Low end is where most tracks fall apart. Not because people cannot make a big kick, but because they make a big kick and then twelve other things that also want to live in the same eighty hertz.
Pick One Thing To Own The Bottom
Kick or bass. One of them owns it. The other works around it. That is the whole decision and most people never actually make it, they just keep adding compression until it sounds loud and hope nobody notices it is also mud.
Once you have picked, everything else gets easier. Sidechain becomes a tool instead of a crutch. You stop reaching for a high pass on every channel out of habit and start using it where it does something.
Check It Somewhere Honest
Studio monitors flatter you. Phone speakers lie to you in the other direction. Both are useful. If the groove still reads on a phone with no sub at all, the arrangement is doing its job and the low end is decoration rather than life support.
Then put it on something loud. Pressure is a physical thing. You cannot mix it by looking at a meter.
