Bass Techniques

S

stupidfatnugly

New member
I've got a song that has tons of bass and it's just annihilating the mix. I run in to this frequently actually b/c I don't have many good bass sounds in my keyboard nor good samples and I can't play the bass guitar that well.

I like deep sub bass sounds the best and I tried to use the Maserati harmonics generator with no luck; I recorded a seperate track with a different bass instrument and EQ'd to get more highs; I tried a side chain but whenever the bass is playing everything else gets choked.

Any recommendations of stuff to try?
 
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What is generating the bass? Is it just a bass guitar, or is it other things like keys, guitar, samples? If so, think about whatever should be moving in the bass register, and think about what is moving in the bass register. If something isn't essential down there, pull it out. Thin out the guitars, high-pass the keys, whatever. Whenever my bass is getting woofy, my first thought goes to what instrument should be the meat and whether or not that instrument is fighting with anything else. If it is, I help it win the fight.
 
thanks that is helpful.

maybe I need to take out some of my low frequencies on the guitar but it's a reggae song so the guitar part is mostly being played in between the bass notes.

the bass is a keyboard sound. I think it's called "sub bass" so I know it doesn't have many upper harmonics but that is the sound I like. I need to learn how to mix with it or get something that sounds similar.
 
Arrangement, arrangement, arrangement. What is getting in the way of you hearing the bass?

(Oh, and room acoustics...)

Seriously, I find that mixing bass is all about getting the other stuff out of the way...
 
WickedGtrTone said:
Arrangement, arrangement, arrangement. What is getting in the way of you hearing the bass?

(Oh, and room acoustics...)

Seriously, I find that mixing bass is all about getting the other stuff out of the way...
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Yep. If you can't hear the bass properly while mixing you will end up turning it up too high and killing all your headroom.

Putting some Limiting on the bass can also help get it to sit in the mix better.
 
stupidfatnugly said:
I've got a song that has tons of bass and it's just annihilating the mix.
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I really don't know what your recording/mixing experience is, so forgive what could sound like a kind of, well, condescending answer, but if your bass instrument is annihilating the mix, rather than looking for some plugin to run it through, have you tried merely turning it down?

I've had a lot of room-related bass issues in the past playing havoc with my mixes, too, and part of fixing that was just getting a better bass guitar sound, but a lot of it was just a simple volume adjustment.
 
well I've tried to get rid of everything that is around 85 Hz and just leave the bass there by itself but my kick is sounding a bit weak.

and still the bass doesn't sound very defined on small speakers.

I've left a notch from about 40 Hz to 100Hz for the bass and cut it above 100Hz for the kick
the kick is sitting in there from about 100Hz to 300Hz and it is cut in the 40 to 100Hz range

does this seem about right?
 
It's not that the bass and kick can't overlap...they will. There's nothing you can do about that. What you can do is carve out the excess of each. If it were me--and I'm no expert, so take it with a grain of salt--I would stop focusing on that 85Hz so much, pull that back to flat for now, and try to get the kick and bass to complement one another. If the bass is following the kick closely, solo those channels and blend them so that they sound like one instrument. Give the kick a pitch.

If the bass and kick are really doing different things, then try the EQ stuff with carving out space. Take a look at this:

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/index.php
^^The interactive frequency chart will be helpful.

If the kick is too fat, you're going to need highs on the bass. If the kick is too thin, well, don't let that happen.

Moral = balance. Don't force the two to be separate. YMMV, but I like to hear a whole rhythm section together.
 
stupidfatnugly said:
the kick is sitting in there from about 100Hz to 300Hz and it is cut in the 40 to 100Hz range

does this seem about right?
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I'm not going to comment on your whole post, other than to say that it seems you read things and then take them too literally. It's not about "cutting out" everything within a frequency range to make room for another instrument. But anyway......

Without hearing the result, I can tell you that you cut the kik exactly where the meat of it is, and you boosted it exactly where all boxy-ness is. Did you do this to "make room" for the bass??? Do your ears tell you that it sounds good??? I'd be surprised if they do. But, if they do, then by all means continue doing it.

But once again for the millionth time...use your ears, not your eyes. You've been through this before, Stupid (his name, not an insult), with Glen, me and a few others a million times, and you keep coming back asking the same questions and you don't seem to want to believe the answers you get. Do you keep posting the same type of questions hoping there's a pro out there that will finally give you the secret everyone's hiding from you.

Just practice, experiment, and LISTEN.

I'm just trying to help you, man. :cool:
 
stupidfatnugly said:
I've left a notch from about 40 Hz to 100Hz for the bass and cut it above 100Hz for the kick
the kick is sitting in there from about 100Hz to 300Hz and it is cut in the 40 to 100Hz range

does this seem about right?
Click to expand...

I know it sucks when somebody something like this - but without context, numbers like this are next to meaningless. I'll elaborate a little: If your kick sample (you're sampling and stuff, right?) has a fundamental frequency of.. say - 65 hz, then the exact EQ treatment that will really work, musically, for your song, is going to be different than if it was a 40hz or 72hz. The same goes for the bass, the key the song is in, etc etc. It just varies. In response to your question, though, no - that doesn't sound like it would work at all. It sounds like it would just make the bass boomy as all hell, and the kick boxy and boring. EQ can be used to do a whole lot of things, but surgically slicing specific frequency ranges for specific instruments is one thing that I have found most definitely does *not* sound good.

Ok, that's all for that - on topic - there's no reason that the kick and bass can't play together down in the low end. There exist techniques to get them to co-exist, so you don't have to chop the balls off one to let the other wave it's wang around. Sidechaining the kick as the signal for compressing the bass is one very effective technique that does allow this to happen - I've never personally, actually done that in a final mix, but it *does* work. Give it a shot.
 
thanks for those comments everyone

Rami, I don't know man. I'm trying these things out on new songs and this one has this really fast bass line that gets few breaks. (Like a jazz bass line but faster and with more notes)

so it's constantly competing with everything else. I guess I ask the same or similar questions probably because the truth is that that sound I'm using just sucks and it's from an outdated keyboard that no one should use and there's no way to make it sound good.

plus there's new technologies always coming around, things I've tried in the past have been unsatisfactory and plugins that I've recently acquired dramatically improve everything except for this bass.
 
try cutting some hi-bass (like 150-200) this range usually sounds like crap any way, but be careful, this range is necessary for smaller speakers. but often this is a problem area for bass. (it's easy for smaller amps to push, so people often go to it for power, but a lot of other things are going on in that area)

for small speakers you can try adding some 400ish hz to the bass, you may or may not like how this sounds. but it will make it more audible on smaller speakers.

wen in doubt, don't f*^k with the bottom end of your kick. probably you're just hanging yourself. you can however usually VENGEFULLY cut between like 200-400 hz (some part, or all) if you can't hear the sub bass well (and chances are you can't) hi pass the kick at like 50-55 hz.

you may even be able to get away with a hi pass of up to 120hz on the git.

these are all just guesses though.
 
The volume fader is your friend

DrewPeterson7 said:
I really don't know what your recording/mixing experience is, so forgive what could sound like a kind of, well, condescending answer, but if your bass instrument is annihilating the mix, rather than looking for some plugin to run it through, have you tried merely turning it down?

Indeed!! I love sub bass and 808's so much, I always turn them all the freaking way up and destroy my mixes. I've learned to change (ignore) my instinct and just turn the darn things down farther than I want to. Always ends up being the best solution.....although eq'ing the low out of competing elements runs a close second.
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It's impossible to say without hearing your recording...



But in general a mix needs way less bass than any beginner thinks. Our whole lives we are used to weak systems with artificial bass boosts slathered all over anything.
 
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