Making a clean bass work in the mix

[AllanD]

Think Mark Hoppus or Hunter Burgan bass tone. Albums they are on sound great, and the bass is clean as a whistle while still being present in the mix. How does one achieve this? Imagine it's just a recorded amp.

 

[StefTD]

some nice compression, most of the time it needs some equing to make it glue with the bassdrum and the guitars
but that depends alot on the mix and the other sounds, the main thing is good playing-working with clean bass
sounds most of the time because I dig it for my own stuff more.
Mixing the album of my new band right now, a bit progressive black metal, bass player plays a 5 string with his
fingers and just needs a clean sound because of the stuff he plays.

You know what? It's sooo easy to mix it because he plays incredible tight and stable, I just put a compressor
on there without even looking on the settings alot, but a hp and lp on it and that's it, glued with the rest sooo
well.

Recorded a song I wrote a few days ago, a bit trashy, punky and still funk influenced rock, clean bass on it,
it was hard to mix until I forced myself to record it again and play it tight, it helped alot, put a sansamp sim
on it, ampeg impulse, compression hp, lp (at 5khz) and reduced 500hz and 230 a bit (2-3db) and it worked
pretty well.

 

[Heabow]

^ +1

A great playing, fresh strings and good parts are the key! Personally I love nice gritty attacks for the bass almost everytime but right now I'm mixing a project with a really bad bassist and this is fucking complex to get a decent shit!!

 

[Maybelater]

Think Mark Hoppus or Hunter Burgan bass tone. Albums they are on sound great, and the bass is clean as a whistle while still being present in the mix. How does one achieve this? Imagine it's just a recorded amp.

Some add some grit to get some presents in the Bass but, I like the clean sound of presents without the grit. The grit does sound good though too.

 

[schust]

i like a clean bass too. i've lost count of the times i've tried the 'clean/gritty' bass trick describe on this forum and just never got it to work right with my mixes. probably me, but never liked what i got.

as mentioned above, compression (i use multiband a lot for fine-tuning) and EQ can make a world of a difference. focus on the mud. also, recently i've found adding BTE's TS secret http://www.bteaudio.com/software/TSS/TSS.html at the top of my BASS chain does wonders with presence. not much, just a touch.

 

[Darren "Jenk" Jenkins]

The song, performance and quality of the bass guitar plays a big part in the sound. If you get that right all the other stuff just falls into place.

 

[egan.]

I think you have to be careful about how you define clean and grit in this discussion. In the last several years, it seems that everyone who talks about this means full on bass distortion mixed with a DI, but this technique started in a way more conservative place. I'd argue that when these pop punk guys mic a cranked SVT and mix that with a DI they're after the same stuff. It's about creating natural compression and additional harmonics.

 

[ahjteam]

good SOUNDING bass guitar, new strings, awesome player, DI track and possibly an amp track too and you have yourself a good clean bass tone.

 

[AllanD]

I think you have to be careful about how you define clean and grit in this discussion. In the last several years, it seems that everyone who talks about this means full on bass distortion mixed with a DI, but this technique started in a way more conservative place. I'd argue that when these pop punk guys mic a cranked SVT and mix that with a DI they're after the same stuff. It's about creating natural compression and additional harmonics.

I sent an email to the person who recorded AFI's All Hallows, he said the final bass tone was 100% just a mic'd SVT. For everyone saying use a DI, I just said in the OP imagine no DI!