Upright Bass Eq in Reaper?

[SRREYNOLDS2003]

I recorded an upright bass. I am trying to mix it with reaper. Any suggestions on mixing it to get plenty of low end out of the bass and still keep the slap of the bass? I have messed with the EQ and it seems very Muddy on the low ends.

Another problem I have a song mixed, the Volume sounds good thru my laptop and sony headphones, then when I render it to MP3 and put it on a CD and play it in my truck the volume is very low. Any ideas?

Steven

[pipelineaudio]

If you take a good look on the right side of reaeq, you will notice note names. As you turn up or down different octaves of the notes you are using you will see an amazing ability to change the character of your upright sound

[RRokkenAudio]

Originally Posted by SRREYNOLDS2003

Another problem I have a song mixed, the Volume sounds good thru my laptop and sony headphones, then when I render it to MP3 and put it on a CD and play it in my truck the volume is very low. Any ideas?

Steven

Get a new truck

~Rob.

[FunkDaddy]

Originally Posted by SRREYNOLDS2003

Another problem I have a song mixed, the Volume sounds good thru my laptop and sony headphones, then when I render it to MP3 and put it on a CD and play it in my truck the volume is very low. Any ideas?

Everything sounds louder in headphones. Not a great idea to rely on them when mixing down your tracks.

[nbiehl]

You could duplicate the bass track, eq one for low and one for slaps, and then combine the two.

Doghouse bass can drive you mad. It's such a big box and has so many overtones, its tough to know what to emphasize.

I'm really new to this, so take my advice with a box of salt, but I'm going through the same thing right now. Something that helped me make decisions was finding some recordings with bass that I liked and playing them back through my DAW and my reference monitors, so I could hear how pro engineers dealt with it. It immediately became apparent to me that I was trying way too hard to make the bass a melodic element in the mix, when it's often best as a foundation. I was trying to eq a very sweet, clear sound out of her that just wasn't there in a lot of recordings, and the bass wasn't near as loud in the overall mix as I'd always heard it to be. When I cut the amplitude in relation to the other instruments a lot of the mud went away.

Maybe try ripping some high quality tracks with good bass lines and listening to how they sound in your workflow (Though I think many headphones are engineered to boost bass, so be careful.)

[ez_willis]

next time mic the strings.

[nbiehl]

Hey SRREYNOLDS2003,
I got some very satisfying results adjusting upright bass with the ReaXcomp VST in the newest version of Reaper. It took some time for me to figure out how the plug in wanted to work with the bass, but it gives you a lot of control over the sound.

[theCKWilliams]

Originally Posted by nbiehl

You could duplicate the bass track, eq one for low and one for slaps, and then combine the two.

Doghouse bass can drive you mad. It's such a big box and has so many overtones, its tough to know what to emphasize.

that's how i go about recording almost ALL bass types unless someone comes in with a nice electric setup that's easy to record.

[tc4b]

Ditto making it two tracks. On one, bring out the beautiful low end that instrument provides. On another, roll off the bass and try to eq for the 'slap' artifacts. Last time I played upright on a track, I ended up making four tracks. Probably too many, but it sounded good to me. Two like I described above, then two simiar dupes with some heavy compression. Hey, it worked.

[RAMI]

Duplicating a track does absolutely nothing but make the same track louder. Boosting bass on one track and highs on the other track is the exact same thing as doing those EQ changes to one track and then turning it up. You guys just think it sounds better because it's louder.

[d.bop]

Originally Posted by RAMI

Duplicating a track does absolutely nothing but make the same track louder. Boosting bass on one track and highs on the other track is the exact same thing as doing those EQ changes to one track and then turning it up. You guys just think it sounds better because it's louder.

I totally agree with you. You get something along the lines of a 6dB increase (if I remember correctly, I don't duplicate tracks, myself.)

The reason it's most likely "sounding better" is because it's louder, as mentioned, and you may also be cutting some frequencies where the two EQ's overlap (which will most likely be somewhere in the mids, leaving room for vocals and other instruments)

[rant]
I just can't think of a logical reason to duplicate tracks. Even if you're trying to get an effect on a specific frequency range. If the plugin doesn't have any type of filter for the effect, you could just set up a bus with a bandpass before the effect and mix it back in.
[/rant]

I dunno, I guess you could sweep to find the slap range and do some sharp boosts or try setting up an exciter there. It might not sound too well though..

As for the muddy low-end... does this occur when the bass is soloed, or in the mix? If it's in the mix, try hi-passing the other instruments. Each sound (especially bass) needs to sit in it's own frequency range, otherwise they start to stumble over each other and it sounds like crap. Heh.

If it's still there when soloed, do a hi-pass on the bass until it sounds better (in the mix!) You may need to mess with the bandwidth (or "Q".) It could be due to proximity effect when the bass was recorded.


I know this topic is a little old, but I hope that helps somewhat.