Golden rules for perfect bass mixing

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LazerPhEa

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Hi,
here I am with another newbie question: it's the first time i have to mix the bass guitar with the other instruments, so can someone please give me some general guidelines, or well-known golden rules (which I totally ignore! :D ) for a perfect bass sound?
Please consider we play heavy metal, and in the song I'm going o mix the bass should only act as a "reinforcement" for the guitar sound... no strange solo lines or other weird things! :D
My first experiments are pure shit... everything is muddy and confused! Please help me! :)
 
if the bass is really just playing along with the guitars, it would probably be best to cut most of the lows out of the guitars. they'll sound like crap soloed, but once the bass comes in you'll like it.
 
jrosenstein said:
if the bass is really just playing along with the guitars, it would probably be best to cut most of the lows out of the guitars. they'll sound like crap soloed, but once the bass comes in you'll like it.
Ok, I already did that, cause I talked about "making some room" for the bass track in another post.
What I need are some guidelines on how to compress the bass, how to enhance the sound ecc...
 
Golden Rule for bass number one : Never EQ the bass when it's solo'd. EQ it when you are listening back to the whole mix. You'd be surprised how bad many great bass sounds are if you hear them outside the mix.

As far as compression goes a guide is :

Attack 2 - 10 ms
Release 500ms
Ratio 4 - 12:1
Knee Hard
Gain Reduction 5 - 15dB

Try working within these parameters. For a natural sound just ensure that the peaks are compressed slightly so that they don't stand out. For heavy metal (it depends what type, there's a big difference between an Iron Maiden bass sound and a Metallica bass sound - is my age showing?) I would suggest that you could be quite aggressive with the compression (high ratio, high gain reduction), but use your ears to hear how much compression sounds right for the song.

If you've got your EQ right the bass should sound like an extension of the guitars. It should sit in the mix making the guitars sound super heavy rather than sounding like an instrument of its own. If it doesn't, keep playing with the high pass filters on your guitars and the low pass filter on your bass. You will also find that a high pass filter on the bass with a cut off around 60Hz should tighten up the bass. You'll also need to make sure that the bass sound complements the kick drum sound rather than obscuring each other. You may need to play with the EQ and compression on the kick drum so that it works well with the bass.

For the style of music you are playing if the bass isn't very tight with the guitars and kick drum things will sound messy. Once you've got the EQ sorted you'll easily hear if this is the case.

Good luck, Pete.
 
MAKE TWO MIXES

Make a mix with bass fairly loud, then...

Make a second mix with all the faders the same but lower the bass about 5 - 10 db.

Now listen to both mixes in the car, on a boom box and on your living room stereo with massive subwoofer and 5.1 surround sound.

You will learn a lot about your monitoring bass levels during mixing.

Quite often I have to lower the bass in the mix, because most listeners enable "bass boost" all the time and in car with sub-woofers the bass is artificially amplified.


DOM:p
 
Get up and walk around your room. Listen to the bass. Can you hear it in the middle? In the corner? To the sides? Open the door and go into the next room. Can you still hear it?

If the answer to any of these questions is no you have work to do.;)

You will never have accurate bass in a small room with small speakers. Know how low your speakers go and don't EQ below that freq.(high-pass filters are the exception). The more speakers/rooms you have to check your mixes the better. Take notes.

Have fun!:)
 
LazerPhEa said:
it's the first time i have to mix the bass guitar with the other instruments, so can someone please give me some general guidelines, or well-known golden rules (which I totally ignore! :D ) for a perfect bass sound?

Well, first it starts with a perfect-sounding bass.

Those are usually pretty expensive and hard to come by.

Then, you'll want to have some high-end pickups installed. Those can be pricey as well. The strings are the cheapest part, but be sure to try out a bunch of them, select your favorite, and make sure they're fresh when you begin tracking.

You'll want to play with perfect technique, of course . . .

You should also plug it in to something pretty nice. Finally, when all is said and done . . . if you've followed all of the rules I just outlined, your last step, in terms of mixing is to do absolutely nothing else other than a bit of compression and/or limiting, perhaps.
 
I agree with chessrock.

The most expensive and hardest part of a great bass tone is the bass itself.

Next, the player needs to have killer control of his attack on the string.

It is amazing how many bass players posses NEITHER of those two things, but complain about spending $25 every two months for strings....:(

Ed
 
Re: Re: Golden rules for perfect bass mixing

chessrock said:
Well, first it starts with a perfect-sounding bass.

Those are usually pretty expensive and hard to come by.

Then, you'll want to have some high-end pickups installed. Those can be pricey as well. The strings are the cheapest part, but be sure to try out a bunch of them, select your favorite, and make sure they're fresh when you begin tracking.

You'll want to play with perfect technique, of course . . .

You should also plug it in to something pretty nice. Finally, when all is said and done . . . if you've followed all of the rules I just outlined, your last step, in terms of mixing is to do absolutely nothing else other than a bit of compression and/or limiting, perhaps.

Chess, you missed completyly the most important piece of the chain, the man/woman behind the bass!!!!!
A good bass player with a beat-up old Fender with old strings into a generic DI, will KILL any mediocre guy with high-end gear....
I have Avalon and Little Labs DI`s,a Eden bassamp,2xAmpeg 8x10`s" and a perfectly adjusted Music Man in my studio, and with shitty players it sounds.....shitty......

Amund




Amund
 
I'll 2nd or 3rd the part about the bass player. I know about a dozen "bass players"(me included). But only 1 of those is any good. I can play tight, and fast if required but It's not the same. So now, I basically write the parts and do a rough track. Then I call him to re-track.
 
Re: Re: Re: Golden rules for perfect bass mixing

plexi said:
Chess, you missed completyly the most important piece of the chain, the man/woman behind the bass!!!!!

You must have missed the part where I said:

"You'll want to play with perfect technique, of course."

That's usually a trait of good bass players. :D :D Actually, I'm enjoying this tangent we're on, so let's expand on it a little further here:

Do you make a distinction between talent and technique? I mean, let's look at two scenarios, here: On one hand you've got guys like Vai, Satriani, Clapton, etc. Talent up the wazoo, right?

On the other hand, you've got guys like Gilmour and/or Harrison. Not overly talented, either one of them, but it's the technique that made them legends.

Not sure why I'm off on this tangent, but do you consider technique to be a talent in and of itself?

Getting back to the subject, I've got a buddy of mine who came in once and tracked with my bass, and somehow, as if by magic, it wound up sounding much better, fuller, punchier, etc. than when I've played it . . . and I've always thought I could play circles around the dude.

I watched him closely to see if he was doing anything differently than I was. Turns out his picking/plunking fingers were in a different position -- he was plucking directly between the two pickups, whereas I tend to play just above the top pickup.

So I tried it myself, and it was a bitch to get used to, but now my tracks sound as good (better) as his. And I didn't even have to shell out any extra dough on a new D.I. or anything.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Golden rules for perfect bass mixing

chessrock said:
Do you make a distinction between talent and technique? I mean, let's look at two scenarios, here: On one hand you've got guys like Vai, Satriani, Clapton, etc. Talent up the wazoo, right?


I used to when I tried to be the local Malmsteen....(With not much sucess) :-)

No, some guys just have it, the groove, the "punch", that little extra something....Without beeing able to play fast, complex lines.....

Getting the bass to sit right always seems to be the hardest part of the mix, but I guess that`s very much because we don`t have great sounding rooms to mix in.....
But some day.....

Amund
 
Re: Re: Golden rules for perfect bass mixing

chessrock said:
You should also plug it in to something pretty nice. Finally, when all is said and done . . . if you've followed all of the rules I just outlined, your last step, in terms of mixing is to do absolutely nothing else other than a bit of compression and/or limiting, perhaps.
This is good advice for some types of music, perhaps even most types of music. However, I would say that in extreme styles of music, like metal and tekno, you'll want to do some pretty extreme things to the bass: extreme EQ, extreme compression (more than a "bit"), subharmonic synthesis, etc. to get the right sound. Just plugging into a neve module or an Ampeg amp isn't going to get you there, even if it's the perfect bass played by the perfect player.
 
chessrock, plucking farther back on the strings usually equates to a more articulate sound, and the ability to control the string vibration (read: control the attack). The string is stiffer back there, thus, not quite as sensitive to variations in attack by the fingers/pick. More midranges overtones are prevelent when plucking back there! :)

Try plucking over the back pick up, or just right in front of it if you are looking for an even more articulate sound. Indeed, it IS a bitch to get used to.

More times than not, getting the bass player to pluck farther back solves a LOT of problems I have. Good players usually already pluck farther back anyway.

Ed
 
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