How to get that DEEEEP bass...

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Primo Don

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Hello all. It's nice to be here. I've crept around a while now I have a question.

You know how great the beats/bass lines are in hip-hop music and in pop music for bands like Maroon 5, Linkin Park, et al., right? How in the world do they get those tremendous bass drops? A synthesizer? A subharmonic processor? Mere crafty EQing?

I'm about to purchase the ProTools MBox deal. I want to be able to do this in my recordings so I guess I'll need to by a plug-in.

Help! Thanks, Adam
 
First off all: to get deep basses you need to have a good monitoring system so you can hear them!

Then, everything in the chain matters, it isn't just one 'magic bass plugin'.

Good recorded signal - good mixing- good mastering. Heaps to study:) Lots of trial and error and lots of reading to do.
 
Thanks for the info, first of all and I couldn't agree more about the monitoring. Mine are okay, not bad...Alesis Monitor1 MKII's.

So you're saying that Linkin Park and the rap industry aren't doing anything special to get that low low sound to excite the subwoofers in angst-ridden teenage boys' cars? I think in the car stereo world, it's called "drop bass." I know a bass guitar cannot do that. Synths, yes, but I don't own one. I have a subharmoninc processor in the drive rack for my band that produces tones one and two octaves below those notes in the designated frequency range and it sounds awesome in the clubs we're playing. We can rattle the glasses sitting on the tables if we want too. I want it in my ProTools, too!

Adam
 
On my keyboard (motif) when I'm playing with some of the synth voices in using decent headphones their are some extremly notes in their. Is the low stuff you hear from Linkin Park DJ stuff Han does or acoustic insturments?
 
Yeah, the stuff from the DJ, Mr. Hahn. It's also very nice on the Maroon 5 record, if you're familiar with them. Um...and Eminem, of course.
 
BrettB said:
Then, everything in the chain matters, it isn't just one 'magic bass plugin'.
Click to expand...

For the most part I agree, but the Waves Renaissance Bass plugin comes pretty close to being a magic bullet for this. Follow it up with the L1 limiter and there you go - the 2 magic plug-in solution.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Some engineers will mix in analog synthesizers to add deep low end. Minimoog is probably the most famous for this. Myself, I use a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 for the same escapades.
Click to expand...

Oh how sweet the Prophet is! That thing makes some amazing sounds. I would also agree that a lot of deep bass is a minimoog or some other synth buried underneath the acoustic instruments.
 
A good tube will do it. Try a sans amp.

Most of the mixing I do is for live shows. Some days I feel like I really can't get a good sound out of a band. 9 times out of 10 it's because of the quality of the sounds coming off stage. I mix a band here called Feebo, and another called Reason Disappears. They both have one thing in common.. they keep their instruments in good condition, and they use good gear. With Feebo, I take a DI out of the Ampeg (post-pre), and with Reason Disappears, I take a DI out of his rack sans-amp.

Part of the bass sound though, is how it blends with the guitars. Crappy guitar sound will weaken the blend of bass & guitar.

Once you've got down the sound you want, remove ALL of the elements of that sound that are not important to attaining your goal. Don't add anything. You don't need any crazy harmonics processors either, but making sure the bass lines are tighly sync'ed to the kick drums will also help.

Cheers.
 
1. you've got the moog as well as other synth bass sounds (i've got some pretty good ones on my roland xv-3080).
2. you've got the 5-string bass... hitting that low B is an engineers nightmare.
3. you've got the 808 kick drum.

many times its not the bass that is causing that bottom thump. its the 808 underneath the bass. if you combine the 808, with a regular kick drum, and the actual bass line and mix it right, you've got a frightening thud that swallows up more bass speakers than a black hole.
 
i can kinda get a low bass using a combo of the realdrumkits kicks and the hiphop kicks in flstudio. thats nothing at the level of the plugins and stuff but it comes through on the speakers nicely
 
get hip to this trick,get yerself a noise gate, then get an oscilator or pink noise generator with low freq. oscilation tones,run that mutha into the sidechain (key input) of the gate.(dial up a low freq. sine wave) then run the bass or kick through the regular input of the gate ,and dial it up so the kick or bass triggers the low freq. sine wave to activate when the kick or bass goes thru the gate,and that low freq. sine wave will be there under the kick or bass signal, voila, ya got an 808 like thumpin sub bass monster from hell.
this is very commonly used in live sound.
 
man,you guys don't realize how easy ya get all this info on this site,i had to sit thru hours of class from a very scary 30 year live sound vet on speed to get these tricks,aside from the $13,500 it took to go to school,lol.
 
this trick was hipped to me by bootsy collins and p-funks live sound f.o.h. engineers.
 
Just a quick addendum, and the #1 most important thing I forgot to say in my other post --

FRESH STRINGS. YES, it really does make a HUGE difference.
 
I'll second this Maxx Bass from Renaissance, now. This is the one: http://www.waves.com/content.asp?id=125 A friend turned me on to it.

Thanks for the hip trick, freak1c. I'll be trying that in the live situation!

Thanks to all for the feedback...the GOOD kind! Adam
 
Waves Ren Bass is definitly useful in making thin bass guitars fatter but it can get muddy real quick.

I'd recommend the UAD-1 card specificaly pultec pro, 1176ln, & la2a.

Then mult the bass sounds use the pultec pro to shape the copies. for the mid range basses use the 1176ln after the pultec for the deeper basses use the la2a. you'll have a nice full bass line. You may even try panning the mid bass copies to make it wider.

Or you could just use a synth which is probably the quickest but definilty not the most fun :D
 
Hey, y'all!

I don't know if I was specific in the beginning... I'm getting a lot of advice on bass guitar, which I appreciate VERY much, but what I want to know is mostly about bass drums and beats. I'm assuming I can use the knowledge both ways, I just wanted to be clear.

Hey, I bought an Alesis SR16 (I think it's called) drum thingie that I haven't started playing with yet. How good is the low bass drum sounds from it?

This board is great!

Adam

P.S. I wish I had thought of that sidechain trick. It makes PERFECT sense!
 
For live sound and studio recording, I've detuned the front head of a kick drum to generate some low energy. Bass is a tough one, compression helps as well as the bass player!
 
I got a SR-16, and on its own the kicks are pretty weak, but i run it through an EQ and it sounds good. I'm not sure how it compares to other Drum machines though
 
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