General bass problems in my mixes

[TheStoryteller]

The biggest problem in my home studio right now is to get a decent bass sound in my mixes. The problem isn't the bass guitar itself, nor the recording process.

Since I (obvously) can't record a bass amp in my apartment, I do it "the Fredman way". I.e bass guitar -> DI -> preamp/compressor -> soundcard -> hard drive. The recorded sound is nice and clean, in fact at least as good as the raw tracks from our album recordings that were done in Studio Fredman. So the problem is to be found elsewhere.

After getting the clean sound to hard drive, Fredman uses the Sansamp PSA-1 plugin for bass, but that's only 33.3% of the recipe to success... the rest is EQ and compression, and THAT'S where I can't get it right. I have a really hard time figuring out what frequencies to keep and what to get rid of... I usually end up reducing at 200-300Hz because it seems to interfer with everything else. Then I compress the hell out of it, but I get the impression that I still have dynamic problems... some notes sound fine, some can't even be heard. Should I try some multiband compression?

I know these questions are very loosely defined... I just don't know where to start. Today I can get the job done EVENTUALLY, but it takes too much time compared to everything else. So any tips or suggestions would be nice. And by the way; you don't need to bash the "DI only" method; I would be pretty satisfied if I could get in the same ballpark as many (most?) Fredman albums.

edit: something that really would help; do you know any album production with good bass sound where the bass can be heard WITHOUT the rhythm guitars from time to time? Drums + bass would be great; and it would give me a hint of what to look for.

 

[Hammer Bart]

Testament - trial by fire

It's one song and not an entire album, but there is a nice part with just bass and drums about one minute into the song.

 

[Gomez]

The biggest problem in my home studio right now is to get a decent bass sound in my mixes. The problem isn't the bass guitar itself, nor the recording process.

Since I (obvously) can't record a bass amp in my apartment, I do it "the Fredman way". I.e bass guitar -> DI -> preamp/compressor -> soundcard -> hard drive. The recorded sound is nice and clean, in fact at least as good as the raw tracks from our album recordings that were done in Studio Fredman. So the problem is to be found elsewhere.

After getting the clean sound to hard drive, Fredman uses the Sansamp PSA-1 plugin for bass, but that's only 33.3% of the recipe to success... the rest is EQ and compression, and THAT'S where I can't get it right. I have a really hard time figuring out what frequencies to keep and what to get rid of... I usually end up reducing at 200-300Hz because it seems to interfer with everything else. Then I compress the hell out of it, but I get the impression that I still have dynamic problems... some notes sound fine, some can't even be heard. Should I try some multiband compression?

I know these questions are very loosely defined... I just don't know where to start. Today I can get the job done EVENTUALLY, but it takes too much time compared to everything else. So any tips or suggestions would be nice. And by the way; you don't need to bash the "DI only" method; I would be pretty satisfied if I could get in the same ballpark as many (most?) Fredman albums.

edit: something that really would help; do you know any album production with good bass sound where the bass can be heard WITHOUT the rhythm guitars from time to time? Drums + bass would be great; and it would give me a hint of what to look for.

Yo. For the same reason bass is my fave instrument to record. Because it's dificult to get right.

The problems you are having with some notes sounding fine and others not can be tackled (normally) by tweaking the attack and release time of the compressor. Also, I think that if you squash the bass too much it can sound pretty bad. Too much of anything is normally bad.

If you want to be able to "hear" the bass (And not just feel) what I thend to do it's give it a good amount (not too much) of drive. I like the blues driver pedal for this duty and the Sans Amp plug is pretty decent too.

Then, I believe the "secret" to get hear the bass in the mix is to give the bass a good amount of mids at around 1.5K.

I don't think cutting out at 200-300Hz is a problem, I find myself doing that sometimes.

Shame you didn't record the bass through an amp as well as the DI. I tend to use the miced signal to add "weight" and the DI for drive, tone etc... Just more flexibility.

But you know, it's always different with every recording... and that it's the fun of it.

Best luck.

 

[Carrier Flux]

I've had a lot of the same problems as you, and am still having them.

A couple rather dirty little tricks I've found that probably aren't good practice, but have helped me out are these:

for notes at different pitches being less audible two things have helped: A) multiband compression, and B) wide-band EQ boosts in the mids. The fundamental note volumes seem to vary more in amplitude than the mid-frequency levels, so if you put a little more weight on the mids things can sound more consistent.

another trick I've used that probably isn't recommendable is dropping the frequency for the pitch that's too loud if that's a problem. Let's say your open Low B string is WAY too loud. You can find the frequency for the fundamental [I believe it's 62hz or 124hz or something for this note in particular] and put a very narrow band EQ dip at that frequency. again probably not good practice, but it's gotten my bum out of trouble once or twice.

here's a cool site with note frequencies:
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

 

[~BURNY~]

I have the same problem but... I blame my room for that. Standing waves are killing me and ruin all my mixes because I can't hear bass frequencies accurately except trough headphones. Don't underestimate that point.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

The biggest problem in my home studio right now is to get a decent bass sound in my mixes.

You're not alone. That's the biggest giveaway on amateur vs. pro recording. $0.02

 

[Razorjack]

I'm working on this very aspect of my mixes right now, getting the bass and kick to lay down the solid foundation for the mix makes a whole world of difference.

I'm prefering a hi-passed DI (around 80-90Hz) mixed with a low passed mic (around 8kHz) for a full 'rounded' bass tone, the amps an Ampeg SVT which also helps.

 

[FASTFISTS]

Honestly, The best way to start is with a SansAmp Bassdriver!
The last bass player I tracked almost crapped his pants when he hear how good it sounded!Just sits in the mix! Also try a C4 on it aswell!

Never the less....bassist and kick ass guitar are also assets!

 

[Niels]

... some notes sound fine, some can't even be heard.

Had the same problem.

I know you said it's not a problem with the equipment, but I got rid of this by using a different bass. I even had this "dead spot" problem with some expensive instruments...

btw. what are your attack-/release times?

 

[KeithRT99]

honestly i've never liked going DI on my bass tracks(but i do cause its fast). When i record a mic'd amp, it just sounds so much better, and the tonal response of the bass is well, bassier. DI's make the high strings small sounding when i do it, but a speaker tends to even the bass out.

 

[FASTFISTS]

Ahhh nobody cares about the bass in metal anyway!!!

Forgot to mention....tracking a cab as well...for the sweet lows.

 

[TheStoryteller]

Thank you everyone!

I just tried some multiband compression, and it got A LOT BETTER, and it's much more simple to keep the low frequencies under control. (duh) It seems this is the way to go, and you can smash the low-lows to keep them where you want'em, and still keep some dynamics in the mid range. I didn't even have to eq to make it sound good, I could fix it all in the multiband comp.

BTW, I used GMulti from GVST. It's free, as all their plugins, and was highly recommended from people who seem to know what they're talking about. Easier to use than the C4 as well.

Besides the GMulti, I used the free Blockfish compressor (single band) with veeery little compression, but the saturation control on full to get som nice distortion. I also ran the whole package through a nice bass cab impulse, however I have several and can't really decide which one is best... But the main problem is solved now; and all the rest is a matter of taste.

 

[Nebulous]

Good to hear dude. Thanks for the advice.

 

[GuitarMaestro]

I also ran the whole package through a nice bass cab impulse

What are you talking about here? Sounds interesting....

 

[TheStoryteller]

What are you talking about here? Sounds interesting....

For impulses I use Voxengo Pristine Space, which is basically like SIR but not free:

There are some cab impulses at http://www.noisevault.com/index.php and you can google for more.

 

[GuitarMaestro]

Wow....impulse modelling is something I wanted to play with for quite some time now....but not knowing much about it I thought it could only be used for reverbs and not for most anything....awesome....have to play with that stuff NOW! Thanks for pointing me in that direction....

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

BTW, I used GMulti from GVST. It's free, as all their plugins, and was highly recommended from people who seem to know what they're talking about. Easier to use than the C4 as well.

Cool, never heard about them, got to check them out, thanks

 

[TheStoryteller]

For your convenience: http://www.gvst.co.uk/

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Thank you Did you try all of their plugs ? Which ones would you advice ?

 

[TheStoryteller]

I've only tried the three compressors so far... the GMulti one impressed me more than the other two.