Mushy bass in recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter undrgrnd studio
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undrgrnd studio

undrgrnd studio

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OK I've been using a mexican P bass for a while now in my recordings. It's going direct out of my SWR head into a crappy ART tube preamp. Yes I know the preamp sucks, but I have also ran the bass through a DMP-3, a Ballari MP-105, and a Mackie DFX-12 Pre with the same results. It always has a mushy blah sound that I can never seem to fit into the mix very well. Well, sometimes it sounds fine, but that has more to do with the style of music and the interplay with the other instruments.

Is there anything I can do to salvage the tracks I already have? I have literally over 50 recordings with this bass. I need to to salvage these tracks. Here are some examples.

Listen to "Take it as it comes"

www.myspace.com/danieljamessmall

Anything here (not as pronounced because of the style)

www.myspace.com/punkrockohshit
 
I can't listen (at work) but I've been dealing with bass on some of my stuff and

I've been using subtractive EQ to carve out space for everything to sit. My distorted guitars get a decent sized lo cut (freqs depend on the track)

and I read a tip that I'm gonna try which is to play the same low notes on a piano or keys and bring that track up in the mix just enough to accentuate the bass guitar. I don't know how well it works but I'm gonna try it. Nothin to lose, right?
:D

just my thoughts man.

Luck.............Kel
 
I can hardly hear it on Take It As It Comes. Through my Sony MDR-7506 cans (bass hyped) the kick is audible but the bass is way back except near the end. I would say it needs some fader riding and some EQ to make it a bit less weedy in the higher registers. The acoustic guitars might need some high-pass. It's tempting to make acoustic guitar "full" sounding but when there's bass it's better to thin the guitars a bit.

It's a lot better on Girls On Hold. It could do with some EQ to make it a little less flabby and to bring out the presence. The guitars are hard panned and stomp less on the bass.

Again it's okay on Being Alone maybe a touch over-warm. Some subtle EQ would help there. Again, the electric guitars don't stomp on the bass.

A Million Miles shows that the bass is a bit uneven in its frequency balance. To fix what you have, you need to play around with EQ but for new recordings play with the tone controls on the amp and the instrument. What works well live doesn't always record well so you need to do some test recordings and adjust until you're hearing back what you want from disk.
 
you can hardly hear the bass
I am under the assumption that everything has its own track and you still have the master tracks.
maybe add some more gain and more low end to the tracks.
if you have a bass chorus plug-in you may want to see if you can put a little reverb in there as well.
you can definitely improve the bass track by doing a little more post editing.
 
When I try to add more low end it just stays mushy. When I turn up the bass tracks, they become too loud and start interfering with the guitars. I like the idea of scooping out frequencies but I'm not so keen on what frequencies to cut and boost. I guess I can try some more.

I am using the direct out on the bass amp, so the amp EQ isn't interfering. If anything it's the P Bass. It's just mushy period. The last bass I had was an Ibanez sdgr. That bass was too middy and twangy, which was a whole other issue. Maybe I'll try to pick up a Fender Jazz, I hear they are smooth like a P bass but adds more high end clarity.
 
My wife has a Jazz and a Sansamp and it sounds great.
There is a mod you can do to a P-bass to coil tap it. But damned if I can remember it right now.
 
mushy is a good way to describe it. As others have posted i would do some work with the eq. It could use a little more low end, but you might also want to boost around 800Hz to 1Khz slightly to bring out some of the pop. that should help take some of the mush out. You will be fighting pretty much everything else in the mix around 800Hz to 1KHz so be carefull.
 
undrgrnd studio said:
When I turn up the bass tracks, they become too loud and start interfering with the guitars.
Click to expand...

No the Guitars usually have too much bottom end and start interfering with the bass, ask any bass player.

Seriously, try shelving some bass frequencies (below 120Hz) off the bass guitar eq and then turn it up. Do the shelving before compression. Experiment.

Also how good are the strings?

Cheers

Alan
 
I put a GE7B eq pedal on my bass, that helped. EQ it for a better fit before you even record it.

After recording, the thing that made my bass tracks come to the surface was a good compressor plug in. And get the low end of the guitar tracks out of the way. I rolloff all guitar tracks below 120.
 
witzendoz said:
No the Guitars usually have too much bottom end and start interfering with the bass, ask any bass player.
Click to expand...
+++1000000

Often exacerbated by "solo syndrome" where the guitars got EQed in Solo instead of being EQed in context of the mix.
 
iqi616 said:
+++1000000

Often exacerbated by "solo syndrome" where the guitars got EQed in Solo instead of being EQed in context of the mix.
Click to expand...
Damn skippy. I'm a guitarist, but I HATE guitar sounds that are lower than the bass sound... suck it all out under 120/150.
 
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