bass track

S

sparky123

Member
any suggestions on how to eq a bass track recorded di to make it sound tighter and a little more punch to make the the bass guitar just feel like it belongs and not just , i don't know what to do with it?
 
You might post a clip so we can hear what you are hearing. Off the bat I'd say avoid over compressing if you are looking for punchy bass. Keep your attack time longer to let more of the initial pulse come through.
 
Before getting the Ampeg VST plugin, I used to run my bass DI through an 1176 plug and slammed it. Brought out a lot of nuances and growl. Bumped a little in the 900hz range, pulled down a little at around 350 - 500hz. small notch at 50hz for the kick. ymmv.
 
The question is completely pointless without context. In this instance the context is the bass track and how it interacts with every other track. Any advice about gear, plug-ins and or EQ frequency boost/cuts without hearing the track/source in the context of the other tracks is basically a waste of time. There are countless threads about EQing Bass just research using google or the search tool on this site,then start knobs until it sounds the way YOU want it to.

Just my $0.02
 
There is not answer to this, but I always suggest that the whole bass sound and punch comes from: good player, good bass, good strings.

If you don't this then the rest of the discussion is pointless.

I am a bass player and a sound engineer, I often record with DI and Miced Cab (my favourite), or just a miced cab or a DI. Some of my basses sound great just DIed some need to have a miced cab. I often use compression on the bass track when mixing, I mix in the analog domain but the same thing will work with software. I would have 2 tracks (mic and DI) balanced in the mix, I would also have a send from both (or sent to a common bus) and on that send/buss have a compressor, I use a DBX163 in the analog world, then mix the compressed track back into the mix, so effectively there are 3 bass tracks, DI, Mic and the mixed compression channel. This is my starting point but this is not set in concrete and sometimes I do it differently depending on what works for the mix/song.

Alan.
 
thanks all for the reply... by the way not a good bass player, ok on guitar and strings... i did try and cut around 350 hz but its still not what i want . i'll try and boost as suggested around 900 hz a tad . maybe that will get me closer. never thought about using a cab simulator and i do have ampire included with studio one. i guess spending more time with it will help me get closer ....thanks again all
 
I agree with Robus on using compression attack for punch. You might try doing that as a "New York" compression where you make a copy of the original track, then compress the copy and play with the attack level until one of them really punches in the mix. You could even put some distortion on that track. Then you mix the copy up into the original. Heck, you might even want to pan the copy just a tiny bit so the punch stands out.
 
sparky123 said:
thanks all for the reply... by the way not a good bass player, ok on guitar and strings... i did try and cut around 350 hz but its still not what i want . i'll try and boost as suggested around 900 hz a tad . maybe that will get me closer. never thought about using a cab simulator and i do have ampire included with studio one. i guess spending more time with it will help me get closer ....thanks again all
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i also have Studio One Pro and run my bass through Ampire. Select the bass amp (only 1 option), then you have 2 choices for cab. I use the smaller option. Then, i use a compressor and EQ. You can also make more general changes to the bass with the knobs on the amp (i usually have to turn down the "bass" and "mid" knobs to lose some boominess, and I turn up the presence and treble knob a little as well, in addition to losing low end in the EQ plug). If you'd like, my signature has the tracks i've recorded with this exact setup. feel free to take a listen.
 
One thing I would say as a general rule, making sure the bass has room is pretty important. Rather than go after just the bass, look at the other instruments and make sure there is plenty of room for the bass.

Your bass track might not be the problem, the other tracks might be a problem for the bass track. Just a thought.
 
DM60 said:
One thing I would say as a general rule, making sure the bass has room is pretty important. Rather than go after just the bass, look at the other instruments and make sure there is plenty of room for the bass.

Your bass track might not be the problem, the other tracks might be a problem for the bass track. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Just to add to this, often when you solo a bass track it can sound a bit on the shitty side, for example the classic Fender Precision can sound a little fuzzy or even distorted, the compression on the bass track can sound a little over the top, the eq is maybe a little clunky, etc. However when you put this in the mix wallah, the whole bottom end sticks together. So get the bass sound with the mix up rather then soloing it to death. Well, thats my 2 cents worth.

I said before that I nearly always mic a cab, to take this a little further, the amp does not have to be a massive bass rig, I often mic a little 25watt 1 x 10" practice amp (Crate BT25) that is clean and quiet and sounds great through the mic, this added to the DI track (or even on its own) works fine and helps to round the sound off.

Alan.
 
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No one can give you real advice without listening to the track
One thing you should always consider, is to tighten it with by using distortion on a send.
 
^ You can still give general advice without hearing the track. He obviously wants to know some basic techniques to get his bass to sit better in the mix, hence his "..little more punch to make the the bass guitar just feel like it belongs.." Not gonna beat around the bush with generalities and get every bit of information on his rig. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's not completely clueless. If he doesn't know what something is, he can either ask or look it up just as easily.

He said it's DI, and even with a great or shitty bass there are similar ways to add "punch" or "tightness." Try using a side-chain compressor linked to the kick drum, depending on the correlation between the two instruments' parts this may not be an effect you're after. Also try setting a high pass filter on the bass so you can give the kick some room down there and tighten up the low end of the mix. Like I said before, I find that if your only option is DI then try some different sims and maybe even mix the clean DI with the amp sim. Oh, and a low pass filter might work for smoothing out the top end of that bass if that's what you're going for. It'll sit back in the mix more without all that string noise but that's honestly just a taste thing.

Just a couple of ideas to try, all without hearing your track or knowing your gear and whatever. No need for us to be overly vague as to not even try to give some sort of direction for the op. Apologies for the half-rant though :drunk: good luck on that mix

P.S. I also have Ampire but tbh it's probably the worst sim I've heard and is nowhere near the quality of the other S1 plugins. To steer you in the right direction, try the bass amp sim from Ignite Amps. Their sims are all just great preamp sims, so that cab sim is also a good idea along with it if you're gonna try that stuff. But that's just what I use for my style of music. You might be after a completely different tone in which case I'd still advise trying something other than Ampire.
 
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