gluing bass & guitars together?

[[UEAK]Clowd]

what's the trick? Most pro mixes have that thing going on where the bass and the guitars more or less meld into one big tone but all my mixes they are very obviously seperate.

 

[Uncle Junior]

I have the same problem... I noticed how songs sound with the bass makin' the guitars huuuuuuuge. But in my mixt it all sounds like guitars with a feedback farting.


any useful links here on the forum? I used search and google and again came up with shit...that stinks bad!

 

[freddrik]

If your mix is balanced frequency-wise, adding som masterbus compression can really glue everything togheter. I believe there's a sticky on this forum with a guide that deals with this topic, check it out

 

[Nebulous]

If your mix is balanced frequency-wise

I'd say that's where most of it lies though. Get the frequencies correct in the low and low mids to make them glue.

 

[DanLights]

yeah I think mainly it's about spectral Eqing, giving the bass some space in the lowmids by cutting the guitars and bossting the bass, a medium-to-small sized Q, can't point out a specific freq, just try it out until you se how it sounds. that and some compression on the bass so it'l stay underneath the guitars all the time but doesn't fade out either, should do the trick. Not that I've achieved very well myself, but that's pretty much the theory

 

[gabriel g.]

give the bass place in the lows(100-150hz) AND in the highs (like 3k) and hard compressions

cheers

 

[doclegion]

I usually high pass the guitars and low shelf the bass around the 150 mark as previously mentioned
I do like 2 db or so with the light comp on the master buss that does seem to help, put the levels just right

 

[ahjteam]

I'm not on my own computer now, but try this:

- Create a new stereo bus/group/send (whatever it is called in your daw) and put a stereo spectrum analyzer there (like Voxengo SPAN or something)
- Send the bass to the left channel and the guitar to the right channel
- Then see where they overlap and try to eq so that the overlap in the lowmids would be minimal

In one of my latest mix this is the final bass (unprocessed, processed):
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell_bass.mp3

and in the beginning of the clip is one of the guitars alone:
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell-02.mp3

 

[DanLights]

I'm not on my own computer now, but try this:

- Create a new stereo bus/group/send (whatever it is called in your daw) and put a stereo spectrum analyzer there (like Voxengo SPAN or something)
- Send the bass to the left channel and the guitar to the right channel
- Then see where they overlap and try to eq so that the overlap in the lowmids would be minimal

In one of my latest mix this is the final bass (unprocessed, processed):
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell_bass.mp3

and in the beginning of the clip is one of the guitars alone:
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell-02.mp3

wow that seems like a great idea, why hadn't I thought about that before? thanks ahj!! btw that unprocessed bass sounds pretty processed already, you recorded it with a distorsino on the way in? and that is some heavy distorsion that processed one!! is it the same bass on that full mix of the second clip? cause I don't like how it sounds on it's own, but it seems to fill up that mix pretty damn well