Making bass fill out/gel with the mix

[He's Dead, Jim]

Apologies if the answer to this question is "mix better," but it seems like even when I follow the basic guidelines for bass production we all generally follow, like splitting it into a DI, mids, and OD, carving out the mud and boosting the lows a bit while making room for the kick drum, my bass is either too quiet or too muddy and boomy in the low end.

But when I go listen to reference mixes, the bass seems to gel really well with every other instrument, and it's almost as if it's an extension of the guitars across the stereo spectrum. Is that just a result of really good mixing skills, or is there any particular technique that will get me closer to that point in the mixing or mastering phase? I've even tried using the Steven Slate method of doing an aux bus with a HPF around 500 hz and a wide, thick chorus to spread the upper end of the bass around. It helps, but that juicy, tight low end still seems to be missing from my mixes.

 

[FarBeyondMetal]

Volume automation by hand is the best way to tackle this issue.

The second best, and much faster way is to use Bass Rider or a plugin like it.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Volume automation by hand is the best way to tackle this issue.

The second best, and much faster way is to use Bass Rider or a plugin like it.

I already do this : ( I don't go note by note, but I do make everything pretty close to equal. I'll try going insane and doing every note in the song I'm working on now, and I'll see how it works haha.

 

[~BURNY~]

Room treatment + mixing skills. You need to be able to hear what you are doing.

Automation comes last. You don't want to correct problems that are caused by standing waves or modal resonances in the mix.

 

[Mago]

yeah, what burny said altho I wouldnt say automation comes last. But not having to deal with room issues is a must...

Also keep in mind that the individual bass and player makes a lot of difference

 

[anotherpaul]

Compress the bass low-end track heavily (I usually just brickwall-limit it). Make a huge cut at ~500hz (may vary for your bass), and a notch somewhere in 100-200hz. If your room isn't ideal, just mix in good headphones.

 

[~BURNY~]

Yeah this was poorly formulated. I didn't mean Automation is the least important aspect.

 

[Mago]

yeah I got that you didn't mean it that way...of course you're right, boosting the volume on bass parts where your room cancels out frequencies isn't the way to go
Or cutting it for room nodes for that matter...the other way around^^


To the topic: I think tight juicy low end comes from tight playing, tasteful editing and carefully removing junk from the tone, without taking too much of the "good" energy out. Making sure guitars and bass lock (both playing/editing and tones) helps too, cause it creates the illusion of one massive tone, instead of guitars sitting on top of a bass (which can be cool too at other times)

 

[Kellii]

Try lowpassing you're master bus(and referance mix) at around 300hz when mixing the low end. You will have to periodically take it off to check how you're low and highs are sitting together.

I do this usually switching between headphones and monitors, Using a parametric sweep helps find anywhere the bass particularly jumps out or even where its fighting with other instruments. Then I will usually try a multiband compressor and/or surgical cuts to the bass.

I often find there's a horrible mud building up somewhere from 100 to 200 if I use a surgical cut sometimes my low end will sound much clearer but obviously 100 to 200 hz is a crucial part to you're low end so you need to be careful about cutting bits from it.

 

[egan.]

I think the key is the "handoff" of the low end from guitar to bass to kick.

 

[Ermz]

There is no magic to it. It's just a factor of mixing until you understand what needs what. How much compression to stage, which compressors to use, whether to EQ into the compression or after, how much saturation to use (if any), where to to let the guitar take off, where to let the kick poke through etc.

There is no single technique that will get you all the way there. Mixing low-end is one of the hardest part of mix engineering, and that carries over even after you have years of experience under your belt.

 

[TheUnknown]

For the guys that use bass rider and the guys that dont would appreciate there opinion also.

Should one put it first or last in the chain?

And would you put it on the track or the bus? or both?

 

[tk7261]

could it be the bass your using?

 

[Max Morton]

Mixing bass and achieving bass tones is one of the most favorite things for me. What I'd mention:

1. (GENERAL) Tuning and fresh strings. If your bass track is sharp comparing to guitars (which happens often), it won't gel properly. If the strings are dead, it won't too. If it does not intonate on certain frets, it won't as well

2. (GENERAL) Should be played evenly (dynamically and in tempo) and should not contain mud like unused open strings ringing etc

3. (MIXING) Again, I'll count here:
I) eq

Try a nice low shelf on bass DI. Cut some 6 or even 9 db to take away all the boominess. Then cut out some honky frequencies at around 600-900 Hz. Hipass and Lowpass to taste.
Hipass and Lowpass the drive channel after the cabinet. Btw, try a guitar setup on it, with a noisegate and a tubescreamer.

II) compression
Just try to smash the DI track with a 1176 plugin. Fast attack, middle release, 8:1 ratio. See that it pushes the needle on louder parts and doesn't reach the threshold on quieter parts. Put compression after your eq.

III) blending bass channels
Check for the phases. All your tracks (in many cases two tracks work great. sometimes three. but with a right DI you do not have to add mids) should be summed properly. So flip phases and listen how the midrange and upper midrange is changing. Low end should remain the same since you've hipassed the drive channel.

Now, send them all to a group. You can find a couple of nasty frequencies there too. Maybe cut out some 300-400 hz, a bit of 4 k, etc. And if the bass still feels a bit jumpy and uneven, use a multiband compressor on the group. Here you can either kill all dynamics in the sub frequencies (band 1), low mids (band 2, think of it as the section where your riff low end lives too), and leave the rest bypassed. Or you can compress each band to your liking.

From my experience, any bass that is not fucked up, has decent electronics, grounding, neck, strings, can sound OK in a metal mix.

 

[GearMan2point0]

Mixing bass and achieving bass tones is one of the most favorite things for me. What I'd mention:

1. (GENERAL) Tuning and fresh strings. If your bass track is sharp comparing to guitars (which happens often), it won't gel properly. If the strings are dead, it won't too. If it does not intonate on certain frets, it won't as well

2. (GENERAL) Should be played evenly (dynamically and in tempo) and should not contain mud like unused open strings ringing etc

3. (MIXING) Again, I'll count here:
I) eq

Try a nice low shelf on bass DI. Cut some 6 or even 9 db to take away all the boominess. Then cut out some honky frequencies at around 600-900 Hz. Hipass and Lowpass to taste.
Hipass and Lowpass the drive channel after the cabinet. Btw, try a guitar setup on it, with a noisegate and a tubescreamer.

II) compression
Just try to smash the DI track with a 1176 plugin. Fast attack, middle release, 8:1 ratio. See that it pushes the needle on louder parts and doesn't reach the threshold on quieter parts. Put compression after your eq.

III) blending bass channels
Check for the phases. All your tracks (in many cases two tracks work great. sometimes three. but with a right DI you do not have to add mids) should be summed properly. So flip phases and listen how the midrange and upper midrange is changing. Low end should remain the same since you've hipassed the drive channel.

Now, send them all to a group. You can find a couple of nasty frequencies there too. Maybe cut out some 300-400 hz, a bit of 4 k, etc. And if the bass still feels a bit jumpy and uneven, use a multiband compressor on the group. Here you can either kill all dynamics in the sub frequencies (band 1), low mids (band 2, think of it as the section where your riff low end lives too), and leave the rest bypassed. Or you can compress each band to your liking.

From my experience, any bass that is not fucked up, has decent electronics, grounding, neck, strings, can sound OK in a metal mix.

Yeah this! It takes a lot of proper tracking and preparations. I also like to add some distortion to the bass to blend the bass tone with the guitar. I wouldn't recommend distorted any frequencies below 300hz though.

 

[GearMan2point0]

Volume automation by hand is the best way to tackle this issue.

The second best, and much faster way is to use Bass Rider or a plugin like it.

I have also tried this on several occasions but overall volume is much different than perceived volume. Boomy notes, is going to be much louder in our perception than a note in the 30-40hz area even though they can be reaching the same amount of overall volume. If that is a problem though, there is always multiband compression like previously stated. It definitely does the trick.

 

[colonel_claypoo]

how do you guys like to tune bass?
I like players who really attack the strings.
however, with that comes the constraint that notes will most likely be sharp in their attack if the bass is tuned so that a sustained note settles down on 0 cents.
that might be fine for fast playing but what if there are parts that require long sustained notes? they would obviously be out of tune.

on the other hand, since the same thing happens to guitars it might not be such a problem. what do you think?

 

[Max Morton]

how do you guys like to tune bass?
I like players who really attack the strings.
however, with that comes the constraint that notes will most likely be sharp in their attack if the bass is tuned so that a sustained note settles down on 0 cents.
that might be fine for fast playing but what if there are parts that require long sustained notes? they would obviously be out of tune.

on the other hand, since the same thing happens to guitars it might not be such a problem. what do you think?

Ask the player to play 8-th notes with good attack and watch the tuner. It should give you the same numbers your guitars gave (0 strict, around +5 cents, etc).

Then depending on sections, retune the bass. When he plays really fast 16-ths with less attack, he'll tune differently.

When he hits the long notes, he'll go flat in the end. I teach the bass players to watch the tuner and press the string more on the fret in such cases. Pulling the neck backwards works with open strings.

Being the bass player myself, I tend to play without too much strength. There are many ways to achieve a focused and agressive sound without punishing the strings.

 

[colonel_claypoo]

Ask the player to play 8-th notes with good attack and watch the tuner. It should give you the same numbers your guitars gave (0 strict, around +5 cents, etc).

Then depending on sections, retune the bass. When he plays really fast 16-ths with less attack, he'll tune differently.

When he hits the long notes, he'll go flat in the end. I teach the bass players to watch the tuner and press the string more on the fret in such cases. Pulling the neck backwards works with open strings.

Being the bass player myself, I tend to play without too much strength. There are many ways to achieve a focused and agressive sound without punishing the strings.

thanks for the advice.
I might give it a try next time although the tricky part is adjusting the tuning to each player's style and have guitars and bass match.

 

[Max Morton]

thanks for the advice.
I might give it a try next time although the tricky part is adjusting the tuning to each player's style and have guitars and bass match.

Oh it's easy. Just keep the tuner always active. Sure thing, don't go too crazy about it. +- a couple of cent is totally normal, people are not waveform generators after all.

That's actually why many top producers (and especially Andy Sneap) prefer to record guitars before bass in metal music. Much more control on tuning. You'll hear when it goes sharp. And it's even easier to notice it when you watch the tuner in addition to listening. It's like "something's not right here.. the bass is 10 cents sharp in this section, let's tune it a bit down. yeah, that's definitely better".

If you're just mixing, not recording, and the bass is way too sharp (happens often), Celemony Melodyne fixes it extremely well.