Recording bass tracks
 

What patches/effects do you guys use?

I'm going to be fiddling around tonight trying to dial in a tone, since last night Josh and I seemed to finally get my guit tone squared away (I was doubletracking two stereo tracks instead of four monos - the monos sound a metric fuckton better).

Anyhow, usually I used to just run bypass on my preamp, roll the tone knob back just about all the way on the bass (seems smoother that way) and simply compress the crap out of it using something close to what I put on my kickdrum.

Anyone else have a different/better way that works for ya?

I use a metric fuckton of compression, and then eq as much of the midrange out of it as needed to fit the part. My bass tends to be very mid-bassy...so it almost always requires post-tracking eq work.

A sidenote on compression....I usually run compression in the signal chain while tracking, and then stomp it even more (if needed) after it's been tracked. The Sonitus effects package in Sonar has a great compressor.

I recommend imperial fucktons...

BTW, does it make sense to "scoop out" from the bass the frequencies that are more dominant in the guitar tracks???

My Ashbory bass has a really fat midrange ( sounds like an upright ) which sounds good on it's own but tends to muddy up the overall mix... suggestions???

One of the recommendations I've always heard regarding the mix, is to have each part fit in its own space in the frequency spectrum (as much as possible anyway). I've heard back to back examples of a track that was mixed this way vs. not....and it made a huge difference in how it sounded. With everything in its own space I could hear every instrument more clearly, but it still sounded very well mixed. I really should have just said "yes, it makes sense to keep the bass and guitars from overlapping too much in the frequency department".... :p

A way to do this is run a low pass eq filter on the bass....and a high pass on the guitar. Say, cut the bass off at 200Hz (just an example...where you actually cut it is going to be a personal preference), as well as the guitar. Now you've got no overlap going on and the only thing the bass is competing with in the mix is potentially the kick drum.

Sorry for the ramble...I just woke up and I can't control myself. :D

I use massive fucktonnage of compression on bass, also. It's very important to have a very constant volume on recorded bass, to avoid having the bottom drop out of the mix where you didn't pick as hard on a certain phrase.

As far as EQ goes, there are a lot of different approaches. I have found that scooping the mids out on bass works really well for clean sounds, as well as funk styles (popping/slapping etc.), but not so well for hard rock/metal bass. The mids are where you get most of the 'meat' in your bass sound, so you generally want to keep those in your sound in a rock context.

The best approach is probably to record your bass with a fairly flat EQ, and then work with a parametric EQ on the bass during the mixdown in the context of the entire mix, where you can find the 'sweet spot' for each instrument. I don't always follow this rule myself, but it really is the best way to go. It's generally a bad idea to put in lots of EQ on an instrument in isolation because you have no idea how it will then sound in the mix.

Another trick to recording bass--if you can, simultaneously record both the sound of the bass going direct into the board and another track of the bass going through an amplifier or amp modeler. That's how to get a good metal bass sound--the direct bass gives your sound precision and wide frequency response, while the amp sound (maybe even using some distortion/overdrive) gives the bass sound its balls.

So the basic idea is to sweep it so that the bass and the kickdrum are in the low end, the rhythm guit is low-mid with a little high, and the leads are mid-high?

I can see how that would separate it up, but it sounds like you could overdo it pretty easily.

Yeah, you can overdo it, but the difference between a "wrong" & "distinctive-sounding & original" mix are thankfully down to the listener's taste & personal opinion.

It really depends on what sound you're after & the genre of music too...
Like if it's deathmetal for instance, you may have a lot of low-end on the guitars with the midrange cut to give you that typical "scooped" deathmetal guitar sound, with the bass occupying the really low range and the kickdrum kinda clicky but still with a low frequency element there to avoid that "castanet syndrome".
It's often not as simple as just splitting instruments low to high, you can kinda eq each instrument so they sort of slot together, like overlapping but without sharing...

But again it depends on what frequencies are dominant in the original recordings, you can end up losing "richness" by over-EQing.

Yeah, but you have to have overlap too. On cleaner songs, I go for a fat, bassy tone with little to no top end. On heavier songs, I want definition, I want to hear highs coming from the bass. The way I try to mix the bass is similiar to Newsted's bass on the black album. The guitars are actually taking up a very small frequency spectrum on that album, and the bass is really driving the songs. Perfect mix IMO.

Awake by DT is another good one I reference from, because the bass is lower and smooth and the guitar tone is more like my own.

Find an album or two that you love the bass sound of, and work your ears off trying to get close to that sound. You'll find out a whole lot about recording by trial and error, much more than by advice from us schmucks :) just my humble opinion :)

~Vince


P.S. :scream:

Also...if the kick is a snappier high and tight type sound then the bass should be a little more fatter. If the kick is a fuller more spongier sound then the bass should be a little more crisp. They should really sound like one note together and they should share similar compression settings so that they pump the same together as well.

The kicks power should be in the 50-70hz area and the bass should start peaking through at 80-100hz. The bass should have a little cut out at around 200-250 to make room for the guitars. Add a little at 400-500hz and at 800-1500 for it to cut through in the mix.