more boomy bass

whymark

whymark

New member
Hi All, I (finally) learned about making room for the bass, kick and piano by putting a HPF @170 Hz (give or take) on all instruments except the three just mentioned. The bass response is EXACTLY as I wanted it to be. First project finished. Now I remixed an older project with the same HPF protocols. The progression is I-VI-V. The bass associated with the I & V chords is fine but, the bass associated with the VI chord is boomy and obnoxious.. I identified B1 and E2 as the culprits and installed a 4 dB parametric cut (Q=4) on each one.....no change. I then added a 4dB low shelf @71 Hz ....once again; no change. I'd like to bring the whole bass track up a couple dB but that VI chord boom drives me nutz......ANYBODY??

Many thanks,
mark
 

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I'm not hearing your problem--or much bass or bottom at all for that matter. High passing most of your tracks is smart, but 170Hz is higher than I would go. As Ashcat suggests, it could be a matter of resonances in your listening environment.
 
i agree i don't hear much bass at all. what are you monitoring on?

the left speaker distorts, too. maybe you're recording too hot or limiting? the instruments sound a lot like midi/elevator muzak. i'd try to disguise that more.
 
whymark said:
Hi All, I (finally) learned about making room for the bass, kick and piano by putting a HPF @170 Hz (give or take) on all instruments except the three just mentioned.
Click to expand...
Future reference -- If you need to do that, you're really working with the wrong sources in the first place. As mentioned in here, I'd take a serious look at what's happening in the space.
 
whymark said:
Hi All, I (finally) learned about making room for the bass, kick and piano by putting a HPF @170 Hz (give or take) on all instruments except the three just mentioned. The bass response is EXACTLY as I wanted it to be. First project finished. Now I remixed an older project with the same HPF protocols. The progression is I-VI-V. The bass associated with the I & V chords is fine but, the bass associated with the VI chord is boomy and obnoxious.. I identified B1 and E2 as the culprits and installed a 4 dB parametric cut (Q=4) on each one.....no change. I then added a 4dB low shelf @71 Hz ....once again; no change. I'd like to bring the whole bass track up a couple dB but that VI chord boom drives me nutz......ANYBODY??

Many thanks,
mark
Click to expand...

you have to learn where your frequencies really are.
sounds like you are just randomly hunting for them, and have not actually identified what they are.

get something like SPAN

learn how to use it...
train your ears to recognize freq's...

just randomly high passing the majority of your tracks is the WRONG method.
 
This is pretty obviously a listening environment issue. But, when you need to eq a note so it doesn't stick out, stringed instruments tend to have the most power an octave above the fundamental of the note.

This means that if the note is 75hz, the boom is most likely at 150hz.
 
Thank you for all of this. Ido1957, would you coment further on automation? I'm monitoring through Yamaha HS50M which sit on two wooden stools; this is the only way I can place them away from room corners and also form an equilateral triangle with my ears. I am very limited in what I can do as far as room treatment is concerned since I basically took over the living room....now .chocker block full of instruments, bookcases and more angles than a geometry textbook! There is no limiting or compression; only a maximizer set @-0.2 dB. I wrote the tune in the late 70's and my children developed a very strong connection to it (hence the name) and I'm not sure how to disguise the muzak aspect but, remain open to any and all ideas. The HPF seems to work well for me but, I'll defer to those who think that it's the wrong way to go and check out SPAN. What other ways are there to obtain a nice clear bass sound? There are some bass responses that seem to hit me right in the gut with all of that energy yet sound remarkably clear.....like in the movies.....how is that achiever? Thanks again guys
mark
 
Well, further with what Farview was saying: We don't really hear frequencies down in the range of the fundamentals of bass instruments. That is the impact, the thump, the rumble that makes you want to poop. If you're hearing mud, then it's probably and octave or two above that, and if you want any articulation at all you need to look another couple octaves higher.

Now WTF is a maximizer? Isn't that market bullshit for a brickwall limiter?

Anywho, I didn't actually listen to your thing, but if you're using synths or sampled instruments, you don't really get the luxury of carefully placing the microphones to fit your mix. You really have to use EQ for that, but it's a good idea to kind of think like that. The synth output is like the raw sound at the instrument, and you have to decide how you want to "capture" it. What and how much space do you want to put around it? Which overtones do you want to emphasize or deemphasize? In these cases the line between "getting it right at the source" and "fixing it in the mix" is so blurry it's hard to say if it exists at all. It could be as easy as pulling up a different synth or sample set of the same type of instrument which has a character closer to what you need, but it almost never is just that easy.
 
Now that I've listened on studio monitors, you have something going on around 40hz that pops up on certain bass notes. It isn't so much that it is too much, it just isn't connected to anything.

It sounds like the bass is only low end, which makes it hard to judge volume. If you added some midrange to the bass, you could balance the sub low end and make the instrument more audible in the mix.

When you are mixing, you can have an enormous amount of low end going on, as long as you balance it with mids and highs.
 
you guys are great!!!....just when I think I've got my arms around something you are there to remind me what a neophyte I still am....I've installed SPAN and am reading the user's guide....it looks to be as handy as it is cool....the concept of working with one or more octaves above the fundamental is most interesting.....what/where would you suggest I go to learn more about this?

WTF is a MAXIMIZER???!!! I'll answer with another question; what do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros? elephino.....I was following another guy's work flow and he added a maximizer as the final step in the mix....it looks surprisingly like a brickwall limiter but the knobs are labeled "output" and "Optimize" rather than "threshold" and "release".....I checked my "Dynamics" plug-ins and found both; courtesy of Steinberg on Cubase 7. It does sound a bit like marketing BS.....many thanks again

mark the virtual neophyte,
 
There are a couple different things that could be called a maximizer. One is simply a brick wall limiter, another is more like a cross between a compressor and an expander, in which it brings up the quieter stuff while leaving the peaks alone.

I'm not sure where you would go to learn about working with parts of the sound other than the fundamental, but here are a couple things to get you started.

1. when you play a note on an instrument, the instrument creates the fundamental frequency and creates a bunch of harmonics, generally at octave intervals above the fundamental. How many and how much of each it creates is what gives each instrument its sound. Without these differences in the harmonic structure, a piano a harpsichord and a guitar would sound the same.

2. An octave interval is a doubling or halving of frequency. For example, A-440 is an octave above A-220 and an octave below A-880. So, for example, if an A note on a bass guitar was sticking out in a mix, the fundamental is 55hz, an octave up is 110hz and an octave above that is 220hz. One or more of those frequencies would be what needed to be EQ'd to fix the problem.
 
Farview said:
There are a couple different things that could be called a maximizer. One is simply a brick wall limiter, another is more like a cross between a compressor and an expander, in which it brings up the quieter stuff while leaving the peaks alone.

I'm not sure where you would go to learn about working with parts of the sound other than the fundamental, but here are a couple things to get you started.

1. when you play a note on an instrument, the instrument creates the fundamental frequency and creates a bunch of harmonics, generally at octave intervals above the fundamental. How many and how much of each it creates is what gives each instrument its sound. Without these differences in the harmonic structure, a piano a harpsichord and a guitar would sound the same.

2. An octave interval is a doubling or halving of frequency. For example, A-440 is an octave above A-220 and an octave below A-880. So, for example, if an A note on a bass guitar was sticking out in a mix, the fundamental is 55hz, an octave up is 110hz and an octave above that is 220hz. One or more of those frequencies would be what needed to be EQ'd to fix the problem.
Click to expand...
Side bar :>)
I was transferring a guy's cassette demo to CD and one slow one the bass guit was just way hot on a lot of notes. For grins I went after some of them with some automated high q notches.
Interesting thing was some didn't responded that much at all reducing gain on their fundamental, but rather the octave above.
 
mixsit said:
Side bar :>)
I was transferring a guy's cassette demo to CD and one slow one the bass guit was just way hot on a lot of notes. For grins I went after some of them with some automated high q notches.
Interesting thing was some didn't responded that much at all reducing gain on their fundamental, but rather the octave above.
Click to expand...

I think I mentioned before that most stringed instruments have much more power an octave or two above the fundamental.
 
OK, I'll start focusing on the harmonics to get the bass response(s) I'm looking for.....who knows; I might even graduate from being a tadpole before too long
 
Farview said:
I think I mentioned before that most stringed instruments have much more power an octave or two above the fundamental.
Click to expand...

I guess it isn't too often I've tackled fixing a bass track's out-o whack level via eq, but, learn a bit every day as we go..
I was thinking at the time, due to the tones' and randomness of it (the note's reactions to the eq) it seemed closer to what I might expect of issues with mic'd bass track -but I have no idea if that was the case.
 
Some basses seem to have certain notes that stick out for some reason, that is when you can eq it right.

Of course, it's better to just get a quality bass that doesn't do that.
 
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