any EQ suggestions for bass under distorted guitars?

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grn

grn

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I'm having trouble getting the bass to be both deep in tone and clear in the mix. I can get it clear in the monitors, but then when I try it with headphones or different systems, the bass isn't always very clear with distorted guitars. Any EQ suggestions for getting the bass to sit better in the mix with distorted guitars so it's both clear and deep? thanks.
 
It depends on what the guitars sound like. I like to add 300Hz and 1kHz to the bass for some growl and clarity.
Another thing you might try is take away some freqencies from the guitars and add the same ones to the bass.
 
been trying that with the guitars... can't seem to get a clear bass sound through the mix, but alone it sounds great =\
 
Farview said:
It depends on what the guitars sound like. I like to add 300Hz and 1kHz to the bass for some growl and clarity.
Click to expand...

When you say 300 & 1K, does the key of the song have any bearing on where you boost?

Like if in an A key, the common freqs will be 55, 110, 220 etc....
 
Not really, those are just approximate settings depending really on the style of music, the bass, the amp, etc...
The bass can sound like crap by itself and still be great in the mix, same with the guitars. If you try to make all the individual instruments sound as big as possible, you won't have enough room in the mix to put them all. You should figure out what is important to the mix and thin everything else out to give it room.
 
If youy want the 'Korn' / slappy sound a booost between 4 and 5 K (depends on bass) will give you that rathle. A boost around 300Hz gives the bass more power on smaller systems.
 
If your bass sound great when solo'ed it must crash with something. If you're sure its the guitar it crashes with then just tweak on. Possible it crashes with the kick?
Also, what is the bass playing? Foundation or rythm patterns? Does it play at/in the same timing as the guitar?
Also; start by taking away instead of boosting.
 
it doesn't play foundation or rhythm patterns, most of these bass lines are complex built off of the foundation (sort of long solos)... some songs are not the same timing as the guitar... I'm pretty sure it's the guitar. the other songs with clean guitars the bass sounds fine.
 
Try sucking some 300 or 400HZ out of the guitar. See if that helps.
 
Farview said:
You should figure out what is important to the mix and thin everything else out to give it room.
Click to expand...

So speaking from a bass player's point of view, put the bass in the front (it's by far the most important instrument) and thin out everything else. :D
I like the way you think!
 
I tend to keep the bass back by far. The bass shouldnt be too outstanding. Right now Im resampling a CD a friend of mine once made. Way too much bass, and its also a lot of EQ on it. Brings you quickly into listening fatique. So we removed some bass and boosted the mids and highs a tad for definition. We also increased the tempo on the tune with 4%.
All done in Sound Forge. A brilliant program.
 
I was referring to "bass" as the instrument (i.e. bass guitar) rather than the frequency range.
 
grn said:
been trying that with the guitars... can't seem to get a clear bass sound through the mix, but alone it sounds great =\
Click to expand...

Hrm... never mix tracks in isolation. Waste of time. The time and place to make it sound good is when you are getting sounds to record and while tracking it.

Anyways... a lot of the best bass sounds often sound pretty gross isolated, but will work great in a mix.

Maybe take the guitars down around 3khz. 3K is a tough range because a lot of vocals live there as well. Luckily, guitar tends to sound kind of nasty there with the types of sounds people dial in, so it's a safe cut to do. Plus the vocal will show thru more, and a bit of bass as well.

I boost bass at either 2k or 4k depending. Those are both good places to look for bass clarity. 8k can bring out some harmonics if you need sheen on the bass.

Compress the crap out of the bass too. :)
 
JohnnyMan said:
I was referring to "bass" as the instrument (i.e. bass guitar) rather than the frequency range.
Click to expand...

When you said
put the bass in the front (it's by far the most important instrument) and thin out everything else
Click to expand...
I really took it you meant the frequency range :D
Maybe you were joking a tad?
Some of my compositions doesn't even have a bass instrument. They might have deep strings though heading down in the bass range.
In a great mix the bass is equally important to other instruments.
Ever been in a studio where everone thinks their instrument is most important?
Boy, that can be a mouthful for the engineer.
 
I usually try to leave a nice little pocket in between kick drum frequencies and guitar frequencies to make the bass sit better. A big mistake that I often see with disorted guitars is that the guitar players want to get a ton of low end out of their amps. All this usually does is much up the kick and the bass. Try widening the image of the guitars, and make sure the kick isn't hitting to hard in the 100-300 hz range. Let it bump a bit at 80hz, and maybe give it a little click by bumping the 3khz, and 8khz. Once that click is there, you may be able to lower the whole volume of the kick a bit leaving a little more room for the bass. Doing that and giving the distorted guitars a little more width (and maybe even a little more aggresion by bumping up the 3-7khz range)should leave the bass more space. You might even want to put a HPF on the guitars at like 160hz. By carving out space using all three dimensions, you can have a fat and warm, yet clear bass sound without purely bumping up the volume and making everything blandly loud.
 
A very good tip to remember. Listen to a commercial CD on headphones that you want your track to sound like bass wise. Now try and match the bass monitoring with headphones. I am saying to do this because headphones can give false sense of bass or in the other hand not enough bass. So once you have got the sound you want on headphones then listen on the monitors and compare to the commercial CD. Happy? If not keep trying. If you cant get the sound you are after then re record the bass with differnt amp or settings ect. watch the kik drum and bass dont cover each other up.
 
Just a crazy idea...

Have you thought of putting some distortion on the bass?

When mixed with distored guitars, in a tight song, the distortion tends to disappear from the bass and act as glue for the rythym section.

Just my 2 cents....take it easy.
 
Emusic said:
When you said

I really took it you meant the frequency range :D
Maybe you were joking a tad?
Click to expand...
Yes I was (with maybe a hint of truth in it, that is, I always like to hear the bass guitar stand out in a song).
 
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