How would you EQ my bass guitar?

N

nfgrufio

New member
Hey guys, I am very new to recording and could use a little help with recording bass guitar. I cant seem to get it to sound as good as I want, even though I always hear its not about how it sounds by itself rather than how it sounds in the mix.

As far as mixing goes, I have no idea where to start with the EQ settings on the bass guitar. I want to share with you guys my latest mix on my bass guitar and get some feedback on what needs to change as far as cutting/boosting any obvious frequencies, compression, etc.

I dont know how easy it would be for you guys to help me out on this but any help would be much appreciated. I provided a .wav clip of me playing bass and would love for someone to take the clip and open it in their DAW and show me what you would do to the bass to make it sound best to your own ears. It would also be great if you could post a screen shot of your eq settings so I can get a rough idea of how you got your sound.

Its a raw clip with nothing added to it as far as EQ or compression.
The signal path is... Gibson G-3 > Aguilar AG500 DI > Presonus Firepod > PC

Here is my best sounding mix... https://download.yousendit.com/cmczQ1ZnUzhoeVpjR0E9PQ


For those of you who want to show me your mix, here is the .wav link....https://download.yousendit.com/cmczQ1ZqaytwTVd4dnc9PQ
I would love to hear what you guys come up with.

Thanks!
 
nfgrufio said:
Hey guys, I am very new to recording and could use a little help with recording bass guitar. I cant seem to get it to sound as good as I want, even though I always hear its not about how it sounds by itself rather than how it sounds in the mix.

As far as mixing goes, I have no idea where to start with the EQ settings on the bass guitar. I want to share with you guys my latest mix on my bass guitar and get some feedback on what needs to change as far as cutting/boosting any obvious frequencies, compression, etc.

I dont know how easy it would be for you guys to help me out on this but any help would be much appreciated. I provided a .wav clip of me playing bass and would love for someone to take the clip and open it in their DAW and show me what you would do to the bass to make it sound best to your own ears. It would also be great if you could post a screen shot of your eq settings so I can get a rough idea of how you got your sound.

Its a raw clip with nothing added to it as far as EQ or compression.
The signal path is... Gibson G-3 > Aguilar AG500 DI > Presonus Firepod > PC

Here is my best sounding mix... https://download.yousendit.com/cmczQ1ZnUzhoeVpjR0E9PQ


For those of you who want to show me your mix, here is the .wav link....https://download.yousendit.com/cmczQ1ZqaytwTVd4dnc9PQ
I would love to hear what you guys come up with.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
It's a tad wuffly in the 64-80Hz range. Stand by, I'll take a crack.
 
Hang on, the MP3 is all wuffly. The raw WAV is a lot more even. Huge difference. I don't know that I'd mess with it much.
 
Llarion said:
Hang on, the MP3 is all wuffly. The raw WAV is a lot more even. Huge difference. I don't know that I'd mess with it much.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by wuffly?

I might of put a little too much on the low end, which could explain the wuffliness in the .mp3. I took a bit of the lows off and scooped some of the mids in the 500hz range and it seemed to take a little of the "honk" out, sounds a lot better to me now.

but please take a crack at it!!!
 
nfgrufio said:
What do you mean by wuffly?

I might of put a little too much on the low end, which could explain the wuffliness in the .mp3. I took a bit of the lows off and scooped some of the mids in the 500hz range and it seemed to take a little of the "honk" out, sounds a lot better to me now.

but please take a crack at it!!!
Click to expand...

Wuffly is onomatopoetic; say it aloud. Big in the lowest frequencies, bigger then the attack points. If you listen to a subwoofer without its satellites, that's "wuffly" in spades. :)

Listening to the wav file, not the MP3 which is very different, I might add a smidge between 100Hz and 125Hz, nudge 64Hz down a tad, and brighten 2.5KHz just a nudge. Not much else...
 
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YESANX0M
To get something to sit nicely in a mix (and that's hard given that there isn't a mix to hear it in)
OCTAVE REPLACEMENT EQ - TYPICAL SETTINGS
(as pioneered at Motown)
Frequency 100 Hz
Level -6 dB
Q 1.4
Frequency 200 Hz
Level +5 dB
Q 1.4
& to personalise it to my tastes I added a very narrow 3dB peak at 3khz
It's just a short segment as I have a slow upload line.
Whilst it doesn't seem much the Motown settings even out the vol & spread out the energy. the 3Khz peak is just a bit of definition to help the treble placement cues for the stereo image.
basically though, your sound was fine - a bit of rattle/dostortion and some of the lower notes were muddied but the above process helps somewhat.
Personally again I would cut everything below 80hz but didn't do that here - again, it'd depend on the mix.
 
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