in the stereo field and which octave it plays.

Here is a mid-bass layer on the techno loop, with the same kick and bass underneath:

STABS: short hits generated from the bassline

Switch STABS ON and the plugin writes short stab hits from your bass notes and mixes them into the groove. VOICING chooses octaves or fifths, OCTAVE sets the register, DENSITY adds or removes notes, and the stabs have their own DUCK so they breathe with the kick. The dice next to STABS ON rolls a whole new stab layer (pattern, wave and sound), while the PATTERN dice changes only where the stabs play.

Export everything as separate layers

When you like the result, drag the treated kick and bass out of the plugin as 32-bit float WAV files, cut to the analysed bars. Together, those two exports rebuild the mix without the plugin. The bass with its textures and the stabs export the same way, so you can free the CPU, send stems to a collaborator, or keep building the track on top.

Reading the Score

After AUTO MIX, the readout shows each value before and after. Green means inside the target range.

Readout	What it tells you
SCORE	0 to 100. The average of 8 low-end measures compared with reference ranges measured on professional club loops. 100 means every measure is inside its range.
KICK-BASS	How much louder the kick is than the bass (RMS, in dB). Target about +3 dB.
LEVEL	Kick and bass together (RMS). Target −11 dBFS.
GAP	How far the sub drops right after the kick, relative to the bass plateau: the room the sidechain makes for the kick.
PEAK	True peak of the result, kept at −1 dBTP or lower.
RELEASE	The sidechain release, in beats, shown when a sidechain was applied.

The score is a guide, not a grade for your track. It tells you whether the kick and bass relationship sits where finished club records usually sit. Your ears still decide.

AMOUNT and A/B: the Decision Stays Yours

AMOUNT sets how much of the whole AUTO MIX you hear, from 0 % (your original kick and bass) to 100 %. It scales the levels, the sidechain, the tone, the mono and the phase together. If the result feels a little too polished for the track, try 60 or 70 % to keep part of the original character.

A/B switches between the original (BEFORE) and the mix (AFTER), with the kick track switching on the same beat. Listen at the same volume and in the context of the full track, not only the solo loop.

After AUTO MIX you can still fine-tune: the phase knobs and the beat strip change the rotation globally or for a single beat, and DUCKING adds a manual, LFO-style pump on the whole bass if you want an audible pumping effect. AUTO MIX never sets DUCKING for you.

// Manual vs one click

By Hand vs AUTO MIX

	Manual	One click
Levels	Faders and meters, checked by ear	Kick about 3 dB over the bass, pair near −11 dBFS
Sidechain	Routing, a compressor and a release set by ear	Sub only (below 130 Hz), driven by the real kick, release synced to tempo
Phase	Polarity flip or one rotator setting	A rotation for every beat, 0 ms time shift
Mono and peaks	Utility plugins and a limiter	Bass mono below 120 Hz, everything at or under −1 dBTP
Time per loop	From half an hour to an evening	A few seconds
Control	Full, by hand	AMOUNT, A/B, per-beat knobs and undo

When Automatic Is the Wrong Tool

• Distortion is the point. If the kick and bass are meant to smash into each other (hard techno, some industrial sounds), a clean balance may remove the very thing you were after.
• The bass should fight the kick. Some grooves rely on the bass pushing against the kick on purpose. Use a lower AMOUNT or skip it.
• The sounds clash in pitch. No level or phase setting fixes a kick tail tuned a semitone away from the bassline. Tune the kick first.
• Only part of the track was analysed. The per-beat phase applies to the bars you analysed; the rest of the track uses the dominant setting. If another section has a different bassline, run AUTO MIX on that section too.

If you want to mix kick and bass in one click and keep every decision reversible, that is exactly what Kick & Bass Auto Mix was built for.

// Short clips

The Mix in Short Clips

Quick looks at the same workflow: before, one click, after.

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