Using the gain on my CA2A on bass

ido1957

ido1957

9K Gold Member
Noticed that the CA2A compressor tends to pull up the bottom end and make the bass boomy. Rarely use it on bass as a result.
Then just left the compressor low enough that it doesn't compress and jacked the gain up by 10 from the basic setting (whatever that means - 40 to 50). Found that the bass was punchy and bright without that boominess I fight with. Kept the dynamics but added some character. Kinda cool.
Have to start with a low level bass track though or the compressor kicks in.
 
It is possible that you are ending up with a boomy sounding bass because of this knob.

When the control is turned toward the HF position, gain reduction is increased on the high frequencies as they pass by. When set to the flat position, gain reduction is applied equally to all frequencies. (This HF feature is actually useful for things such as, if a floor tom track has a ride cymbal bleeding through or an overly bright vocal track has runaway esses to reduce. Things of that nature, but not so much for an already healthy sounding bass.)

Anyway, after the peaks have been reduced or chopped off, your waveform is left with unused space above those peaks called overhead. The GAIN knob can then raise the overall level of the waveform to make use of that overhead. (This gain stage comes after peak reduction.) This is commonly referred to as "Make-up gain". The values shown on this knob tells the compressor how far up (in dB) to push the level.

If you have been inadvertently chopping the high frequency peaks of your bass and then pushing up the remaining lows, this would explain the boominess that you have struggled with.

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
Good information - I never touch that dial so it's no doing anything I guess at this moment. I will play around with it for vocals and cymbals and see what it can do there. I would like to see it do the opposite - turn down the lows on bass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top