making the bass prominent?

[mahuebel]

ok... so i've been recording off and on for about 2 years now, but i only know what i know from experimenting and reading online eq tips and stuff (which isnt always the best advice)
i'm finally getting my mixes a little clearer, however, the kick drum and bass guitar arent as prominent as i would like them to be. heres a song as an example of what im talking about: Be With You
the bass has a boost at 100hz and some boosts in the mid range, as well as a boost at around 2.5Khz. the kick has a boos at 80, the mid is scooped out and then another boost at 4khz. now how do i make it so you can hear the bass and kick, and not bass out normal speakers?

[sushi-mon]

As a whole, I thought everything else in the mix sounded pretty decently mixed. But, the overall "bass" in the track was lacking, kick and bass. (listening on average computer speakers with no sub). With that in mind, why not bring everything else "down" in the mix instead of bringing the bass up ? This might be an easy way to do what you are looking for.

What you are monitoring on may be a problem for evaluating good bass (I wish I had brought in my AKG headphones). What is your set up ?

While 80 Hz adds some low ooomf to the kick, it might not be where the majority of your meat is for your kick drum. It seems you are looking for some punch and more definition to the kick. Try some higher frequencies above 80 Hz. You might want to bring in a low shelf around 60 (low presence) and a gentle boost at the meat, i.e., 125-200 Hz (kicking). Find the bip, where-ever that is. So it seems a 3 band eq is what you want for the bass.

Use a Q of say 1, and roll it around to find where your meat is, and where the click or bip of the kick is as well, and what low roll off gives you that low bass presence.

Fool around with some compression on the kick track too. You might find that some good compression evens it all out and adds punch.

Once you get the kick right. Try seating the bass guitar in with it.

I have not done enough of this myself, but these are the things I would be trying.

I thought your snare was a little meaty, so you may want to do a low cut on it, and that might help from eating some of lows in your track.

[mahuebel]

I have a Layla 24/96 going to a behringer 2222FX-pro mixer ( i know i know some of you guys hate behringer, but hey, i havent really had any beef with it) and my monitors are behringer TRUTHs 2031p
and thank you for the advice i'll have to try that all out and see if it works for me

[Creamyapples1]

How are you recording the Bass guitar?

[mahuebel]

oh i have compressed the kick but im never sure abuot what kind of ratio i should put on that or the bass, i usually end upt with about a 8:1 ratio on kick and the bass varies per song with me with both the ratio and attack.. and i have a hpf on the snare around 125, should i bring it up higher than that?

[mahuebel]

i've been recording bass straight through a d.i. ive been considering micing his amp, but ive had some bad experiences with that... it always seems to sound like its playing inside a tin can

[sushi-mon]

Here is the frequency chart for bass notes and their next 3 harmonics

E1 - 41, 82, 123, 164

A1 - 55, 110, 165, 220

D2 - 74, 148, 222, 296

G2 - 98, 196, 294, 392

So, your boost at 100 Hz, is really boosting all the lowest fundamental notes of the bass guitar. That might be a good reason why your bass guitar does not have a lot of definition.

Definition can be had by trying boosts at the higher octaves. Also, it depends on your Q (low being wide and pulls up more surrounding frequencies, high being very narrow and pulls up less surrounding frequenices).

Given the chart above, trying some wider Q boosts around 200 Hz and that should bring in the higher "low" harmonics, and more bass definition.

[mahuebel]

excellent, thanks a lot!
ill go out to the studio and try that in a few minutes

[sushi-mon]

Originally Posted by mahuebel

oh i have compressed the kick but im never sure abuot what kind of ratio i should put on that or the bass, i usually end upt with about a 8:1 ratio on kick and the bass varies per song with me with both the ratio and attack.. and i have a hpf on the snare around 125, should i bring it up higher than that?

Compression is a matter of taste. If it sounds better when it is on, then when it is bypassed, then go with it.

125 Hz, is some meaty snare. Yes, definitely try a higher roll off. The snare is not meant to be bassy. Try a gentle roll off somewhere starting somewhere between 250 and 500 Hz. See what a mild 1000Hz boost does for your snare. Should give it more pop.

[sushi-mon]

Originally Posted by mahuebel

i've been recording bass straight through a d.i. ive been considering micing his amp, but ive had some bad experiences with that... it always seems to sound like its playing inside a tin can

A good high quality D.I. should be all you need. You can try micing it, and have that as your second track, then you can mix the best aspects of each. I have found that a good mic'd bass cab has more low presence, and the D.I. part has more of the higher harmonics. BUT, be careful of phase problems if you are going to do this. Check the waveforms, and match up the delay you are going to get from the mic'ed track compared to the earlier D.I. signal. This way, you can mix them without phase cancellation problems.

Is the guy playing an "active" bass ? If so, then a passive d.i. box, if not, you may try a good quality active d.i. box. Also, if the bass is active or you are using an active D.I. check to make sure you have fresh batteries !

[mahuebel]

ah he has a passive bass and i have passive d.i.'s too, that could be part of the problem i suppose. i guess its time for me to look for a good active d.i. haha

[sushi-mon]

Originally Posted by mahuebel

ah he has a passive bass and i have passive d.i.'s too, that could be part of the problem i suppose. i guess its time for me to look for a good active d.i. haha

That could very well be an issue. My understanding is that the active d.i. boxes can help boost the frequencies in the signal.

But you should still be able to get good bass with all around passive too. Unless he just has a cruddy bass.

Also, what interface are you using ? If you use a d.i. box, then I believe that you do not want to go into a d.i. input on your source. The d.i. input on the source would be doing the high to low impedance conversion, as your d.i. box is already doing. So, it may be possible that you are getting some signal loss by being redundant. And a dedicated d.i. will certainly be better than an interface d.i.

So, I "think" if you have a d.i., then you should be using your line/mic in which are low impedance and your bass has already been converted to low impedance with the d.i. box. The mic switch is for mic level which is lower than a line level signal, so a pre-amp is engaged to bring it up to line level. Try recording all 3 ways (d.i., line level and mic level) and listen for differences.

I am going to be doing all this type of experimentation pretty soon myself.

[sushi-mon]

http://www.whirlwindusa.com/tech02.html

This was helpful (for me !)

From the article, the d.i. box converts the high level instrument signal to a mic level. So, you would want to use your mic input which engages the pre-amp and gets the signal to line level, which is what your mixer wants. Following this signal chain, could help you find out why you might not be getting a good bass signal.

According to the article you are right on about getting an active d.i. for a passive bass.

The d.i. box also converts an unbalanced signal into a balanced signal, which helps to eliminate noise pick up on the way to the mixer.

[mahuebel]

awesome.
i remixed the song with the eq changes to the kick bass and snare
the snare and kick are better, and you can definitely hear the bass haha but it still needs more definition to my ears... or... less presence or...something...
Be With You

[sushi-mon]

That IS sounding better. The snare is definitely sounding better (a little more level IMO).

Here is my take, you have a lot of things eating up frequencies from 100 to 1,000 Hz (you fixed the snare and it helped). Horns, keyboards, a bunch of vocals, etc.

You may want to roll off the low frequencies of your vocals. For example, I used the eq for my Windows Media player to boost 125 Hz and low and behold a ton of vocals came through ! My bet is that you need to give more of the tracks better defined frequency space, and less clutter where you want your bass.

The more stuff you have eating up the same frequencies, the harder it is to hear them all distinctly. So I would roll off the lows of all the vocals similar to what you did with the snare, and then evaluate and also consider bringing down the levels of the vocals just a touch as well. These two things should help the bass come through.

If you want a "plingier" more defined higher register bass sound, try having the guy use a pick.

[screws]

It sounds like you're lacking attack on the bass and kick. Maybe you need to adjust the attack on the compressor to let more of the initial sound through. Try an attack of 50ms on kick and bass.

Try boosting the bass somewhere between 800 - 1khz and bossting the kick somewhere between 2k and 3khz. That will give more attack to them and let them be heard better. Also try cutting the bass where the kick is prominent and vice versa. If the kick is prominent at 60 - 80hz, cut the bass a bit there. If the bass is prominent at 120 - 180, cut the kick a little there. This will give each more of its own space and help define them a bit.