is there a such thing as a ghost bassline? how is this technique accomplished?

[jugalo180]

i listen to some commercial cd's and i notice that it's this unsilence silence. it makes the song so smoooth. i can't hear anything within these small gaps, but it's almost like what your ears do when the air pressure changes. it's nothing drastic but it is noticeable. i'm assuming that it's some low frequency bass signal riding in the background. i know it's not a rumbling bass but a smooth base, i guess to not make the track seem empty. because not too many instruments were playing, but the gaps weren't big enough for me to analyze it in a spectral analyzer. i also tried sweeping it with an eq but the subkick drum was in the way. i'm assuming it's not just a bass signal turned down. it's probably something compressed.

one more example, it's like cutting out the breaths inbetween words. sometimes it seems noticeable and unnatural, so you turn it down where you can barely hear it and it's as good as if it isn't there but the gap doesn't seem empty and sterile.

i hope i'm making some sence hear. btw, i have a small understanding of the bassline in a track but, no understanding of a ghost bassline.

 

[kylen]

What's the name of a cut you're listening to for example?

If you take a shelving EQ and roll of around 100-125 Hz then I guess it goes away from what you are saying - most likely it's down around 50-70Hz I guess from what you're saying.

Without watching & listening to a clip of it (if you wanted to post it) it sounds like what you're talking about with compression. Maybe a multiband compressor with a cool release setting or more likely a good sounding maximizer that just keeps the sub-bass in a upward compression type state - or long release - whatever you want to call it. Maybe it's a multiband broadcast leveler with sub-bass AGC - who knows ?

I've seen something like that on the spectrum analyzer I use, there's no current note but the last note seems to take a while to fade - in the sub-bass I guess it sounds or feels warm longer, down below 40 Hz it begins to become a psycho-acoustic 'feeling' like you're describing. There's some of that on Nelly Fertado's latest CD - One Trick Pony.

 

[tubesrawsom]

comercial cd's one day we'll all understand

 

[volltreffer]

I assume you're talking about low volume pads. May give incredible 'air' or 'width' feeling in slow parts. I'm shrieking back of giving it names like that (remember the warmth/black/tube discussion), but it is hard to describe... And you're prolly right they should be ducked whenever the rest comes in (well the mastering compression on usual commercial CDs will do that for us )

aXel

P.S.: I decide to give it the name 'golden' hehehehe...

 

[EleKtriKaz]

Jugalo, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've wondered about that myself, but never considered that it might be some sort of bass frequency. It's just that ambient, nothing noise in a track somewhere between instrumentation and mute that makes the song sound so much less sterile. I always associated it with the self noise of the mics or just mics in the room when nothing is playing. I would love to know if there is some kind of concrete answer for this.

 

[Atterion]

Bass Player Here!!!
Sounds to me what your describing is a combination of things. Obviously we can look to compressor first. Probably has a long release setting, but it may also have a high ratio with lots of make-up gain, which would serve to amplify the quieter parts. Combine this with the fact that most bass players do not use Gates, you are going to get a lot of low level fundamentals and harmonics even when the bass is not being played (Just from being held and moved). Add to this some sub-bass processing, and you end with a sound that you may be describing here.

It is also possible that the bass was miked at the cabinet, and combining the proximity effects of miking, and this low level sound. Especially if the amps onboard compressor was used. No offense to the amp manufacturers of the world, but with the exception of a few, they all have lousy compressors for recording. Great for live use, but are usually just a little to sloppy for serious recording.

And there's tubes. Tubes are really good at amplifying the smallest of signals, especially AC Hum, P-Style and J-Style Pickups (Single coil fender players know what I'm saying). It's really noticeable on bass amps because there frequency response is tuned quite low. I had an old fender bass amp once, and when I would stand within like 10 feet of it while plugged in, it would slowly start rumbling from a very mild feedback loop from the J Pick-up.

Finally, we come to Active Pick-ups/Pre-amps. Most are of the 9volt or 18 volt variety, and they can color the natural sound quite severely. Some people like that, but for me the best bsasses I have ever heard have been passive and/or ran through an external pre-amp.

 

[dachay2tnr]

I think I know exactly what you are talking about. I call it "presence."

You can hear it in live situations sometimes, when you hear the PA turned on. Just by the sound of the "silence" it puts out, you can tell it is gonna be a kick-ass sound system.

I don't know exactly what it is, but my feeling is that reverb plays a major roll in it. Maybe it is just the sound of very low level ambient noise as heard through good reverb.

Dunno, but I have been trying to capture that in my stuff (unsuccessfully, I should add).

 

[kylen]

I've been thinking about this for a few days now and I don't think we've got the entire answer yet. There seems to be some kind of musical ambient noise floor - I don't know what it is - it ain't silence and it ain't noise...hmmm...

 

[volltreffer]

High!

Might it be some very low end verb parts. I read an article about SIR (a sampling impulse response verb) and some high end verb builder said something like 'these verbs sound nice for a home user, but very sterile. They simply lack the low freq parts that have to handle times of up to 30s' (!!!).

Such very low freq verb parts might have the effects you describe: a 'sub-bass' that fits musically to the song... If we use our cheapass verbs, they lack this and are therefore so sterile...

Just an idea...

aXel

 

[kylen]

Now we're gettin somewhere. SIR would definitely supply an ambient 'wash' with the right Impulse...it has a frequency adjustment so you could fine tune it also...hmmm interesting - I think I'll experiment a bit - good tip

 

[dachay2tnr]

I'll give you somewhat of another example (although I could be dating myself). Anyone familiar with the song Salisbury by Uriah Heep?

There is a well-known part in the song where the guitar player clicks on an effects pedal. You can audibly hear the click, but he doesn't play anything for several seconds afterwards. However, there is a noticeable shift in the ambience before and after that click. Obviously we are hearing something, even though he is not playing anything.

 

[kylen]

Hey I've got that one, hehe I mean a real old friend of mine does
That's the one with 'The Park', eh ? I'll see if I can find it...

 

[dachay2tnr]

I believe you are correct. Your "friend" has a good memory.

 

[jugalo180]

wow

i'm happy that i wasn't imagining things, there is a lot of useful and creative explanations put out on this thread. i'm really happy that other people on this board could really clarify what i was trying to say. thanks for giving me some insight on this mystery.