Saddle & Ride - Mixing tips?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BeagleFaceHenry
  • Start date Start date
Ok, here's a few tracks;
Here's the raw bass track.
RAW BASS
Here's the bass solo in the mix.
BASS MIX SOLO
If someone with more awesomeness than me wants to show me what they'd do with the bass track, I'd be mighty appreciative.

And here's the mix without bass. I'm not hearing the boomyness everyone is talking about, but I'm dealing with mid-line headphones, crappy monitors, and a sleeping baby upstairs. We recorded this tune live, so I was wondering if the boomyness is coming from the bleed. Take a listen and let me know if it's still boom without the bass track.
S&R NO BASS

Thanks all!

Here's what I did (From left to right, top to bottom) (I guess I lied about the LPF at 500)
Capture.webp
 
Both the bass guitar and the kick drum have the same issue. It is all 'woofy' around 80-120 Hz. The combining of them together just reinforce the boominess. Start by notching out those frequencies and see what works.

It sucks not having an ideal monitoring environment. Been there.

There is a bunch of fine tuning of eq that could be done all around.

Fun song man! :)
 
BeagleFaceHenry said:
Ok, here's a few tracks;
Here's the raw bass track.
RAW BASS
Here's the bass solo in the mix.
BASS MIX SOLO
If someone with more awesomeness than me wants to show me what they'd do with the bass track, I'd be mighty appreciative.

And here's the mix without bass. I'm not hearing the boomyness everyone is talking about, but I'm dealing with mid-line headphones, crappy monitors, and a sleeping baby upstairs. We recorded this tune live, so I was wondering if the boomyness is coming from the bleed. Take a listen and let me know if it's still boom without the bass track.
S&R NO BASS

Thanks all!

Here's what I did (From left to right, top to bottom) (I guess I lied about the LPF at 500)
View attachment 89760
Click to expand...

I'll comment on the Sonitus EQ, cuz I like that one.

Mute or remove what you've got going on 2,3,4, and 5. Play with the highpass you've got on 1. You've got it on 35 Hz right now. Sweep it up 10 Hz at a time until it starts sounding better. On certain really ballsy boomy bass lines, I've had a highpass at 80 Hz or even higher, depending on the slope.

Jimmy's suggestion to try notching stuff in the 8-120 range is a good idea, too. See what it sounds like.

If it's getting a bit lost against the drums, try some wide, gentle boosts somewhere maybe 400, 500 Hz - that's character range for the bass sometimes. That's also the reason I mentioned a distortion plugin - they add harmonics that help stuff cut through sometimes. Don't put the plugin on the track as an insert. Set it up as a send. Then you can dial in just the right amount to give it a flavor of distortion without making it sound like fuzzbomb conquers the known universe. Like I said before, try to get rid of the low end boominess but keep or add enough character to get it heard.
 
Awesome! Good suggestions....I can't wait to get home and tweak.
I really appreciate the guidance guys, I've had very little thus far. It's true sometimes, it takes a village to make a good mix.
 
I don't know if anyone is still hanging on out there, but I finally had a chance to make some updates. Here's 2 new versions. What do you think?
Update4a
Update4b

Thanks for listening!
-j
 
Great song! I do hear the boominess in the bass, but I kinda like mix #3 anyway. I'm not sure why, but you can really hear the energy of the performance in that mix. Besides those bass frequencies, it seems to be a really balanced mix. Mixes 4 and 5 seem a little brittle to me. Just my opinion.
 
I like 4b better. I think the vocals come through better on that one. Good tune. I could live with this one for a long while. I'm not saying I actually like the bass sound - I think you need to do some serious rehabilitation on your bass recordings - but I could live with this one and like it on repeated listenings.
 
Great, thanks for the feedback!
I really appreciate everyone's input, and it's apparent I need better monitors. Thanks for being my ears guys!

Regarding bass recordings, what do you recommend/what would you change?
P-style bass --> MSR SuperComp [conservative setting] --> Ampeg SVT-100 [Drive 65% . Low 0 . LowMid +2 . HighMid -1 . High -5] --> Direct from Amp Out to Interface.

-j
 
I'm not expert on this, but one idea would be to record a direct signal and a miked signal. Then blend them together when you mix the track. You can get different tones by varying how much of each signal you use. I know talkbass.com has tons of threads on how to record bass, including mike and DI box recommendations.
 
There is a big problem with this track. As a song it's fine. As a performance, it's fine.

But there is something messing up your perception of how it sounds. Could be your monitors, or the room, or both. Or maybe it is just an unpleasnat sounding bass.

Others have commented on the bass and the tracks 'dullness'. I can hear a nasty resonant boom in the bass, maybe around 200hz (or possibly an octave higher), and this is just swamping everything else.
 
Gecko,
Which link did you listen to? The 1st one, or one of the updates along the way? Did you have a chance to listen to the changes?
 
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