How much do you EQ direct recorded bass?

  • Thread starter Thread starter amra
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amra

amra

Well-known member
I find myself EQ'ing bass tracks pretty drastically - especially to get close to that kind of "rex brown" (pantera) type bass sound.

I also EQ pretty heavy to get rid of some of the boom.

Just wondering what most people EQ curve is like for their bass tracks.
 
That all depends on the player, the bass itself, and the context of the song in which it lives. Sometimes things do get fairly radical. Having some preamp options seems to affect direct bass lines more than a lot of people realize as well. I have found that basses themselves vary so widely, and the settings at which the player decides to use, that there is certainly no "rule" or "format" with how to EQ it. For that Pantera sound, I would certainly want to also mic a cab. Its a more aggressive sound where the push-pull of the speakers really helps a lot. I would try and drive the input hard, but redsuce the output to not excite the room too much. Also, make sure you roll the lows of the cab setting, and still take a direct line to get some of those back as needed. I fingd that it is the mid and upper mid frequencies of a bass that really define with more aggressive styles like Pantera.
 
xstatic said:
I find that it is the mid and upper mid frequencies of a bass that really define with more aggressive styles like Pantera.
Click to expand...

Good, I am glad I am on the same page about that. That is where I find myself concentrating the main "energy" of the bass track. With a peak in the mid to upper mid area, and tapering down from there on the low end, with the everything below 80hz EQ'd out completely.
 
I agree, depends what your are going for, sometimes it needs EQ....but i would try to get as close to the sound you are looking for before going into your recorder, that way you need less EQ later....less is more with EQ...sometimes...hahaha
Definitely try blending the DI with a mic'ed cab too...might give more punch...use the DI for more of the low end and the cab for the up end attack.
 
> Just wondering what most people EQ curve is like for their bass tracks. <

It's best to avoid severe boosts or cuts below a few hundred Hz. If you add boosts and cuts at low frequencies you're compensating more for your room than improving the track. Some amount of broad (low Q) boost in the high midrange to bring out clarity can help. Generally, you're best off limiting yourself to a shelving LF roll-off to cut the flabby stuff at the very bottom.

--Ethan
 
I find this dramatically depends on several things such as:

Type of strings used

How new or old the strings are.

How the bass is played.

Type of bass.

Direct or not.

Usually the less processing you HAVE to do the better.
The more I learn to record, the more i find subtly is of great importance.

-Stew
 
Ethan Winer said:
> Just wondering what most people EQ curve is like for their bass tracks. <

It's best to avoid severe boosts or cuts below a few hundred Hz. If you add boosts and cuts at low frequencies you're compensating more for your room than improving the track. Some amount of broad (low Q) boost in the high midrange to bring out clarity can help. Generally, you're best off limiting yourself to a shelving LF roll-off to cut the flabby stuff at the very bottom.

--Ethan
Click to expand...

Pretty much ditto for me. And I also prefer to have a mic'd cab available, typically cutting out a lot of the lows because it is tricky sometimes getting something that puts out that much low end information mic'd correctly and perfectly. Not to mention the room doing goofy stuff when you have giant speakers blaring all that bass all over the place. pretty much screws up your even frequency response, and at that point I just try to get the midrange/high-end character of the amp. It is almost always more exciting than the midrange/high-end character of the straight DI signal. Although, this one guy had a combo amp with a really loud fan inside it that was really annoying one time...
 
With heavier material like that, it's all about the midrange. There tends to be a magical spot somewhere around 800 to 900 hz where a judicious boost will really help the bass poke through all the heavy guitar action.
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Thanks to all who responded, for the input.

What do you guys think of this bass track, for a heavy, metal type bass sound...

Example MP3
 
how come the clip is a minute long, but there's only 18 seconds of bass line?

sounds like a good live sound, but for a recording I'd want to clean that up quite a bit. You'd be surprised how the sound you hear coming from your amp will not translate to your mix over speakers. You have a lot of hi end string noise, fret noise and maybe some pick noise in there.....

I have had a lot better luck (better than the luck I had 10-15 years ago) cleaning up my bass sound for recording, so the recording doesn't capture all that clackety noise from picks and frets, then eq it on playback. It comes out a lot cleaner, but with just as much punch.
 
Yea, i have always recorded bass pretty clean. This is part of an experiment to "dirty" it up a little bit. I guess I will have to experiment a little more...

About the loudness, I ran it through PSP Vintage warmer to use some of it's 'drive', and try as I might, I couldn't get the desired effect without also getting a substantial boost in level.


peace
amra
 
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