Bass boost/cut?

[TelePaul]

Was wondering where I should boost the bass and where I should cut it. It's quite lost in the mix, for a number of reasons:

1) I'm not the smoothest bass player around...I've compressed it with a cheap plug-in with a bass pre-set.

2) I tend to play quite high up the neck - in and around the 10th to 12th frets, and usually on the A and D strings, so everything is pretty mid-rangey.

3) I D.I the bass through my soundcards pres.

Basically I can't get the bass to sit right over a drum loop and under a guitar. If I keep it low it gets lost with the drums and if I raise the volume it becomes way too intrusive. I was thinking of where to boost - 60hz maybe?

Your thoughts guys? Bass and Vocals are the things I hate mixing.

 

[jrhager84]

I might be wrong, but if you need to fill a space, you must create it first. Try dipping a little low end on the lower stuff (if you have individual drum tracks do it with the kick). Dip what you think would sound good (maybe 100-400hz a little) to create a pocket for the bass to sit in. I think it's really all about experimenting. Do you have any sound samples?

 

[Ironklad Audio]

try high-passing the bass to start out with. it's hard to say exactly where...but find the lowest-pitch note in the performance, cut the low-end until you can hear a difference, and then roll back on it a little. this will get rid of the inaudible mud on the track, and give you more headroom to work with.

if you decide to give it a little boost in the low end, make sure to do so at a frequency that doesn't interfere with the thump of the kick drum, which seems to mostly occur in the neighborhood of 80hz. i also often like to add a low-mid boost anywhere between 200-400hz...exactly where will depend on the bass, player, tuning, song, etc. - but this is where the "growl" and balls of the bass seem to come out. it's also where the kick usually gets scooped, which will again help the relationship between the two.

a lot of people also like to utilize some sort of delay/flange/chorus on the bass track in order to spread the mid and high range a little bit throughout the stereo spectrum. in order to do this effectively, either copy the bass track and chop all the lows from it and apply your effects, or EQ the effect itself to cut the low end - probably up to around 300-400hz. it's crucial that you don't have any low-end going on in this sort of processing, or you'll end up excessive and uncontrolled RUMBLE...aka mud.

 

[chessrock]

I would first try ... that one frequency over there.

Then if that doesn't work, you definitely need to try this one other frequency over here. Yea, that one.

Got it? Good. You learn fast.
.

 

[Monkey Allen]

So, chessrock, you're bluntly advising to experiment?

 

[TelePaul]

Thanks guys (and chessrock).

I'll try a small boost at 80 and maybe at 300. It's probably due to my sucky playing in many places.