enhancing bass on finished mix

[downonthestreet]

I have just digitised some old analogue recordings I did on a Tascam multitrack 12 years ago, and some of the songs are mixed a bit light in the bass. Any tips for enhancing the bass a bit in Edit while not affecting the rest of the mix appreciably prior to mixdown? The mix is fixed and the actual bass guitar level can't be changed now, so I'm confined to pre-mixdown "treatments" in CEP.

 

[lpdeluxe]

It's going to depend on what's on the tape. If there's some low f noise, that will make it difficult. If it's not muddy, try a bass boost with a mastering program such as T-Racks, or even in the Edit window of CEP, for that matter. If it is muddy, it's quite a different challenge. I would use the 'Scientific Filter' set pretty low, depending on what key the music's in...I imagine, from your description, that the tape comprises several songs. Anyhow, see how it cleans up, and then try boosting the bass with the parametric EQ and see what happens.

I have a bunch of old tapes also, but most of them are rehearsal tapes when we were playing with a bassist who would turn everything up to ten for what he called "headroom" but what was really damned loud bass. As a result the problem is taking out bass level, not adding it in.

 

[downonthestreet]

Thanks, lpdeluxe. Youy reply begs a couple more questions.

Is there any way of measuring whether there's lf noise and how much?

Do you have a suggested "pretty low" setting for the Scientific Filter?

People like you and thajeremy, with all your good and willing advice, have literally made it possible for me to learn enough about CEP to be able to use it well enough for my purposes - thought I'd take this opportunity to say thanks. Much appreciated.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Thank you.

Find a quiet section of the recording (for what it's worth, it's always a good idea, when you record something off a tape into CEP, to capture some tape noise before the beginning of the song and after the end) and you'll see the noise. In Edit View, highlight a section of "quiet", then go to Effects/Noise Reduction/Noise Reduction and click on the button that says something like "Get noise sample" (I'm not at the computer I record on). The little window will then display what your noise "looks like." A little experimenting will go a long way, just to familiarize yourself with what it does. Anyhow, once you have sampled some noise, then you hit Ctrl/A to select the whole track (AA 1.5 seems to do this step automatically), then click OK.

Remember that noise reduction works by taking out stuff! If the noise overlays some of the musical information, you may decide to live with the noise to avoid losing some essential part of the music. There is a "%" slider where you can adjust the amount of NR from 0 to 100%, and that may help.

If all the songs were recorded to the same deck, you'll probably find that the noise profile is very similar from song to song. It's still worthwhile to re-sample each time, unless you get to a song where there is NO quiet area, in which case feel free to use the settings left from the previous song (the NR program retains the last sample until you exit CEP or resample).

As far as settings on the Scientific Filter, what you are trying to do is erase the lowest frequency mud without losing any of the music. I'd start with a high-pass cutoff of 100Hz, and LISTEN: if the music's missing something, try again with the cutoff set lower. Even on bass parts, 50Hz will clean a track up some without taking away much bass tone, again, depending on the key. If you've got a 5-string player (assuming a low B tuning), he can go down to 31Hz.

The key is always to try something, then "undo" (Ctrl/Z or Edit/Undo) and try something else. Eventually you'll hear what works and what doesn't and that will speed things up. If all your songs were recorded more or less at the same time, you may well find that the same settings work from song to song...but you'll have to try it first.

Others may do it differently, or have something to add, but this covers the basics.