how to EQ a wolfy bass?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dontouch
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I bet 97% of the members past and present hadn't got a clue what "wolfy" meant. 'Foxy', yes. 'Wolfy' ?
 
Never heard "wolfy" used as a descriptive. "Wooly" I've heard as well as "woofing out". No K9 references though.
 
You may need to take out some 200-300hz and/or add some 800hz for clarity and 3k for sparkle.
 
All of that banter and not one person mentioned fixing it at the source?

Change the bass sound at the source so that when you record it and play it back it doesn't sound wooofy. Don't fix it in the mix.
 
soundchaser59 said:
All of that banter and not one person mentioned fixing it at the source?

Change the bass sound at the source so that when you record it and play it back it doesn't sound woofy. Don't fix it in the mix.
Click to expand...

Beat me by 3hrs, It was a holiday here yesterday,

If the problem is on a DI recording, on a passive bass run the volume and tone full up, full volume and full treble. That way you have the cleanest tone you can get so you can eq later. On a active bass make sure the bass and tops are not boosted, run everything unity.

If the problem is a miced up amp, what I find is that a lot of bass players boost the low eq on the amp trying to get a fat bass sound, turn the bass down until you get a nice clean tone, it will be better to boost the bass after tracking if it's needed. I am a bass player as well as an engineer and I never run the bass eq above unity (no boost) and in bad rooms I actually cut the bass until I get a clean sound (no woof).

How good are the strings? Old grungy strings have no tone and will sound wooly. How good is the bass? Good pickups, good intonation?

Cheers
Alan.
 
God Forbid

You use one unheard term around here.
Personally, I'm fairly sure that word comes from the old game 'telephone', and it did
in fact start with 'Woofy'. Let's face it though, string players have been known to do things
in a fairly unique way.

I simply remove the bass frequencies and generally bump low-mid and mid-mids to taste.
How about that for a scientific approach?
 
pierce200 said:
You use one unheard term around here.
Personally, I'm fairly sure that word comes from the old game 'telephone', and it did
in fact start with 'Woofy'. Let's face it though, string players have been known to do things
in a fairly unique way.

I simply remove the bass frequencies and generally bump low-mid and mid-mids to taste.
How about that for a scientific approach?
Click to expand...

Remove the bass frequencies for the bass?

I think he should just retrack and get the sound right.
 
CrowsofFritz said:
Remove the bass frequencies for the bass?

I think he should just retrack and get the sound right.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree. Yeah, there are things that can be done to 'fix' bad tone, but getting it right on the way in, is the only way to get it right.
 
And to elaborate a bit, A bunch of what I do in my studio, is mixing tracks that were recorded elsewhere. Usually tons of 'fixing' needs to be done. I would spent less than half the time dealing with issues, had I recorded the parts right myself in my studio. The problem is that most of my clients are not even in the same country. This is the only reason that I would even contemplate fixing 'wolfy'.

New definition: Wolfy = A poor tone that needs to be addressed before recording. Remedy: re-track the instrument, or spend twice the time fixing something that will never be as good as it could have been, if the tone was right to begin with.

I still want to hear a sample of such Wolfyness. If no sample, then it never even existed, and we are all giving advice to nothing.

:D
 
I've had to deal with "wolf" tones with my inexpensive 'Cello. It's a correct term when related to that instrument at least.
A difficult thing to manage sonically as well as being an issue best addressed by good playing - something I don't do.
With bass & DI bass in particular it simply shouldn't happen.
It's an erratic tone generated by the body of the instrument often in response to a structural problem, poor playing or a combination of both.
If you've a semi acoustic it is possible that the cause is from there - kind of...
Were any effects used on the bass during recording? some exciters or reverb may encourage a note to over excite or instrument body reverberation to sympathise - but then again this oughtn't happen DI unless there's a problem with the instrument.
Do you get the tones when playing through an amp?
Do you get the tones when playing acoutically?
You may have an issue with your DI if the tone isn't apparent when played normally.
If you can't retrack you might need to automate the faders to reduce level at the appropriate moments.
Isolating the freq & EQing is possible but that will rip the guts out of the general bass tone.
An MBC may help if you can set it properly (I can't).
You could run with the tone and use it as an arty embellishment.
Realistically though, you ought to post a clip & let those with the know how help in the best way they can: with their ears.
 
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