To mix a kick and 808, set the 808 about 3 dB quieter than the kick, then make only the 808’s lowest frequencies dip each time the kick hits, so the two never fight in the sub. Finish by sending both to one group track and adding a little saturation and compression to glue them together.

That’s Max’s method from the video below, and it works for trap, hip-hop and any genre with an 808 or a big sub bass. Here’s how to mix kick and 808 step by step in FL Studio, with his levels, the sidechain trick that keeps the 808 loud, and a screenshot from his videos for every click.

How to mix kick and 808, step by step

1. Pick a kick and 808 that fit, and write the 808 on the root notes of your chords.
2. Balance the levels: kick peaking around -3 dB, 808 about 3 dB under it.
3. Check the low end with a steep high cut and an oscilloscope on the master.
4. Sidechain only the 808’s low end to the kick.
5. Glue the two on one group track with saturation and a little compression.
6. Clean up with EQ, and even out the 808 notes if your genre needs it.
7. Judge it all with the whole track playing, never in solo.

Why do the kick and 808 clash?

An 808 is a bass played from a sample, and it behaves a lot like a long kick drum. Both put most of their energy in the sub, the deep low end that you feel more than you hear. When they hit at the same moment, they pile up in the same space.

Small speakers hide it. Max’s warning: “you won’t be able to hear it on smaller systems, but the low frequencies of the kick and bass clash together.” On a big system or good headphones, that clash turns into distortion on your master, or a kick that smears into a dull rumble instead of a clean hit.

That’s why Max’s first low-end rule is to have no more than one instrument playing in the subs at one time. The kick and the 808 can’t both own the sub on the same hit, so one of them has to step aside for that moment. Everything below is about making that happen without losing any punch.

Start with a kick and 808 that fit

Mixing gets much easier when the sounds already work together. Max’s rule: “Choosing better samples creates better mixes immediately.” Pick a punchy kick and an 808 that sound good against it before you reach for a single plugin. If a kick has no sub, don’t try to boost one into it, because Max says it’s much better to choose a different sample.

Then write the 808 so it supports the kick. Max plays the root notes of the chord progression, which keeps the 808 in your song’s key, and follows the rhythm of the kick, so the 808 lands with the kick hits. Some tracks even drop the kick and let the 808 carry the punch. One more rule from Max: never layer two kicks on top of each other.

How loud should the 808 be compared to the kick?

Get the balance right first. Max’s take: “if you got the balance right you’re practically halfway there.” Put the kick and the 808 on their own empty mixer tracks and watch the peak meters while they play.

Set the kick so it peaks around -3 dB. A common rule is to keep the 808 about 3 dB under the kick, so in Max’s example the 808 goes to about -6 dB. His 808 started around -9. So he turned it up.

Peak meters can fool you, though. A heavily distorted 808 reads lower on the meter but sounds louder, because the distortion squashes it. For a truer read, use a loudness meter, which measures loudness in LUFS, a unit for how loud something sounds to our ears.

Max loads the free Youlean Loudness Meter on the Current mixer track (1), which shows whichever track you’ve clicked. Click the kick’s track and read its loudness (2), then click the 808’s track. In his project the kick read about -16.5 LUFS and the 808 about -21, so he aimed the 808 at about -19. Then he finished by ear. The meter only gets you close.

How to check your low end before you fix it

Before you change anything, look at what the low end is actually doing. Max does it with two plugins on the Master track.

Add Fruity Parametric EQ 2 to the Master and turn one band into a steep high cut (1), so only the very low end gets through. Then add a free oscilloscope, a plugin that draws the waveform as it plays (2). Max uses s(M)exoscope. A clean kick shape followed by a smooth 808 is what you want to see.

Watch for two problems. A huge, overpowering shape means the kick and 808 are stacking up, and Max says that causes distortion in your mix that even cutting everything under 30 Hz won’t fix. If the kick turns into a blurry blob instead of a clear hit, that’s phasing, where the two sound waves partly cancel each other out. Both problems have the same fix, below. Take these two plugins off the Master when you’re done.

How to sidechain the kick and 808

Sidechaining means one sound controls another. Here, the kick turns the 808 down each time it hits. Whether you need it depends on your 808 sample, but Max’s default is to sidechain, unless the kick is soft and isn’t meant to cut through the mix.

Skip the classic version that ducks the whole 808, though. Max says it makes the kick pump and overpower everything, and it turns the 808 down completely, including the higher frequencies you want to keep. The better move is to dip only the 808’s lowest frequencies while the kick plays. Here are two ways to do it, and our guide to sidechaining in FL Studio covers the classic method for other sounds.

The quick way: a multiband sidechain preset

This is the way Max calls the better one, and in another video he says it takes about 5 seconds. First, send the kick to the 808: click the kick’s mixer track, right-click the small arrow at the bottom of the 808’s track, and choose Sidechain to this track.

Then load the Multiband Sidechain preset from Mix Elite’s free Patcher preset pack onto the 808’s track. It’s in the free downloads linked under Max’s videos. Everything inside is already linked, so you just turn up Low (1) until the 808’s low end gets out of the kick’s way, then adjust how long the dip lasts. If you ever want the kick to cut through even harder, Duck Full Volume (2) ducks the whole 808 in one click.

The stock way, part 1: Fruity Peak Controller on the kick

No preset? You can build the same effect with FL Studio’s own plugins, the way Max showed it back in 2019.

Add Fruity Peak Controller to the kick’s mixer track and set BASE to 50% (1). It follows the kick’s volume and turns it into a control signal that other knobs can follow. TENSION (2) and DECAY (3) shape how the dip rises and falls. Adjust them until the 808 comes back right after each kick.

The stock way, part 2: an EQ band on the 808 that follows the kick

Add Fruity Parametric EQ 2 to the 808’s track and drag the first band to about 200 Hz (1). Right-click that band’s level slider (2) and choose Link to controller. Set the internal controller to Peak ctrl – Peak and the mapping formula to Inverted, then click Accept.

Inverted means that the louder the kick gets, the lower the band goes. Now each kick pulls the 808’s lows down for a moment while the rest of the 808 keeps playing. Max describes the result as nothing changing that you can clearly hear, yet the mix has much more space. Here’s his short video of it:

How to glue the kick and 808 together

Even with the sidechain in place, the two can still sound like separate sounds. Max’s reason: “your low end doesn’t like high dynamic range.” Dynamic range is the gap between the loud and quiet parts. Big jumps in the low end make it messy, and keeping them small makes the kick and 808 feel glued together.

He prefers to fix this in the mix and keep mastering for polish only. So he sends both sounds to one group track, also called a bus, and processes them together.

Select the kick’s and the 808’s mixer tracks, then hold Ctrl and click the routing arrow at the bottom of an empty track. Both now play through it (3). Max names it 808 & Kick (1) and adds a saturation plugin to it (2), the free Saturation Knob from Softube.

Saturation adds a little distortion, and here it does two jobs at once. It squeezes the dynamic range, and it gives the kick and the 808 the same color. “It’s like an Instagram filter on top of your kick and 808,” Max says. It blends them into one sound.

Add a little compression on the group

If your saturation plugin doesn’t squash the sound much, add a compressor after it. Max points out that Fruity WaveShaper, for example, adds very little compression on its own, so it needs the help. He also shows Maximus doing the job on the low band only.

Load Maximus on the 808 & Kick track, click LOW (1), and pull its curve (2) down gently, so only the low band gets compressed. Don’t overdo it, and judge it with the whole track playing. This step is optional. Max does the same kind of thing on his master, so if your master chain already glues the low end, you can skip it.

How to EQ a kick and 808

EQ comes after the balance, and the better your samples are, the less you’ll need. These are Max’s rules from his free course and his mixing videos:

• Never cut the kick’s sub. The sidechain takes care of the clash.
• For punch, use a slight bell boost in the bass and low mids (1). For click, lift the presence and treble (2).
• Use gentle bells, never a big low shelf boost. If the kick lacks sub, choose another sample.
• If it sounds muddy or boxy, cut a little in the low mids, on the kick and on the 808.
• Boost 6 dB at most, and prefer cuts.
• Give every other bass layer a low cut at 100 Hz, so only one sound owns the sub.

Max treats the area under 250 Hz as if it’s sacred, and that sums it up. Everything you put down there has to earn its place.

Even out the 808 notes with a limiter (optional)

Different notes on an 808 or sub bass can sound louder or quieter even at the same volume. Max says evening them out matters more in EDM than in trap and hip-hop, where you might want some 808 notes to hit harder on purpose.

If you do want them even, add Fruity Limiter to the 808’s track. Play the whole 808 pattern, find the quietest note, and lower CEIL (1) until that note just barely touches it. The louder notes now get held to the same level. Then re-check the 808 against the kick, since it may sit a little lower now.

Kick and 808 mistakes to avoid

• Two sounds in the sub at once. Pick one main sub sound and low cut the rest at 100 Hz.
• Ducking the whole 808. A full-volume sidechain makes the kick pump. Duck only the low end.
• Mixing into a limiter. FL Studio’s default template puts a limiter on the master. Max has seen beginners boost the kick into it and ruin the whole track, so keep the master empty while you mix.
• Trusting peak meters alone. Distorted 808s read low and sound loud.
• Fixing a weak sample with EQ. A big low boost on a kick usually means you need a different kick.
• Layering kicks. Max never does. Layer claps or hats instead if you want more depth.
• Mixing in solo. Listen to the kick and 808 with the whole track, because that’s how people will hear them.

For more on drums that hit, read top 5 secrets for hard-hitting drums in FL Studio and the ultimate guide to mixing drums. If your whole low end still feels cloudy, see how to make your low end clean and punchy. And if you’re just starting out, begin with how to make your first beat from scratch.

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