equalising bass

[pado]

hi all,
I am recording a bass guitar into my roland vs1880 by plugging it straight into the desk and the result sounds very boomy/muddy/ not very well defined.
I have a decent set of monitors (PMC) and I know these monitors are very 'true' i.e. they will give an accurate (as opposed to good) representation of the sound being played.
The bass itself is a fender precision bass (very light, active pickups) and it's going into the desk as a 1/4 inch cable as I don't have a bass amp.
I know a bass DI box would probably do wonders but given what I have, I thought this problem could be minimised by some creative equalisation. I have tried to cut all frequencies below 60Hz and to boost those around 100-150 Hz.
I have also boosted the 2kHz frequencies simply because I like this sound.
Any help in demudding?
greatly appreciated
padoBack to top

 

[chrisharris]

Try cutting it at 315Hz about an octave wide as much as 6db...then move that around a bit between about 140Hz and 420Hz and see where it clears up the best.

Also, I'd be really careful about boosting the bass in the 100-200Hz region...tends to be a dangerous area for me. I'm not saying don't do it...just make sure you're listening on something with a great bass response so that you know what it's doing.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Good suggestion by Chris for removing mud.

You can also try a boost at 1500 or 3000 if you want to add pluck.

 

[chessrock]

Start at the source.

Use the brighter pickup. Turn the knobs to add more mids and/or cut some of the lows.

Use newer strings.

 

[chrisharris]

Start at the source.

Use the brighter pickup. Turn the knobs to add more mids and/or cut some of the lows.

Use newer strings.

Yeah...I totally agree there. It was "Guernica" who taught me that most basses almost REQUIRE that you record them with every freaking "brightness/treble" knob turned all the way up, b/c you'll need the definition later, even if it sounds kinda' thin/noisy while you're tracking it. With me, the fatness comes back when I compress it (post record), and all that highmidrange stuff gets decresed a lot.

 

[chessrock]

It's mostly a psychological thing.

When we're tracking, we like it when it sounds low and boomy, because we can kinda' feel the room shake when we play, and we think we're really cool. When in reality, we aren't -- we're just adding a bunch of muddy crap that we're ultimately going to wind up cutting later. Ah the irony!

 

[grinder]

Start at the source.

Use the brighter pickup. Turn the knobs to add more mids and/or cut some of the lows.

Use newer strings.

I agree, in my experience, active pups can be especially boomy. Cut the lows at the source, right on the bass and blend in some of the bridge pup too. New strings are a must. Should help in that 2k area, that you are presently boosting.

 

[glynb]

Recently I've tried micing up the bass guitar (not cab) close up using a condenser mic and then blending that in with the DI'd bass. Gives some extra top end and presence.