Compressing Bass Guitar - Help.

[foomangoo]

I am having a hard time getting a smooth, even Bass guitar track. When I was on the road I used a compressor / limiter to accomplish this. I have messed with the one on CEP but I am still not satisfied with my bass track sound. Its the typical extremely loud G and almost inaudible A. Plus it is pretty clicky sounding, alas 80's. I have 2 different basses I use, an Ibe SG800, and a 80's Fender P-Bass Elite II. I cant get the sound I am looking for with either one. I have recorded direct and miked a little cab (it doesn't sound very good either). I really don't want to fire up the SVT and mike it, etc. I would think I could get the sound I was looking for with EQ and compression via the program.

Does anyone have any tricks or good setting to help my bass sound better?
Suggestions to try?

thanks all!
Pat

[Massive Master]

Few things I can think of make a bass sound better than a nice fresh set of strings... When I was doing any studio bass work, I'd change the E and A strings about every hour of playing time. More if there was slap 'n pop involved...

But what sort of interface are you going through?

[mixsit]

My experience has been that if the playing is too inconsistent, that by the time you get it leveled enough with compression you can loose it on what was the good parts of the tone, the attacks etc.. Put another way, if it's fairly close to begin with you can nudge in the right direction with compression. If not it can be kind of hit and miss.

[NegadivOne]

I use CEP too and if i cant get the right bass sound with compression and limiting, I sometimes take extra time and record the low parts and high parts separately so i can eq and volume them differently enough to make them sound even. takes a while to get good takes doing it like that though.

[StephenGiles]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

Few things I can think of make a bass sound better than a nice fresh set of strings... When I was doing any studio bass work, I'd change the E and A strings about every hour of playing time. More if there was slap 'n pop involved...

But what sort of interface are you going through?

Christ, you must be made of money. WD40 does an excellent job on strings.

[Massive Master]

Hardly (made out of money) - And the 40 is good for cleaning them - Not giving them that "piano-ping" of a fresh string.

But if you want a consitent tone from mix to mix, you do what you have to. And the amount of time it saves the mix engineers from messing with the bass track after track after track saves a lot more than the cost of a bunch of strings...

And that string time was billed for - I'd offer the alternative (NOT changing the strings and leaving it up to the mix engineer to figure it out later) but no one would ever try to cut a corner like that.

Seriously - Put on a set of bass strings and record an entire album. Listen to the bass on the first song recorded, then the third, then the fifth, then the last. None of them sound anything like each other.

[foomangoo]

I guess my playing style probably has more to do with it than anything. First, switching back n forth from guitar, I use a pic, a hard .73mm at that. Second, I am an aggressive player. I was on the road playing rock n roll with big time volume going on. I hit the strings pretty darn hard! I used to break strings all the time. Of course I didnt buy new strings as much as I should have, but we budgeted for important stuff like beer and truck tires One night I broke both my E and A on one song and had to switch to a backup that was using a D as the A! The next night I bought 2 new set of strings and the roadie left them on top of the house dancefloor PA when we left town!
anyway....
I might try one of those felt pics. Maybe that will help. I also found an old compressor/limiter pedal that I will hook up and see if it does anything. It is hard for me to play with fingers or thumb, and strumming along lightly isn't easy for me either.... but I will try.

also - I used to use strings that were like piano strings. They werent wound until after they crossed the bridge. I think they were RotoSound, but cant remember the model. Jeff Pilson used them and they had a distinct sound that was pretty cool. They were hard to find so I only had them here n there. Mos tof the time I used the Billy Sheehan edition of rotosounds BS66 with the big fat E and lighter D and G. They were good for me.