Bass Guitar -- Multiband compression or Automation?

S

sausy1981

New member
Hi guys I'm working on a track at the moment, I'm pretty pleased with the whole mix except for a few occasions when the bass guitar jumps out well not so much in volume but it gets muddy, I have it compressed pretty well and I'm happy with the compression it's just that when I hit a particular note there's a jump in the 150 - 200 hz region. I'm trying multiband compression but I was wondering if I should go back and automate the volume of those particular notes down or even automate an eq just for those notes. What would your approach be?
Thanks Guys
 
If there aren't too many of those notes, I'd probably automate them. If there is a ton of them, I'd retrack if possible. If that's not possible, I'd investigate MB Compression. There are quite a few people who are of the opinion that MB's only cause harm. I think there are a few cases, where they do good. This may be one of them. But like I say, it'd be at least #3 on my list of things to try.
 
Also keep in mind that the notes themselves may not be popping out or disappearing...it could be the room in which you're mixing. This is especially true for bass frequencies in smaller rooms. Listen to the mixed track in a few different environments before making decisions about the bass frequencies. Better yet, acoustically treat your mixing area to achieve a flatter frequency response.
 
^^^^^This.

If you are already compressing the crap out of it, it very well could be the room. Look at the meter on that channel. Does the meter jump up significantly on those notes? If not, it's your listening environment and the multi-band won't help.

If you do use the multi-band, bypass all of the bands except the one you are using to control those notes. Turn off any automatic makeup gain. Essentially you want it to be a de-esser for the low end.
 
Greg_L said:
Just notch out that one fundamental note with EQ. And don't multiband anything. That shit is shit.
Click to expand...

This ^^^^, it could be the way it was played, the actual bass, the strings are old, the room you are listening in. How was it recorded?

Notch out the note then put the compression on as/if needed.

Alan.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, Gonna go out to the studio this evening and try some of these things out. Could possiblly be the room, I'll try the notch in the eq and then try automation and let you guys know which worked best.
 
If it could be the room then it probably is. If you "fix" it for that room, you may just ruin it for anywhere else. Check it on other systems first. If you have an easy way to speed it up to raise the pitch you could try going up like a fourth and see if the same notes get weird, or others, which might answer that question also.
 
Just spent some time on it, I reference my tracks quite a lot and the bass response is good relative to my reference tracks, I tried a notch in the frequency region put I had to go too far for my liking and it was taking away from the overall one of the bass, so I ended up reducing the notch eq and combined a slight fader dip with automation just on those notes and I'm very happy with the results. Just goes to show that sometimes it's not one technique to solve a problem but a combination of techniques. And I'm also sure there would have been other ways to solve this problem.
 
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