Members januaryscar Posted July 24, 2005 Members Posted July 24, 2005 My band are at the mixing stage of the recording process. My bass sounds good raw and solo'd, but in the mix it just sounds like a drone in the background with no character. I have fiddled with the eq in cubase to bring out the mids and highs, as well as cut the lows - but it just ends of being to 'floppy'. Do you guys have any recommendations as to how I should eq the bass in the mix? ie pitch, hertz etc. in the his, hi mids, lo mids and lo's, so i can get a good presence in the mix without it sounding floppy or too boomy?
Members Melville Posted July 24, 2005 Members Posted July 24, 2005 This link has some good tips: http://www.recordingwebsite.com/articles/eqprimer.php I've also heard that doubling the bass part on piano or guitar helps it out, as well as recording an overdriven version of the bass line. Mix to taste. I tried doing an overdriven signal, but it didn't deliver what I wanted it to. Haven't tried doubling on guitar or piano though.
Members Archon_113 Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 Lower your overall volume slightly and boost the low mids a fair amount.
Members januaryscar Posted July 25, 2005 Author Members Posted July 25, 2005 Thanks for the link...that should help heaps....
Members bnyswonger Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 In most cases you won't be able to get the bass on a recording to sound like it does through your amp. Think about it for a minute. When you'restanding in front of your amp, you can have this lovely full range sound because that's all your amp is doing . When you start adding other elements to the mix, there's a lot of overlapping of frequencies - your nice bass second harmonic might just happen to be in the same frequency range as the lead singer, or guitar or whatever. When you're mixing, you're dealing with limitations - headroom & frequency spectrum. I don't know what kind of sound you're going for, but what usually winds up happening is you might shelf up the 100hz range for a good solid foundation, then maybe some sort of narrow bandwidth spike in the 1500 - 2K range for some presence. This is assuming you started with a nice smooth full frequency bass track. If you want it clanky, just bear in mind you're going to be fighting a high hat or vocal sibilance or something else up there. It took me long time figure this out and accept the fact that playing bass on a record & on stage are two entirely different things.
Members Slap_Thatb_Ass Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 I find that a lot of times for a good mix bass, the soloing of the bass channel should sound like {censored}.
Members Mudbass Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 Compression, compression, compression. Step on it hard with the compressor and it'll come right through.
Members hammer744 Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 Have you tried panning the intstruments a little bit off-centre to either side (assuming it's a stereo recording)? A lot of recording articles talk about making fine panning adjustments to 'make room' for all the instruments in the mix. +1 for the compression - will allow you to bring the overall level of the bass up as needs be.
Members boy#152 Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 Originally posted by Mudbass Compression, compression, compression. Step on it hard with the compressor and it'll come right through. exactly...and do an ambient mic along with a cab'd mic and mix them down after compressing them seperately.
Members MrJoshua Posted July 25, 2005 Members Posted July 25, 2005 I like to accentuate the low mids of the bass, and pan it slightly to one side with the guitars on the other side. It really seems to open some room up. Use a compressor, but use it sparingly - too much compression can start to have adverse effects on your signal.
Members knuckle_head Posted July 26, 2005 Members Posted July 26, 2005 Slight bump @ 800Hz and a slight cut @ 300Hz. Reverse for guitars (yeah it sounds backward but it works). Don't compress the entire track if you can help it, use band compression where the mids, upper mids and highs are compressed and the lows are left to be as dynamic as the tracks were recorded. My $.02
Members Darkstorm Posted July 26, 2005 Members Posted July 26, 2005 Yes comp helps. Myself processes the bass for great in the mix sound before it reaches amps. Monitors sound via Sennhesier headphones off mixer. Tailors bass sound via processor. Uses stereo, so 2 ch of mixer for bass. This further helps fullness of the sound. You can do that mono too via just running that signal thru two mixer chs. If nothing else this results in same effect of doubling speaker cable. Cause your useing twice the cinduits to carry the signal. If internal mixer wireing is equal to 20gauge wire, your now useing two 20 gauge cables instead of one. Uses hosa stereo quarter inch to two mono quarter inch cable. So that also doubles the wireing used to get signal from processor to mixer. This method of course means amps are to used create bass voice. They just reproduce signal from mixer same as Pa would. If your useing computer for sound processing as your post indicates, that could be part of problem unless you have very good sound card and cables from puter to amps or mixer. Your puter cables could be overly light to handle lows with any clarity. Imo you need at least std instrument cable gauge for bass signal at all stages from bass till it gets to amps or sound degradation can occur. Imo. If you use overedrive or distortion (I allways do), raise the od/dist level a little for in the mix signal. Sounds better for mix signal in my experience.
Members RyCLB Posted July 26, 2005 Members Posted July 26, 2005 If you're using Cubase, yes, definitely use some compression. In Cubase, I use digitalfishphone's Blockfish compressor. It's a free VST compressor plug-in that kicks MUCH ass - did I mention that it's FREE? It sounds ten times better than the built in compressor/limiter plug-in that comes with Cubase. Use the "opto" setting with a really fast "response" setting. You can also use the "saturation" setting to give it a little more dirt. Try that on your bass tracks and it might help. Here's the link: http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5 Also, if you're miking your amp for your bass tracks, you might try tracking a direct signal from your bass as well. I personally never mic the amp/cab when recording bass - you can screw with the direct signal a hell of a lot more. I also usually copy my direct signal bass track onto another track and run that copied track through IK Multimedia's Amplitube for a dirty tone. I then mix the two tracks together and get one hell of a cool bass tone. You could use virtually any amp-simulating plug-in and it should work fine. Hope this helps!
Members januaryscar Posted July 26, 2005 Author Members Posted July 26, 2005 thanks all. will try out many of these things...
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