Where the bass sits.

[ArtisanBass]

Neil, You mentioned in a thread recently that you put the bass between the kick and low end of the guitars? Is this a good place usually in your thoughts? What if the bass is playing some doubled guitar but lots of counter melody and support as well?

I know you will probably answer that it's a project to project issue. First off, damn you in advance for that. Second, thanks.

 

[NK]

Neil, You mentioned in a thread recently that you put the bass between the kick and low end of the guitars? Is this a good place usually in your thoughts? What if the bass is playing some doubled guitar but lots of counter melody and support as well?

I know you will probably answer that it's a project to project issue. First off, damn you in advance for that. Second, thanks.

Ok I'm damned! Sadly, it's true. There's no general rule, bas(s)ed on the fact that every song of every project will almost certainly sit somewhat differently, depending on what's going on. That is unless you really simplify the bass part to be nothing more than a shadow of the guitar part and tuck it into a sort of "subliminal" position, being felt rather than heard. I'm not really a fan of that approach, but it often happens in metal. It sucks though when you have a bass player who is really on top of things and deserves to be heard (maybe not *featured* perhaps) and the bass gets buried.

As I've said before, I do lots of different types of music, so, lets say with jazz/fusion albums, it's very important that everybody be heard clearly, mainly because the level of musicianship is most often remarkably high and what's being played simply DOES deserve to be heard clearly.

I did the first Spiral Architect album, which was a very technical record, but it sort of needed more of a prog/fusion style mix in a sense as there was simply so much going on you couldn't just stick the bass in the back and let it rumble away.

Hope this helps. There's really no actual rule - I expect we all (as in producers/mixers) will have theories on this, but I honestly think it's both album by album and then song by song within that.