Mixing the Bass Guitar

[Ontological]

What are the tricks to getting the bass guitar to sit properly in the mix. I'm having a real fun time trying to figure it out. :mad:

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Deric

[mistersully]

cutting the lows of other instruments... eg vocals and guitars

 

having a decent bass guitar helps

[mhuxtable]

bass to me is one of the hardest instruments to mix. the original track is crucial. i feel like bass is the best example of you can't polish a turd.

 

hi pass & low cut filters on other things work well. a bit of compression to tighten up the sound. but bass is a tough beast. gentle EQing helps to find where it should sit.

 

did you mic? DI? Amp emulator? and it depends on the style. I like a really smooth bass that gives a good bottom end with a smooth top end. some music calls for a more aggresive sound.

 

but yeah bass is {censored}ing hard to get right.

[piersonm]

The best advice that can be given...well, mabye not. But they are the things that have helped me quite a bit.

 

1)Hi pass filter on EVERYTHING besides the bass and kick drum. Will allow more room for the bass to 'sit' in the mix.

2)150-450Hz (depends on the style/sound/song) try cutting to get more tone and less speaker humming 'energy'

3)EQ-Compress-Limit. Carve your sound (if needed), even it out and bring it up. Bass doesn't require AS much dynamics in popular music and to my ears sounds better if its just thumping away at a set volume the whole time its needed. Of course for break downs it will get pulled back but, for a majority of the time its just holding down the groove.

4)Having a system that recongnizes the lows (IE subwoofer)

5)Having a room that can handle/deal with the lows

 

And most importantly starting with good sound/equipment/player makes mixing much easier.

[Ontological]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I'll give 'em a whirl.

 

Cheers,

Deric

[Phil O'Keefe]

Bass IS tough to get to sit in the mix.

 

Kick and bass need to work together IMO. If one is going to be big and "boomy", the other should have more mids / highs to it and be less boomy; especially if the two parts are playing simultaneously ("locked") the majority of the time. In other words, they need complementary EQ; don't boost and cut both instruments at the same frequencies unless you are trying to get them to sound like a single sonic "source" or instrument - and IMO, it usually sucks if you do. If they're playing at different parts of the beat (kick on 1 and 3, bass on the offbeats) you have a little more flexibility, but that doesn't happen very often in most musical genres, so you need to make sure the sound of those two instruments work TOGETHER.

 

Low frequencies are harder for humans to hear, so getting the EQ on the kick and bass can be tricky. Pitch is also harder to differentiate at low frequencies. If you want better note / pitch definition on a bass, try a little EQ boost in the 800Hz region. Kick drums have a tendency to be a bit flabby and muddy in the 200-300Hz region - a bit of cut there can give room for the low mids of the bass. That 100- 300Hz region is where a lot of the fullness and "power" of a bass lives. Kick "attack" or "beater slap" tends to live in the 2-4kHz range. Kick fundamental is usually somewhere in the 50-80Hz range. I don't like to use a excessively "broad" EQ down that low; a somewhat "tighter" Q will allow you to goose that fundamental frequency a bit without getting too much mud in the surrounding frequencies. Bass guitar (of the four string variety) goes down to as low as about 40Hz for the low E string; I usually use a high pass filter set at about 30-35Hz on bass to get rid of the subsonic gunk.

 

As has already been mentioned, a bit of compression can help a bass sit in the mix a bit better, especially if the player has inconsistent picking control / dynamics. I'm not talking about dynamics in terms of intentionally getting louder or softer in certain sections of the song, but rather, inconsistencies in terms of "touch" in the same measure - some novice players can be pretty bad about that. However, you should be aware that if you use a fast attack time on the compressor, it WILL also have an effect on the sound of the bass in terms of the note attacks and brightness, so if the bass seems muddy and you can't get any pick / picking attack out of it, check your compression attack time and lengthen it a bit and see if that helps.

 

Another good suggestion from earlier in the thread is to use high pass filters on the other tracks in the mix. I can't give you any hard and fast rules about what frequencies to set them at, because every instrument and vocal part is different... but the idea is to set the EQ so it lets the "important" stuff through, but filters out all the unimportant stuff. Try inserting a 6 or 12dB / octave high pass filter, soloing out the part and then slowly sweeping it from 20Hz upwards. When you hear it starting to "thin out" the part, stop. Lower it a bit from there and you should be good. Doing that to everything other than stuff that needs to "live on the bottom" (kick and bass being the two most common "bottom" elements in many genres, but some keyboard and synth parts need to have lots of lows too, so your mileage may vary) will "clean up" the bottom and leave more room in the mix for the bass and kick.

 

Another thing that can cause a lot of mud in the lows is effects. I like to use high pass filters on my reverb and delay returns too... a lot of the time, to me, anything below 300-500Hz on a verb tends to just muddy things up without adding anything positive to the sound. Again... YMMV. For similar reasons, I almost never add time based (verb / delay) effects to low frequency instruments like kick, and I proceed with extreme caution in terms of adding things like that to a bass. Of course, if you're doing orchestral stuff, then the sound of the hall is going to be expected on your contrabass parts, so as always, there are NO hard and fast rules to any of this stuff...

[Phil O'Keefe]

Oh, one more thing - as you're already read, the bass itself makes a HUGE difference. Just as you'll never get a deep dish snare to sound like a piccolo snare (without resorting to samples / drum replacement techniques), so too will you obtain nothing but frustration and failure if you try to get the bridge pickup of a Jazz bass with round wound strings to sound just like Jamerson's Motown tones; which used a Precision bass and flat wound strings... IOW, the sound starts at the source; always do whatever you can to optimize it there first. And that means if you can get the player to play more consistently, or if you can alter the kick and bass parts so they "fight" less with each other and work more complementary with the rest of the mix and arrangement, then IMO that should be the first thing you consider doing...

[Flogger59]

The player is the biggest part of this. I struggled with bass until I recorded my current bassist, who is a retired studio pro. Every note hits -6db, every time. He's unbelievably consistent.

[UstadKhanAli]

It's amazing how much easier it is to mix bass when the player is really great. Everything is groovin' and in time and has perfect dynamics and tone.

 

Agreed with the other posts. And yes, the high pass filter is your friend.

[Lee Knight]

I struggle with a certain type of bass sound. I can get a groovy, vibey old fashioned sound. Motown. A punk or metal sound, etc. The one that escapes me is that FAT pop sound you might hear on a Colby Colait album. Just huge and warm and soft and pillowy.

 

I love that sound for some stuff and have been unable to nail it...

[jackcheez]

The key to this mix is in the recording.

 

Just huge and warm and soft and pillowy. I love that sound for some stuff and have been unable to nail it...

 

This is cheating, but...

[Lee Knight]

Yes, I believe that is the bass you were planing on gifting me for my 51st birthday. right?

[betamatt]

Every now and then with bass, especially if the player does not have good dynamic control, it's worth trying extreme compression. Try an opto-flavored compressor with up to 10db gain reduction. The key to trying this technique I find is to start with way too much compression, and then slowly back the threshold control off till you start to hear the bass sit, but the low notes do not boom out of the mix. I know this sounds like amateur hour, but I know a brilliant mixer who does this ALL the time (to some great bass players, too), and his mixes still sound open and dynamic and have a HUGE low end. Another trick I picked up from this same engineer is to not use a high pass filter on the bass, but instead use a low shelf set between 25 and 45Hz (where depends on the mix and the bass sound) and then just turn the gain down on that low shelf until you feel the bass sound tighten up. If you set this right you won't lose the fundamental heft of the bass, and if the sound needs it you can even boost that region if it needs it. Be sure to leave enough low-mids on the bass for it to sound fat on smaller speaker systems - it's no good if your mix only sounds big on full-range monitors.

 

These should help, but the biggest problem is being able to hear the low end of your mix at all, and even in a decent room that's going to take some familiarity with the monitoring. Expect this to take time, trial and error, and a lot of different mixes. Keep checking reference material that you know has the bottom end you're going for, and keep checking your mixes in the car, home systems, boomboxes, etc.

[PKTrono]

everything said about high passing any tracks without too much going on in the bass' range is a big help.

works wonders.

[WRGKMC]

Unlike what everyone else said, I find the bass, the one thing I dont have to mess with at all any more besides adjust volume.

 

If you record alot of different players with different rigs you're going to have all kinds of gain and tonal issues and all will have their own separate fixes.

 

90% of the bass is my own tracking in my case, and since I been playing and recording bass for many decades, I can say knowing how to play bass is a big part of the puzzel.

 

The next item is having the bass properly setup, Perfect intonation, string type, Pup height, action, etc.

 

The other is tracking with the exact tone you need so no other tweaks are nessasary. Over time I've used EQs, Preamps, Compressors, limiters, DI's, Amps miced and Amps line outs.

 

Lately I been using a small Bass amp modeler that will give me a variety of cabinet and amp tones.

 

Lastly, plugging in direct and listening to the bass while tracking through the monitors is a big key factor. You can dial in exact tone if you can hear the exact tone you're going to get. I usually have several other sets of monitors running as well so I can get the sound loud enough to play well.

 

Thats it. If it sounds great tracking, it sounds great in the mix with the ways I have things set. From there I will tweak the rest of the mix. I dont adjust the bass to fit the mix I adjust the mix to fit the bass bacause tonally its great for most things. If I want sonething more trebbly for example, I'll track that way with a different guitar or different tone dialed in.

 

I used to track with headphones and always had tone and gain issues. Then I would have to tweak things to get the bass in its proper zone.

[Lee Knight]

There is reason the stereotype of "the bassist" is that stoned, mellow cat with beret. Bass is really all about how you touch it it and feel it. So I agree with the above...

 

Plug straight in and make the sound you want happen with your fingers. Don't eff it up with processing and it's there.

 

Having said said that, sometimes I also love slamming the living breath out it it. As mentioned above/above...

 

EQ tends to come into to play when you didn't make the sound you wanted right at the start. But if you're paying attention and listening, it's pretty straight ahead.

[nerol1st]

Good tracking and great playing first (fret buzz, dead notes, etc are all bass killers)

Getting rid of the right mids

Boosting the right highs

Boosting the right lows

Dumping the farty frequencies

 

Kind of like a kick drum, but different.

[WRGKMC]

I used to have more issues getting the kick to match than the bass. In the past year I been tracking with a sub kick speaker and mic and most of those issues have gone away as well.

 

I choose to use a very lightweight paper coned 8" Altec speaker and it picks up from the lowest lows to 1K or more clearly. The regular mic handels all the other mids and highs. I can then just simply adjust the two volumes of the two to get the tone I want and never have to touch an EQ. I may compress it a bit if my drummers kick is inconsistant, but thats on the rare side (when he's fatigued).

 

In fact the only time I do EQ is for low FQ rolloff on toms or snare to limit kick bleedover. I may also tinker with it if my guitar lows are unbalanced. We record with two separate amps each so the volumes of two sources can be used as an EQ to balance tone like the kick.

 

Vocals may be the exception. I do alot of live recording of Rehursals using the PA inserts. Dynamic mics arent the best under live conditions close micing. Vocals dont have the best dynamics nor does the singer provide the best tone working with a live mic. Plugins usually consist of comps to correct dynamic inconsistancies and EQing I may target bleedover or tone inhancement from a live mic.

 

Where I do use EQing is using multiband limiting on the master bus. I'm not too worried about a few bass notes being a littel loud, or a snare hit a littel less strong than others. I know a multiband can fix all of those up plus more.

 

This is where knowing your tools comes in. I could go to each track, solo them and even up every single note in a track manually. This takes alot of time and a signal can be degraded by fixing every peak or by adding additional track plugins. If I can even up all the frequencies of the mix at once with a single plugin I'm more likely to use that then to bust ass micromanaging the tracks.

 

 

Then, If after setting up the multiband properly, I find some parts that arent smoothed enough by it alone, I'll go to the tracks and tweak on tracks.

[Mixerman]

The bass can be the most difficult part to get right in your mix. It

[Mixerman]

 

everything said about high passing any tracks without too much going on in the bass' range is a big help. works wonders.

 

 

I would advise against filtering the extension of your bottom end on the bass with an HPF unless there is some sort of problem. I can recall using a filter on the bass maybe two times in the past two decades. This sort of treatment should be used as a fix, not a modus operandi.

 

When I produced Pete Murray's See the Sun album in Australia several years back, every channel on the Neve sidecar had the HPF engaged up to 60 Hz (it might have been set even higher than that!). The assistant watched with great fascination as one of the first things I did on day one was to click every filter off before setting my pres. Apparently, recording with HPFs in-line was standard operating procedure in that studio and even the country on the whole (exceptions to the rule notwithstanding). Being a top notch assistant, he waited until the end of the day to asked me WHY I would turn off the high pass filters. In turn, I asked him WHY I would want to limit that kind of information. I mean, if there's a problem where low end interaction between instruments is concerned, I'm going to hear it and can adjust my mic placement accordingly.

 

Enjoy,

 

Mixerman

[WRGKMC]

Dont rule out manual attenuation over just slapping a compressor either. If the performance was good and retracking not possible, you can stretch the view of the track while listening and have a pencil and paper out and solo the part. Write down the time codes of the areas that need fixing.

 

Then go back, select the specific notes and adjust gains, use envelopes to smooth bad attacks/sustains, use a parametric filter and liven up dead notes and that kind of stuff. Most daws will allow you to process a selected portion of the wave. It can be a tedious process, but to get the best results possible, thats what needs to be done. I've even taken single bad notes, cut them from another part of the song and pasted them over a sour note. theres no reason to degrade an entire track running a harmonizer just to fix a sour note or two. just find the same note someplace in the song, copy, shape and paste it in.

 

You may also have notes that are late or early. You can highlight specific notes and shift they're timing in a cut and paste move and fix bass and kick to tighten up the timing. The difference between all the instruments hitting the notes on a break beat or that last ending chord can make all the difference in the world between a song sounding tight or sloppy.

[PKTrono]

 

I would advise against filtering the extension of your bottom end on the bass with an HPF unless there is some sort of problem. I can recall using a filter on the bass maybe two times in the past two decades. This sort of treatment should be used as a fix, not a modus operandi .

 

 

aye, i didn't mean on the bass track. i meant for some things like guitar tracks that may have hum down there, etc

[Mixerman]

 

aye, i didn't mean on the bass track. i meant for some things like guitar tracks that may have hum down there, etc

 

 

I understand, but filters are a drastic and generally undesirable way of tailoring low end unless you have to remove unwanted artifacts.

 

Mixerman

[Lee Knight]

Whoa, it's Mixerman. I look forward to checking out your new book. Looks very interesting. Please keep us posted.

[gregovertone]

i'm a fan routing it to a bass for some heavy processesing and compression.

 

i'll set the comp to sidechain....listening to the kick drum.

 

works great!