Bass Compression Question

[jeffoest]

Hi all and happy Thanksgiving.

Here is my scenario. I am working on a song that really emphasizes the bass. Essentially I built the arrangement of the drums, piano, guitar, percussion etc.. around some pretty funky bass lines. The arrangement is sparse intentionally to put emphasis on the bass, but (I think) is sounding pretty nice.

I recorded the bass with no compression using a Sansamp Bass Driver DI. I'm no great bass player (fancy myself as more of a keyboard player actually) but am happy with the bass licks. I played the lines by stopping the strings to avoid much bass sustain and muddiness and again I'm happy with the relatively clean lines.

Since I'm not a great bass player I know that in theory I need some compression for evening out the bass. I only have a RNC and a Joe Meek MQ3. So I've been experimenting with using these on my recorded bass. I've experimented with lots of different attack/release/ratio, (fast attack and fast release SEEM to sound better to me) etc... settings but find that compressing seems to make my bass lines more muddy. I think that in theory I can understand this but it isn't desireable in my case. I also realize from a bit of research that the RNC probably isn't the optmial tool for bass compression though many have gotten reasonable results with it.

I'm sort of in a quandery of what to do.

a) just don't compress the bass individually and rely on a bit of mutil-band compression on the overall mix
b) compress it a bit because it WILL sound better in the mix (trust us lol)
c) compress it more and get the muddiness out with post compression EQ

I suppose easily I could say, if you don't like it don't compress it, but ultimately in theory I understand why it would be important AND at the end of the day, it's more important how it sits to potential listeners than to me.

Of course without actually hearing the material it's impossible to give any detailed help, but any high level suggestions or advice would be much appreciated. Does compression muddy bass tracks in general?

[In Tune Audio]

[QUOTE=jeffoest]

I know that in theory I need some compression for evening out the bass.







Trust your ears is my suggestion. Don't do anything out of theory, do it out of making the product better. When I was starting I used to work to much by theory, and what I saw on the computer monitor, but it was when I would turn the monitor off, and use my ears, that my mixing skills improved ten fold. Sit back and listen to the bass track, both soloed and within context of the mix, and decide if it needs it.



If you played with a constant dynamic level, and nothing jumps out of context, you may not need it. You may even be better off Eqing, and carving out space for the bass, as well as the other instruments. Can't really say much without hearing it. If you can post it, you would probably get a lot of really great specific suggestions from the pros around here.