How much do you typically roll off bottom end on bass?

[UstadKhanAli]

I know, I know...if it sounds good, it is good...

 

But still...I did a session where I miced a bass cabinet with a Heil PR40 going through a Peavey VMP-2 tube mic preamp (I don't believe I had the bass roll-off engaged, but if I did, it would have been set for 40Hz) and then through a FMR RNLA through Apogee converters. Great sound. I was recording a really loud psychedelic band, very heavy, with busy drums, loud mostly distorted guitars, etc.

 

When I went to mix down, I kept having to roll off the bottom to make it all sound good. I used a Waves REQ plug-in with a HPF, kept going, kept going until I was at somewhere around 140Hz (!) with a very very easy (not steep) roll-off before I got something that sounded manageable. That's not a typo. Not 40Hz, 140Hz. And it *still* sounded really warm. I've never had to set an HPF this high before on bass cabinets. I also had to boost the mids about 1.5dB to get it to really sound great.

 

It fits in the mix really well, and the band was beyond ecstatic with the mixes. But I still can't help but be a little concerned with such a high HPF setting. It sounds good, it's very present and warm...just weird. And yes, I could hear the HPF working, so it's not on bypass or anything like that.

 

What do you typically set your HPF at for bass cabinets when mixing? Just curious.

[Hulston Prickle]

I only started doing this recently and it varies. I usually do a spectrum analysis on the kick drum to see it's fundamental and where the energy concentrates, then set the hpf on the bass a little above that. Then I shift it up and down until the bass and kick set together. Usually this is around 80 Hz or so. Hey, if 140 Hz sounds good, blah blah blah.

 

The bigger deal is finding the root of the song and the cooresponding frequency in the 150-250 or so range, and then I scoop that out of the bass. Then, I'll boost the corresponsing midrange frequency a little for more presence in the mix. Let's say the song is in "A", so I'll scoop around 220 and boost at either 1100 or 2200, whichever sounds better.

 

Listening to some of my favorite albums flat through my studio monitors I found bass guitars are more "thin" than you think they would be, but it makes sense in the mix and sounds good once you compensate for it and crank the bass on your home stereo.

[MrJoshua]

Depends on the type of music. If I'm going for a cutting rock bass tone (think Appetite for Destruction) then there isn't a whole lot of low end on the bass at all. It just depends.

[UstadKhanAli]

It's almost like I'm seeking validation...but no, it sounds good this way, I'm more curious as to what others have done! I appreciate the great comments.

[Lee Knight]

I've never used a HPF that high on the bass but I have done some pretty intensive notching or even mild scooping with a wider Q. The most common culprit is technique. The guy is letting the other strings ring ever so slightly that while you hear the fundamental note, it's never clear and always comes off sounding muddy or boomy.

 

Or the bass itself. He's got one string set so it booms out louder than the rest.

 

Or the cab. A cheap, oddly resonate piece of...

 

Or the room it was recorded in.

 

I like your post Hulston Prickle. And while I use something similar to your technique of finding the kick fundamental, instead of using the HPF there, I tend to notch out a little there on the bass if needed. I find a lot of kicks's fundemental at around 80 and that's too high for my taste to be filtering out bass guitar.

 

Using a spectrum display on bass guitar is helpful to find the crazy resonance as well. As it's playing different notes you can see the the energy moving with the notes. But there's a range where the amplitude is so far above the rest of the line. Try a little dip with a Q wide enough to pull that area back a bit.

[UstadKhanAli]

I like this post from a while back also. Very useful.

 

Are the posts on this forum eventually archived?

 

 

That thread in the 2nd post above is excellent. I've been playing bass onstage since I was 15... and I'm 49 now. One thing I've learned is a fat yet punchy and articulate bass sound doesn't usually come from boosting lows. ??? The fundamental frequencies of those notes are down there already. That low E is 41.2 Hz. And as pointed out in the link above, the old stand up basses tended to have a resonant freq at around 100Hz. As luck would have it, the electric tends to do the same thing. The bass resonates at 100 Hz or so. And the frequency of the notes start at 41... why are we boosting there? Want more lows? Turn the instrument up. Too clacky? Turn the clacky down. Too metallic? Consider moving away from as bright a string and rethink the bass a little. So they recommend cutting around 100 (or wherever you hear the resonance) and boosting a bit at twice the frequency. In the thread he give the example of cutting 100 and boosting 200. Try it. This is another reason I've taken to flats recently. They sound great with a mild cut down there and a plumping up at around 200 and a bit of boost at 700-900. No clack, just tone. All of a sudden I'm hearing the tone off many records I've loved over the years.

 

[Zooey]

I've high-passed bass guitar up past 100hz with some rock and punk bands. If you've got a busy bassist who is playing guitar-like lines with a pick, it's kind of hard to avoid. If that's the sound that's called for and I'm not getting it from the track, more often than not I'll go straight for a Sansamp or other amp sim. No sense being precious about it.

[Flogger59]

Originally Posted by Lee Knight View Post

That thread in the 2nd post above is excellent. I've been playing bass onstage since I was 15... and I'm 49 now. One thing I've learned is a fat yet punchy and articulate bass sound doesn't usually come from boosting lows.

 

???

 

The fundamental frequencies of those notes are down there already. That low E is 41.2 Hz. And as pointed out in the link above, the old stand up basses tended to have a resonant freq at around 100Hz. As luck would have it, the electric tends to do the same thing. The bass resonates at 100 Hz or so. And the frequency of the notes start at 41... why are we boosting there? Want more lows? Turn the instrument up. Too clacky? Turn the clacky down. Too metallic? Consider moving away from as bright a string and rethink the bass a little.

 

So they recommend cutting around 100 (or wherever you hear the resonance) and boosting a bit at twice the frequency. In the thread he give the example of cutting 100 and boosting 200. Try it.

 

This is another reason I've taken to flats recently. They sound great with a mild cut down there and a plumping up at around 200 and a bit of boost at 700-900. No clack, just tone. All of a sudden I'm hearing the tone off many records I've loved over the years.

 

 

The Big Bottom feature on the Aural Exciter Type C worked by doing just what the above post says. It cuts the fundamental and boosts the next octave or two. The brain extrapolates the fundamental from the harmonics.

[D Charles]

Well, I saw 'Yes' among other bands in the 70's who used Marshall bass amps and they sounded hi passed way above 140 Hz. The Marshall is just a treble monster but the blend was good so if that's what the song (or band) needs, then it's cool.

[Lee Knight]

 

Well, I saw 'Yes' among other bands in the 70's who used Marshall bass amps and they sounded hi passed way above 140 Hz. The Marshall is just a treble monster but the blend was good so if that's what the song (or band) needs, then it's cool.

 

 

But, Chris Squire did use another source along with that Marshall for his low end. Another amp I believe. Not DI. I recall seeing s detailed out description of how he got the Roundabout sound. 2 souces. One of those was the Marshall.

[MojoDog]

Great thread - especially like the stuff on using the frequency analyzer

[nerol1st]

Around 50 Hz

 

I record some pretty stupid low bass though. If it's a bass that's in standard E, I roll up quite a bit higher.

[alcohol]

I find a high pass filter around 67 is typical. For some deep bass music, sometimes in the low 40s. I like to scoop bass around 250 to 350 too.

 

Usually I bring the high pass frequency up until I hear it affecting the tone negatively and then bring it back down a spec.

[Joe Gilder]

I tend to start off with a high-pass around 100-150. I dial in the bass tone that I want, then roll back the HPF until it adds just the right amount of low end. I used to boost 60-100 by default and go from there, but that seemed to cause more problems than help things.

[Beck]

Generally everything below 40 Hz... sometimes 60 Hz, for genres from Classical to Rock.

 

I don

[Joe Gilder]

 

...makes a car emit something sounding like a giant insect mating call... pretty much what it is, in fact.

 

 

HA!

[Lee Knight]

Managing bass is an art and will make you lose your hair.

 

 

 

 

that... I'd be doing it.

 

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[WRGKMC]

""But, Chris Squire did use another source along with that Marshall for his low end. Another amp I believe. Not DI. I recall seeing s detailed out description of how he got the Roundabout sound. 2 souces. One of those was the Marshall"".

 

Lee, Chris used passive caps in series with his pickups to remove the lower frequencies. This would allow him to drive an amp like a guitarist would because a good portion of the low end was gone.

 

Many Rickenbacker guitars used to do this for their trebble pickups in both guitars and bases to get more tonal variation between the neck and bridge pups.

 

I did this to a short scale bass of my own. It had a real nice humbucker pup in it for the mids and lows, so I added a jazz bridge pickup to it for a littel extra highs. It didnt sound as good as I wanted plus the HB and single coil pots didnt balance very good. The single pup sensitivity if the pots made it difficult to adjust the volumes between the two.

 

Then I finally added the cap to the bridge pup and it made the two balance perfectly. I think the cap value was eithe .1 or .047uf if I remember right. It basically adds what a normal tone cap removes on a bass.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It really depends on the genre, the bass, and the overall sound. I normally am not going to have a HPF up in the 100 -200 Hz range though, unless the thing is just extremely bass heavy and boomy. Normally, it's going to be down in the 30-40 Hz range. The kick / bass interaction is going to have a lot to do with it. You can't have them boosted or concentrated in the same frequency range and get away with it most of the time... if the bass is going to be a low drone, thick and heavy tone, then usually it is going to work with a clickier, punchier kick, or vise versa.

[Jesse G]

 

Using a spectrum display on bass guitar is helpful to find the crazy resonance as well. As it's playing different notes you can see the the energy moving with the notes. But there's a range where the amplitude is so far above the rest of the line. Try a little dip with a Q wide enough to pull that area back a bit.

 

 

I'm intrigued by the idea of using sprectral analysis to give an idea of how you want to EQ, or whatnot. Sounds like somthing I'd really dig, which analyzers do you use and how do you use them? I don't really know much about them..

[Lee Knight]

Elemental Audio freebie.

 

Or I'll open the file over on my PC in HarBal for a great peek into its frequency content. the Har Bal display is sort of backwards from a standard analyzer. It takes the whole file and shows you an average over time but in a static view. There is no bouncing display.Only a static one from the average. The benefit of this of course is that the display is also an eq. Grab the resonance in the display and tame it. But it's not a plug in so it's only offline, so to speak.

 

Just grab the Elemental Audio one for free and go to town.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I really wish they could make a plugin version of Har-Bal.

[WRGKMC]

From what I read they are working on a vst compatible plugin, but because of how it scans and renders files its not a real time plugin as other plugins are. It is a very useful tool for analizing and equalizing completed mixdowns and well worth the $99. It will identify monitor issues and room resonance problems pretty quickly and works well as a multipoint eq too.

 

Whats nice about the EQ is you can adjust the frequencies without boosting the overall volume. It can also use it for matching percieved loudness which is very nice for getting the volume between songs on a CD to match closer. Its got an Air slider too which can eiden and sparkle up a song thats kind of monoed out and lifeless if used mildly like below 20%. Its not an easy tool to learn quickly though. The hype of matching frequency responces of other songs isnt better than any other EQ using your ears. That matching stuff is cool to learn how to use the program or match say some of the charecturistics of one song in the same recording session to another.

 

I believe the product got a bad rep earley on by people thinking thay could use it for that and found out they couldnt. It obviously cant because theres too many other factors involved in tones, mics, mixing etc to consider. It will pick out and tame bad bass humps though very nicely. I use it to scan my mixdowns and see if theres any wicked problems. I usually go back and remix to make corrections vs using the EQ too much. When I have a good waveform I can usually be assured any final mastering I do will be spot on.

 

The weakest part is its built in limiter. It works but it can be pushed too high so I use other plugins for that.

[Lee Knight]

I would love a plug in version. Even if it meant AudioSuite or whatever other destructive protocol there is. And Mac please. It won't run on Mac's Boot Camp.

 

Nice Har Bal observations WRGKMC. I like bringing in my kick drum and taking a look. And my bass guitar too. You really get an extremely informative insight into the frequency content of a single component.

 

After taking a "look" at the kick for instance, I might find that that ugly flap is right at 375. A narrow peak. That kind of ear mining is tough. But in Har Bal, I can tame that flap with out destroying the high bass low mid on my kick, if I even want to retain that region at all.

 

On bass guitar? Wow. Try analyzing your bass guitar and evening out the response between 40 and 300. It will give you a very solid sounding bass guitar.

 

But once again, it's all offline and out of context. But at the very least, you start really hearing your mixes and the individual components quite differently after using it a little while.

[Kendrix]

I used to filter the bass around 80Hz.

However, as my mixing has evolved I stopped doing that.

 

Lately I dont filter.

I use a bell EQ- sometimes around 50hz with just a few db of cut if required.

If necessary i may also scoop around 160 to tame any mud that builds up there.

 

This is on a DI input.

 

The mix bus gets filtered at 20.