How get your bass to sound like a fucking sledgehammer?

T

Tom MAF

New Metal Member
May 5, 2011
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Ok guys, I've been doing quite a bit of mixing lately and this forum has been a great help, although even with what I've read up on so much, my bass sound still ends up sounding like turd... absolute shite honestly, the mix sounds better without it lol.

I'm trying to get that really... IDK metallic sound that you can hear really present in recordings like the new attack attack album and in asking alexandria's R&R.

That tone just cut's through the mix and sounds separate from guitars yet gels nicely and basically sounds FAT! Really fucking fat!

So basically what do you think is the thing that makes it so good?
I.e EQ, Pickups, the bass, the amp setting (i'm using the ampeg model in my axe-fx lol), IDK multiband compression? lol

Anyway cheers guys :)
 
help would be handy here for me too. i have trouble with bass too, i am mixing on HS50m's though so i can't hear below 65hz = theres 90% of my problem!

what about you man? do you have a setup that lets you hear the low lows?
 
Haha I've got the exact same speakers lol, Didn't realise I couldn't hear below 65hz lol. But tbh surely most people's stereo's or headphones can't either?

And shouldn't you cut out those frequencies anyway as they're gonna mess with your kick?
 
Here's my method:
Start with super tight bass performance on a well tuned bass. Line-in, limit hard, & toss through a nice sounding ampsim.
From there I eq and multiband comp.
 
Cheers for that, but I've basically done all of those things and more to no avail. I need a little more in depth help than that unfortunately :cry:
 
track sansamp, directly to print while still tracking di as well (parallel).

blend di with sansamp track, limit them to taste then use multiband compression to tame the heck out of low-mid frequencies.
 
Sorry but what does directly to print mean?

Also what is UAD nigel mean?

So it the raw sound of the bass something desirable? hmmm interesting :p
 
Tim is saying you want to make a sansamp track and a di track at the same time. So you have 2 tracks that are exactly the same.

UAD Nigel is a bass amp sim that Joey uses to get his bass tone.
 
Ok thanks, although just saying that is a bit like saying to sound like john petrucci you need a mesa boogie mark 4... but you can have that amp but you aren't gonna sound like john petrucci lol. Are there any specific frequencies that get you that metalic sound? I find that when I put distortion on the track I just get this fuzzy white noise sound that just muddies up the mix rather than tighten it lol
 
probably stating the obvious here, but:

never under estimate the importance of the bass you use to track with. i use a shitty ibanez bass that retails for about $300. why? because i'm poor :p

but i've tried for literally months trying to get decent tones with it. then one day i track my mates band with a $2k+ bass.

now his raw DI sounded a whole load better than anything i ever got using my cheapy. all it needed was a DI/amp sim split and some pretty simple EQ/COMP etc and it was perfect for the mix.

different basses have different tones, warrick and musicman are the best suited to metal for what i've been lucky enough to have experience with. fenders have always annoyed me.

so i guess what im trying to say is if it sounds terrible at the DI stage its probably gonna stay pretty terrible. the best thing to do is try and buy/borrow a good sounding bass and you will have a way easier time getting the sound you want.


or get trilian. lol.
 
Tom MAF said:
Ok thanks, although just saying that is a bit like saying to sound like john petrucci you need a mesa boogie mark 4... but you can have that amp but you aren't gonna sound like john petrucci lol. Are there any specific frequencies that get you that metalic sound? I find that when I put distortion on the track I just get this fuzzy white noise sound that just muddies up the mix rather than tighten it lol
Click to expand...

well, basically what Tim, Jeff & I are doing are giving you the tools to make it happen.
I gave you a pretty good chain to achieve what you're going for.

The specifics that you're looking for vary based on: The Player, The Bass, Amp Tone & Key/Tuning of the song & The Tone of the elements surrounding the bass.

both Tim & I give some good starting points: Limit & multiband.
the variables start playing in at this point.

Distortion isn't your key tool here.
 
Haha it may well be the bass tbh lol, I'm using a cheapish Peavey sirrus 5 string and it doesn't really sound great, I would love a music man lol. I presume you guys are using the bridge pickup or am I mistaken? cos you get a lot more attack that way right? :p

I've been trying to emulate the mix on 'To The Stage' on Asking Alexandria's Reckless and Relentless. Here is the abomination I have so far lol (just the intro (yes played sloppily, I was too eager to mix and should have spent more time on it))
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28319341/To The Stage Intro (Mix Test ROUGH) 2.mp3

Here is what it's suppose to sound like ;)


Any comments on how to tighten this up would be wonderful thanks :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Use steel strings, not nickel. That's a good starting point for a more metallic sound. Definitely use a Sansamp, it's always perfect for that type of bass tone.
 
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