Mixing Bass Guitar

Please post your Mixing Question here for Pro Tools, Logic Audio and GigaStudio. Zumbido is our resident expert.

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ctuber
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Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma

Mixing Bass Guitar

Post by ctuber »

I'm having a tough time of getting of getting my bass guitar to set in it's own space in my mixes. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, if someone has a reference file for a Fender "P" Bass I would love to have it.

Thanks,

Chas T.
dbmasters
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Post by dbmasters »

I've never really dug the P-bass myself, but they are common. When I mix with a bass guitar in there (which is generally the case) I perfer to boost the signal around 100hz and 800 hz to promote a more bassy sound and giving it some punch at the same time, and scoop out around 350hz to get it out of the way of other sounds in the mix. If it's a slap/pop style you may want to boost higher too, around 2k or 2.5k.
Triniti
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triniti

Post by Triniti »

Yea I dont care for that bass to much
I tend to not use any hardware or real bass players
When composing my own music .
I use alot of Vstis

Yea thats ont thing I could not tell you
I just use my ears and when it sounds right I let go of the knob
Carmichael
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Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:05 pm

Mixing & Mastering Bass

Post by Carmichael »

I am really struggling with bass also -- just a huge boom at 95 hz and little else. How about compression? I've tried Rcomp and PSP vintage warmer on bass with little help (even tried amp farm on one buss with a direct out on another buss to simulate mixing amped and DI but with limited success). Sounds like some people use a side chain like C1-Sidechain to heavily compress below 119hz which I used to do, but without great results. Har-bal & t-racks (which are working well for me overall) don't seem able to fix my poor bass mixes - even when it looks well harbalized, there will be a huge boom (I think 95 hz) and this does show up on other spectrum analyzers (ie Nuendo). My monitors (mackie HR 824) don't seem to translate bass well at all - at least in my partially treated basement - and that may be my biggest problem. I think I'll try C4 and some different eq settings (like those mentioned above) but would be grateful for any help.

Thanks!
Carmichael
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Success!

Post by Carmichael »

I spoke too soon! C4 and better eq seems to be working. I have it placed after eq, autotuner, and amp farm. It seems the sub 115 hz band needs heavy compressing with quick attack, the 115 hz to 900 hz needs little compression and can have slower attack, the 900 hz to 2600 hz needs to control the large active transient peaks that occur around 2200 hz.

More detail: The sub 115 band needs heavy compressing with fast attack 0.5ms attack and ~100 ms release, GR -18, gain 6.8. The 115 to 900 hz needs attack ~40ms release 20 to 40 ms, GR -8 gain 2, but keep the threshold up (so that very little compression is occuring on this band), the 900 hz to 2600 hz band needs attack ~1.5 ms and release ~18 ms, GR -8 gain 1, and this should be a very actively compressed band. The upper band can be disabled. The knee should be hard, ARC enabled.

If I keep liking it this well, maybe I'll post it on the protools plugin Coop. (www.digitaldomain.com).

Thanks
Carmichael
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Post by Carmichael »

Please ignore my last post -- that's bad advice, now having bounced to disc a few times, C4 doesnt seem so great. My best luck with bass so far (recorded direct input) has been an equalizer (detailed below), then PSP Vintage Warmer (Bass track preset with ~+4 drive), then Amp Farm (fender bassman, large cab, treble turned low ~3, bass ~6.8, midrange ~5, drive 4, presence 3). You could probably get by without the amp farm (takes one whole DSP chip) or without vintage warmer (substitute rcomp with bass preset).

This is bussed to the same subfader as the kick where an L1 is used for up to 6db reduction with 80ms release time (as described in the book "mixing and mastering with Waves"). It does help the kick to peak through.

Mastering with harbal and t-racks does seem to help tame the bass.

The eq settings on a Waves Q10: High pass 60hz, cut ~6 db at 65 q=10 (lets the kick peak through and gives the speakers a break), boost ~3 at 130hz q=9, cut 4db at 360 hz q=10, boost 2 db at 850 hz q=8, low pass at 4600 hz and 5000 hz.

Hope this is of use to somebody as I am not very experienced or confident. But I do feel pretty good about bass for the moment after a couple years of trying.
Ged Leitch
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Post by Ged Leitch »

Carmichael wrote:Please ignore my last post -- that's bad advice, now having bounced to disc a few times, C4 doesnt seem so great. My best luck with bass so far (recorded direct input) has been an equalizer (detailed below), then PSP Vintage Warmer (Bass track preset with ~+4 drive), then Amp Farm (fender bassman, large cab, treble turned low ~3, bass ~6.8, midrange ~5, drive 4, presence 3). You could probably get by without the amp farm (takes one whole DSP chip) or without vintage warmer (substitute rcomp with bass preset).

This is bussed to the same subfader as the kick where an L1 is used for up to 6db reduction with 80ms release time (as described in the book "mixing and mastering with Waves"). It does help the kick to peak through.

Mastering with harbal and t-racks does seem to help tame the bass.

The eq settings on a Waves Q10: High pass 60hz, cut ~6 db at 65 q=10 (lets the kick peak through and gives the speakers a break), boost ~3 at 130hz q=9, cut 4db at 360 hz q=10, boost 2 db at 850 hz q=8, low pass at 4600 hz and 5000 hz.

Hope this is of use to somebody as I am not very experienced or confident. But I do feel pretty good about bass for the moment after a couple years of trying.


Hi Carmicheal, yeh bass can be a pain sometimes, though usually i find that it's what you end up "doing" to the bass that makes the boom worse.
Your best bet i think is to use as little processing as possible, and eq really should all you need followed by compression, (settings depend solely on style and player skill)
take a minute to just listen to the bass track, where is the boom coming from?
if it's always there then EQ would be the best bet, if it's there every so often then you cant really go wrong with A hard knee comp set correctly.
Most of my boom problems in bass gtr get fixed quickly if i just notch out around 60hz to 75 hz by a couple of db.then compress.
Hope that helps man.
Cheers,
Ged.
zumbido
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Post by zumbido »

Do you know what the frequency is, in Hertz, of the low open 'E' string?

Or, if the bass is a 5-string with a low 'B', what is the frequency of that 'B'?
har-bal
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Post by har-bal »

zumbido wrote:Do you know what the frequency is, in Hertz, of the low open 'E' string?

Or, if the bass is a 5-string with a low 'B', what is the frequency of that 'B'?


Zumbido

You can download a frequency chart with all the frequencies from our other site.

http://www.hdqtrz.com/Files/frequencies.pdf

Cheers

Earle
zumbido
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Post by zumbido »

Ha! Thanks Earle!

I do know what the frequencies are. I was being a 'bad' boy towards spunkymunkey. My main instrument is bass (electric, acoustic, stick).

:lol:

Cut at 60Hz (near a 'Bb', first fret on the A-string)?

Boost at 80Hz (near the 'E', second fret on the D-string)?

Sounds to me like 'room' problem compensation.
har-bal
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Post by har-bal »

zumbido wrote:Ha! Thanks Earle!

I do know what the frequencies are. I was being a 'bad' boy towards spunkymunkey. My main instrument is bass (electric, acoustic, stick).

:lol:

Cut at 60Hz (near a 'Bb', first fret on the A-string)?

Boost at 80Hz (near the 'E', second fret on the D-string)?

Sounds to me like 'room' problem compensation.


Zumbido

Now you know I am slow in my old age :)

Earle
zumbido
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Post by zumbido »

SM,

If it works for you...

:D
Carmichael
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Post by Carmichael »

A late thank you to Ged Leitch, Zumbido and others for help on bass. I forgot to check the forum for a while and only recently saw your good advice. Right now I have been trying just eq (simple small cuts) & comp & it seems to be helping.

Thanks
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