Automating bass to a consistent RMS Level

[Uros]

Look, if someone's gonna help me out with an actual answer, I would really appreciate that. What I don't appreciate is this kind of commentary, where the bigger deal is that I replied to an old tread, and not actual content of my post. The stuff I asked is relevant. Also, I haven't found the answer in other threads, and I don't wanna to clutter up the forum with needles threads. I really think that it's a pretty legitimate question to ask, and that it's asked in the proper place.

 

[Ensi]

^Plus other people that don't know aforementioned subject might learn a thing or two.

 

[OneDaySky]

You know where this would work amazing?
I rate if you duplicate the bass track hi-pass one and low pass the other, both at the same frequency. And do the constant RMS trick with automation on the lower frequency bass track. That way the low end will be solid and the human string picking sound will hunanize it more ( oppose to the full bass track.

Mmmmh, I need to try thus

 

[smy1]

OneDaySky: nifty plan! I agree!

 

[Finsmi]

^Plus other people that don't know aforementioned subject might learn a thing or two.

There, you said it! Stereotypical, borderline ridiculous forum-mentality on some of the veterans here. We all have the same goal, to learn.. And for those of us who just recently discovered this amazing forum, I think it is just GREAT that old, good threads gets bumped once in a while.. Grow up people, you don't have to even read the thread again, if you choose not to!

 

[amarshism]

It's the curse. Revive a necrothread and get written off. Start a new one and get burned for not searching.

 

[Backe]

compress, compress again, multibandcompress, limit. 1, maybe 2 notes will be a little off depending on the tuning, automate those down. done.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

It's the curse. Revive a necrothread and get written off. Start a new one and get burned for not searching.

lol I was just gonna say... apparently you can't win around here

 

[Uros]

sort of like catch 22, huh

 

[dcb]

You know where this would work amazing?
I rate if you duplicate the bass track hi-pass one and low pass the other, both at the same frequency. And do the constant RMS trick with automation on the lower frequency bass track. That way the low end will be solid and the human string picking sound will hunanize it more ( oppose to the full bass track.

Mmmmh, I need to try thus

exactly how i do it. really cool way to have best of both worlds!

 

[Canaan]

So what is the constant RMS you guys shoot for?

 

[Torniojaws]

I always hated when a bass player would actually do some neat stuff higher up and all of a sudden the low-end dropped out, in comparison to the lower notes. RBass took care of that, I know that's not part of your post, but just a little tidbit of stuff to try if you can

Double-track the bass on high parts? One playing low stuff, one playing the high stuff. I believe they did this on Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance.

 

[John_C]

There, you said it! Stereotypical, borderline ridiculous forum-mentality on some of the veterans here. We all have the same goal, to learn.. And for those of us who just recently discovered this amazing forum, I think it is just GREAT that old, good threads gets bumped once in a while.. Grow up people, you don't have to even read the thread again, if you choose not to!

it's just Masterbeast being a dick. He's not exactly a "veteran" either.

on topic: compressing the living bejeezus out of the low end and leaving the high end alone does work lovely, the alternative to splitting the track is using a multiband comp

 

[AudioGeekZine]

Instead of routing through an aux and all that, (like someone a few years ago said) and if you don't want to compress it to death. Put a trim plug in the first insert and automate that. Use track fader for final balance with the other instruments.

Yes Vocal rider would work for this also.

 

[Uros]

Thanks. Yeah, trim automation is simple yet good solution for this. I am curious would Rider be really time-saver in practice, because it is in theory. If I understood correctly, you just put range in there, and there you go. Set-and-forget kinda thing.

 

[MetalSound]

Double-track the bass on high parts? One playing low stuff, one playing the high stuff. I believe they did this on Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance.

don´t think so. jens wrote here a while ago that he just tracked the bass in stereo. the rest is synth i guess.

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

the alternative to splitting the track is using a multiband comp

That's what I was thinking while reading the thread. The advantage I see to this is that it keeps your session from having a lot of tracks of the same parts, so the cleaner it is, the better the workflow. But there's always like 100 different ways you could try to control the low end of the bass. Whatever works

 

[Ermz]

Yes I'd be wanting to try the vocal rider plug-in on bass. If it works in practice as well as it does in my mind in theory it would greatly enhance the punch and open-ness of bass tracks by allowing you to compress for envelope rather than dynamics. The heavy limiting can really kill the bass. Probably reduce the amount of de-junking EQ you have to do as well due to not boosting all kinds of fucked up harmonics with all the compression.

 

[Alexchapel]

I record 1 bass track, then copy it to another track, I hi pass one track at 100hz and apply EQ and distortion to get the twangy metallic sound, then I low pass the other track at 100hz and apply Waves Rbass to the track, the RBass keeps the low end smooth and even, then I just blend the gritty bass track with the low end bass track until I get the tone i want with the right amount of punch. I would assume if you don't have the Waves bundle compressing the shit out of the low end track would do the same as RBass as far as keeping it even goes.

 

[OneDaySky]

exactly how i do it. really cool way to have best of both worlds!

Rad man