Intermediate FL Studio Guide 808 Cutting

Try cutting frequencies in your kick to let the 808 shine and vice versa. I.E. Cut the kick 40 and below with a high pass filter, find where the kick is strong, usually 60 - 125, and do a cut there in your 808 with a thin q setting. Sometimes I will do a low pass filter on the 808 so all you hear are the low, "round" sounding bass frequencies. This takes the "punch" out of the 808 but will let the kick shine. If you happen to have Waves plug ins the Rbass plug in is SICK for bass and 808's.

There are a lot of reasons why that 808 might not sound good. There could be too much decay going on the 808 or they may be sitting in the same frequency space those would be my first guess. Cut down some decay and duck the bass under the kick and see how that works. EQ and playing in a different octave also helps.

Either you arrange your way around it, or sculpt some sonic space for the 808 to sit in with EQ & filters. Or you can use compressor sidechaining to have the relevant bits duck out of the way when the 808 hits. I'd probably start with automating a hipass filter to shave off the low end from the other bassy stuff when needed.

I would treat the 808 like I would a bassline... sidechain the 808 with the regular kick so that the 808 "ducks" when the regular kick is played. If that fails then eq the sound for space.

depends on the type of music and desired effect you want... if it's hip hop I wouldn't sidechain the 808 cuz that's not the sound you want. If this is hip hop... adjust the volume of the 808 to be 4 to 6 db lower than the kick. 808s usually have a sweetspot of about 40hz-ish, you'll want to bring an eq band up a few db in that area, and then have a little drop off around the 60-90hz range with another eq band. Then eq the kick like this, with your first band pull down a couple db in the 40hz range to emphasize the 808 you just eq'd into that range, then raise your next band where the kick's sweetspot tends to be (60-90hz usually) and a third band can be used with the kick to accentuate the mid range somewhere or roll off on the high end... whatever works for the kick in question. good luck