DI bass recording

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davecg321

New member
I recorded a live rehearsal of my band the other night. The bass was recorded straight into the box via DI.

After listening to it I noticed that it lacked definition and any mid detail. My bassist has since told me that he had to play with the tone pot all the way down due to it causing erratic buzzing when turned up anywhere past 1.

So what frequencies should I be looking at specifically to inject some life back into the recording? Re-tracking is out of the question as everything was recorded in the same room... we monitored the bass through 1 monitor pointed at the bassist.

Tah
 
I would start with a high shelf at around 800hz. You may have to add a ton of it (10db or higher) and it may bring the buzz back.

If the high shelf add too much clickiness, a parametric with a wide bandwidth at about 1.6k might do it.

You.will have to adjust the bandwidth and frequency to taste.

He really should have told you about the buzz so you could fix it, instead of ruining the tone of the instrument.
 
I'm also surprised that the bass player didn't say something...or that it was not noticed during initial recording setup...???

I dunno why so many home-rec people have such difficulty/complexity with re-recording things when they suck...?...and instead always find it easier to try and fix something that's shit. :D

Yeah...OK...there might be the very rare situation where it truly is impossible to re-track...but I'm curious how often that is really the case, and how often it's more about a lack of desire to have to go back and do the session over?
I hate doing it too. You spend hours setting up the session and then doing lots of takes...and you grab some really great performances...etc...etc...and then you find out that one of the tracks has some serious issues...and you want to hit your head against the wall, because you know what a PITA it will be doing it over...
...but is it really that hard to do, and would you really rather massage a shit track, and always live with it? :)

I've gotten almost to the final mix stage...and ended up going back and re-tracking everything because I had a better idea for the arrangement or production...never mind a single track that was bad.

I'm just curious how often it really is impossible to re-track?

That said...try a bass plug that works by adding harmonic content to the original track...it might work better than simply trying to EQ in, something that's not there. The Waves Renaissance Bass is a great tool for shaping bass tones...and very simple to use. There are probably others.
 
I totally get all of that, but as mentioned the session was just a live rehearsal. The bass doesn't sound particularly 'Bad' just a bit muddy. It needs to cut through the mix just a tad more. Everything else sounds fine. If this were a proper album/e.p or I'd track most things separate.

I think as artists/producers/engineers we sometimes get too involved with the whole project/song and no longer view/hear it as a candid listener would. We find flaws and faults in almost everything (if given the time). The longer I work on a song can sometimes feel like 'one step forward, two steps back'




miroslav said:
I'm also surprised that the bass player didn't say something...or that it was not noticed during initial recording setup...???

I dunno why so many home-rec people have such difficulty/complexity with re-recording things when they suck...?...and instead always find it easier to try and fix something that's shit. :D

Yeah...OK...there might be the very rare situation where it truly is impossible to re-track...but I'm curious how often that is really the case, and how often it's more about a lack of desire to have to go back and do the session over?
I hate doing it too. You spend hours setting up the session and then doing lots of takes...and you grab some really great performances...etc...etc...and then you find out that one of the tracks has some serious issues...and you want to hit your head against the wall, because you know what a PITA it will be doing it over...
...but is it really that hard to do, and would you really rather massage a shit track, and always live with it? :)

I've gotten almost to the final mix stage...and ended up going back and re-tracking everything because I had a better idea for the arrangement or production...never mind a single track that was bad.

I'm just curious how often it really is impossible to re-track?

That said...try a bass plug that works by adding harmonic content to the original track...it might work better than simply trying to EQ in, something that's not there. The Waves Renaissance Bass is a great tool for shaping bass tones...and very simple to use. There are probably others.
Click to expand...
 
miroslav said:
I'm also surprised that the bass player didn't say something...or that it was not noticed during initial recording setup...???

I dunno why so many home-rec people have such difficulty/complexity with re-recording things when they suck...?...and instead always find it easier to try and fix something that's shit. :D

Yeah...OK...there might be the very rare situation where it truly is impossible to re-track...but I'm curious how often that is really the case, and how often it's more about a lack of desire to have to go back and do the session over?
I hate doing it too. You spend hours setting up the session and then doing lots of takes...and you grab some really great performances...etc...etc...and then you find out that one of the tracks has some serious issues...and you want to hit your head against the wall, because you know what a PITA it will be doing it over...
...but is it really that hard to do, and would you really rather massage a shit track, and always live with it? :)

I've gotten almost to the final mix stage...and ended up going back and re-tracking everything because I had a better idea for the arrangement or production...never mind a single track that was bad.

I'm just curious how often it really is impossible to re-track?

That said...try a bass plug that works by adding harmonic content to the original track...it might work better than simply trying to EQ in, something that's not there. The Waves Renaissance Bass is a great tool for shaping bass tones...and very simple to use. There are probably others.
Click to expand...

I know right!!!? I txt him earlier expressing my disdain haha "get it fixed!"
 
Holy fuck! Are you seriously just sitting there with no clue where to start and waiting for some random assholes who have never heard the track to tell you which frequencies to mess with? If you had actually stuck a damn EQ on there and started actually trying things, you probably would have found the best you're going to get in a lot less than four hours! Are you afraid? Are you completely inept? Turn the knobs until it sounds good!

That said, my bassist does the same damn thing and has for years. I've told him what I think he needs to do to fix the thing, but he hasn't done it. I suspect he actually just doesn't like to hear the top end of his bass because when I manipulate his amp sim to make up for it, he finds a way to turn it down even darker.
 
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Yep, just put and eq on it, push it 6 or 10 dB and move it around. I'd use a band (bell) eq rather than a shelf. Somewhere between 600Hz and 10kHz there should be a spot that makes things better. Then mess with the bandwidth.
 
davecg321 said:
So what frequencies should I be looking at specifically to inject some life back into the recording?
Tah
Click to expand...

You can't boost what isn't there. If he turned the tone all the way down there's no highs. I'd cut the lows, specifically a slight cut to the fundamental and maybe the lower harmonics of the fundamental, which might give the illusion of higher highs...but in general you're screwed in this situation.
 
That's why I suggested using a harmonics generator plug/device, as that will take what is there, and then create higher harmonics from it. You could go from a fat '60s Motown bass to modern progressive funk tones.
Certainly try just going with an EQ...but that might only pull up what the guy was trying to remove in the first place.
 
When in doubt, distort! ;)

We could get into a nerdy discussion about exactly how a passive low-cut tone control on a guitar actually works and try to reverse engineer the whole thing.

I am actually the kind of asshole that might try to do that:

-Create a new track.

-Insert a noise generator and "split" the signal to two different instances of a good fully parametric EQ with unlimited bands (ReaEQ in my case).

-On one side, model the kind of response you'd expect with the T pot all the way up. This will be an LPF somewhere between 4-8K with bandwidth cranked down maybe to 1 or so. The slope should be somewhere around 12db/octave with some resonance at the cutoff.

-On the other side, model the kind of response you'd expect with that pot all the way down. This will have a cutoff down probably 100Hzish with a smaller resonance and not quite as steep a slope.

-Then insert a third instance of the EQ that only applies to that second side and put an analyzer after all that to show the one spectrum overlaid over the other. Then mess with that third EQ until the two traces line up reasonably closely. Then move/copy that third EQ to your bass track.

I have a pretty good idea of what that would end up looking like. But then that only sort of theoretically gets you close to what it might have sounded like if he hadn't turned that knob down, and you're still going to end up EQing that at least some in order to get it to fit the mix. You might learn something in the process, but it really probably won't end up any better than if you just did it by ear to begin with.
 
Have a day off dude. I was merely asking for some general advice on this. I won't be able to touch that session again till Sunday night as I work silly hours. I see forums/reading/listening as prep work before I get back to my projects.

Yes... I may very well be inept. So? What would be wrong with that... That's why I'm here in the first place right
 
My advice is, don't. It is a rehearsal, right? Then let your bassist hear how it really sounds when his tone is shit. Why pretty it up for him? A reality check might motivate him to deal with his problem rather than mask it.
 
You can mess all you want, but if there is no tone in the recording then there is no tone, no amount of EQing is going to get anything worthwhile. Thats why we always say on these forums, get the sound right at the source, not try to fix it later.

Also ask the question, why was the bass buzzing? this is going to happen at gigs and the bass is going to sound like crap there as well.

Alan.
 
davecg321 said:
My bassist has since told me that he had to play with the tone pot all the way down due to it causing erratic buzzing when turned up anywhere past 1.
Click to expand...

Oh God this made me cringe really bad.

TBH I don't think you're gonna get that definition back no matter what you do.
 
Robus said:
My advice is, don't. It is a rehearsal, right? Then let your bassist hear how it really sounds when his tone is shit. Why pretty it up for him? A reality check might motivate him to deal with his problem rather than mask it.
Click to expand...

Might not be the answer you're looking for but it's a damn good one. ;)
 
Oh come on guys. They should be able to get something at least passable out of it. I mean, I still haven't heard it and don't even know what genre it is. If it's Reggae, there's no problem. ;)

If nothing else, it's a good chance for someone who has admitted ineptitude to get in there and mess with the tools and learn about both the possibilities and the limits, as well as learn something about what frequencies do what and how they interact both on the track itself and in the mix. Turn knobs. Listen. It'll either work or it won't.

If it was me, and it was something like rock, I'd probably just slam it into a reasonable SVT sim, crank the treble and the high mids way up, the bass down a bit, and use the low mid knob to taste for color.
 
Yeah, I'd start simple, with eq. If that didn't work I'd step up to something more advanced, like a sim or whatever to add harmonic content. Cranking the eq up and sweeping around will at least tell you what's missing.
 
davecg321 said:
Re-tracking is out of the question as everything was recorded in the same room...
Tah
Click to expand...

Don't see why this is a reason you can't re-record the bass track, however, one thing you might try to get some treble on it is to use an Exciter VST.
 
A narrow cut at 100, use the same parameters to boost at 200 and then a peak, as narrow & large as necessary, at 3Khz. If there's anything there it'll give more definition.
Tell your bassist to speak up next time.
 
You have a lot of attitude advice already but for future reference:
Get a di box that has more of preamp/tone shaping capable.
That buzz may be annoying but quite possible you wouldn't hear it on the recording--but if you did, need to fix it.
EQ is not the only way to get definition. Learn how to use some compression which can boost the attack but limit the peak volume.
If you do have to EQ and know how to use parametric, for bass try using a wider band undead of a narrow band. Boost about 6db for grins and then slide it around until you find a sweet spot.
 
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