Changing bass tone midstem

T

thegoof

New member
For my song I'm looking for a clean bass tone in the verses and a distorted tone during the choruses. Is it possible to change the tone of the bass DI midstem (essentially stepping on a pedal if this was live) in a DAW? Or would it be better to just record two tracks separately (stopping the clean tone once the chorus starts, and recording a second distorted track once the chorus begins)

This isn't an issue so much for guitars, but for bass I'm trying to figure out a way for a smooth transition between the verse and chorus

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!
 
OK. I'm using Reaper, so I can't give specific directions. I'll describe how I do it in Reaper and you can go from there - I'm sure there are similar operations in both.

Just to be on the safe side, make a duplicate copy of your bass track. Set that aside to replace the first one if things go terribly wrong.

Select/highlight the bass track's waveform (careful to only select the bass track or all the tracks will split), then perform a split where you want the transition to begin. Do another split where you want it to end. Now you've got the split out section as a separate item - with Reaper I can add a separate FX window to that item which will automatically switch to when the play cursor hits that first split, and return to the original FX when it hits the second split.

This keeps it all in one track. You can also do the 2 bass tracks thing if your more comfortable with that.
 
spantini said:
OK. I'm using Reaper, so I can't give specific directions. I'll describe how I do it in Reaper and you can go from there - I'm sure there are similar operations in both.

Just to be on the safe side, make a duplicate copy of your bass track. Set that aside to replace the first one if things go terribly wrong.

Select/highlight the bass track's waveform (careful to only select the bass track or all the tracks will split), then perform a split where you want the transition to begin. Do another split where you want it to end. Now you've got the split out section as a separate item - with Reaper I can add a separate FX window to that item which will automatically switch to when the play cursor hits that first split, and return to the original FX when it hits the second split.

This keeps it all in one track. You can also do the 2 bass tracks thing if your more comfortable with that.
Click to expand...
Okay thanks! Will give it a try.
 
Why don’t you simply set up two tracks, using the same source, but with different processing and hit record on both? I assume you are listen8ng to the track, though, for whatever processing you have applied? Switching between them could be automated, if you are playing to click or another track so at bar 20, the clean track mutes and the dirty track unmutes? All is possible.
 
thegoof said:
For my song I'm looking for a clean bass tone in the verses and a distorted tone during the choruses. Is it possible to change the tone of the bass DI midstem (essentially stepping on a pedal if this was live) in a DAW? Or would it be better to just record two tracks separately (stopping the clean tone once the chorus starts, and recording a second distorted track once the chorus begins)
Click to expand...
I mixed a song of mine this week called "Elephant Talk" in which this happens. Most of the bass is all bassy and bottom-y, but there's a little section where the bass goes all top-endy and trebly before slipping back to its lowness. I like it. It was done as two different tracks, two different takes {if I remember rightly, they were done in two or 3 different years !} but it sounds like I just stepped on pedal while playing it live.
So if you should ever hear the song, you know my dirty little secrets.......
 
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