How to achieve that super clanky bass tone?!

[He's Dead, Jim]

Slight necrobump.

So I've tried pretty much everything mentioned. I think my problem lies in the duplicate (high) track. I can never seem to get the distortion right. It's either too much or too little, and never want's to blend nicely with the clean/DI track. Though what I've gathered from Ermz's book, I think with some patience and practice, I can get at least somewhat closer to what I'm looking for.

Play around with the input volume on the amp you're using for the distorted track. I find that lower-gain amps and lower input volumes will, if you're playing with a pick, give it a horrible, screechy tone from the pick attack. But if you run it hotter through the amp, that starts to disappear. The trade-off is that it's not as tight.

 

[KHE]

I can never seem to get the distortion right. It's either too much or too little, ...

maybe the distortion is not dense enough... try smashing it with a comp or saturate it (Devil-Loc, pushed satson, decapitator or similar).

 

[Jormyn]

Every time I try the separate-track-with-distortion approach, no matter what distortion or EQ I've tried, the end result just sounds like there's some gross noise going on in the background of the mix. Am I just picking shitty distortions?

I've tried all the LePou amps, with and without cabs, the TSE 808 and Rat sims, even Extremist since it can do that really sexy old-Edge-of-Sanity grindy tone...

 

[egan.]

I know dudes will disagree but IMO if the distorted track isn't cool solo'd it won't be cool. By "cool" I don't mean perfect, but the "so distorted it sounds terrible" thing has never worked for me.

 

[infectdsniper]

uad nigel, sansamp or darkglass b7k with brand spanking new pro steels. here is a clip of a b7k mixed with uads nigel. no seprate tracks. they are both full spectrum. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41026129/dingwall b7k.mp3 and with a boost in the 1-2k region that could come pretty close

 

[HCL]

Best bass tone's I've ever had came through an RBI, EMG pickups. I had to do almost no processing to the top end to get it sounding great.

 

[HCL]

uad nigel, sansamp or darkglass b7k with brand spanking new pro steels. here is a clip of a b7k mixed with uads nigel. no seprate tracks. they are both full spectrum. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41026129/dingwall b7k.mp3 and with a boost in the 1-2k region that could come pretty close

That sounds great.

 

[AscentToZenith]

uad nigel, sansamp or darkglass b7k with brand spanking new pro steels. here is a clip of a b7k mixed with uads nigel. no seprate tracks. they are both full spectrum. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41026129/dingwall b7k.mp3 and with a boost in the 1-2k region that could come pretty close

Oh boy that is it. That is the bass tone I want..
I can tell that is the B7k because of all the clips I listen to of Nolly's (from Periphery) bass tone. Damn I love his and your tone. So damn heavy.

 

[sander]

Slight necrobump.

So I've tried pretty much everything mentioned. I think my problem lies in the duplicate (high) track. I can never seem to get the distortion right. It's either too much or too little, and never want's to blend nicely with the clean/DI track. Though what I've gathered from Ermz's book, I think with some patience and practice, I can get at least somewhat closer to what I'm looking for.

Try high-passing the DI before it hits the amp/sim/pre/whatever-you're-using-for-tone.

 

[mstone564]

I like to use distortion pedals (rat, heavy overdrive) and basically make them sound like a dimed muff pedal (I'd use a muff if I had one haha) as the dynamic-less, phat DISTORTED sound. Blending tracks of different distortion pedals is cool too. For the "clank" I'll just have like a clean, slightly driven track to poke through and cut. Then I'll have the low sub DI track.

Messing with the faders for these and filtering (very important) correctly will produce a massive sound. Then standard EQ, comp, limiter, ect. on the bus.

 

[J.Lindmann]

Oh boy that is it. That is the bass tone I want..
I can tell that is the B7k because of all the clips I listen to of Nolly's (from Periphery) bass tone. Damn I love his and your tone. So damn heavy.

Tried to reproduce this sound with BOD and match-eq.
Didn’t work out. Sounded completely different.
Even two serial BODs didn’t do the job.
(It didn’t sound bad at all, but I just wanted to reproduce this specific sound just fort he fun of it)

Yeah I know…different bass, different strings, different player, different overdrive, different interface…
But I expected to get closer than what I achived.

 

[nezvers]

I've found harmonics in bass around 450hz (there is one or 2 harmonics right around that area, you'll totally hear when boosted) that need to be cut out. Especially on distorted bass track. I've found that I like prominent low-end when it goes into distortion (also adjusted clunk before distortion), because it enhance hi-end rattling inside distortion. Than it can be hi-passed and blended with cleaner bass track.

 

[Gaclav]

I'm "searching" this type of sound since I've started to play with music production. The general rule is pretty simple, but to get this sound it takes a lot of tweaking (I haven't had opportunity to mix hi end bass so far tough).
But if you ask me if it's possible - then yes - you can get pretty similar results (of course you can clearly hear the difference, especially this grinding low-mid area in B7K example)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/1klk55hqrk2snnj/Gaclav_Bass_Grind_Tone.mp3?dl=0

Tone is mainly Ignite SHB with little bit of B.O.D
(DI taken from Icem4n's KSE cover. I'm currently working on it so stay tuned)

 

[FrankTheSmith]

The bass DI on that KSE cover is awesome. Made a pretty nice tone with it using Amplitude, then tried another cover song's bass DI with the same settings and it sounded like poop.
I think the bass itself is the most important part of the tone.

 

[Gaclav]

I think the bass itself is the most important part of the tone.

Totally agree! It's useless if you have insanely good guitars and kick+snare when bass sucks and sound like a piece of cardboard with used towing lines (If you're into "modern" metal sound). Good wood, good electronics and FRESH STRINGS