Bass compression

[op76]

Hi, I'm after quite aggressive/attacking bass sound, like in Megadeth's United Abdominations (listen "Washington is Next"). Any tips, what kind of compression settings I should try? I know this is very much a playing issue, but it would help me a lot, if I had a some guideline where to start.

Also, what frequensies are those, what are present most? I get too much clatter and jangle

One sample if your intrested: http://www.tormen.org/012_2009g3.mp3

 

[darthjujuu]

tone sounds way too direct. try an ampsim and/or fiddling with the bass's tone knobs on the way in. if you have cash to burn and want to immediately solve all problems, sansamp bass DI driver. or, to EQ out that clank, just sweep through with a narrow cut until you find it and then adjust to taste.

 

[Fragle]

some pointers:

-the fundamental of the bass tone tends to sit between 100 and 200hz depending on the tuning. balance the midrange with the guitars, there's no real guideline here tbh as every mix will be different, depening on the guitar and bass tones
-try lowpassing a duplicate of the track around 100hz-ish, compress it to fuck, and blend in to taste. what you're trying to do is getting a solid low end thats very consistent. it's very different from just cranking the subs on the regular bass track. i usually hipass the original track around 80hz too, so the subs don't get too cluttered.
-do another duplicate, hi and lowpass it so you only get the midrange around 1ki-ish, and distort that track.....i actually use TSS most of the time. doesn't sound as fizzy as a full ampsim. blend it in to taste, so that the bass cuts through better, esp on smaller speakers (andy sneap trick ). be careful not to overdo it with this track though!

you can get really far with just the DI, but obviously having e.g. a sansamp or an miced up ampeg or whatever will give you more tonal options. great thing about bass DI is that you can do a lot of drastic EQ without ruining it, like with most other things.

 

[ahjteam]

I'm after quite aggressive/attacking bass sound

Start by putting the ratio to 4:1 and attack and release to minimum, then set the treshold so that it cuts ~12dB. This will sound shit like this, but don't worry, it will be dandy Then start opening up the attack until it sounds nice again, in my case it was about 30-50ms. Then set the release to about the double that and you should get something like 6 to 9 dB compression.

 

[John_C]

some pointers:

-the fundamental of the bass tone tends to sit between 100 and 200hz depending on the tuning.

The fundamental of the A string of a bass lies at exactly 55hz and bottom E is at around 41hz

 

[Fragle]

well i worded that wrong.....i should have said the base of the tone, the meat basically.