EQing a bass guitar

Anyone know of any good articles for EQing a bass guitar?

Yeah... Bass is tough to mix.
Basically I rolled off everything under 150HZ, boosted a little around 500HZ with a broa Q, then boosted alot with a narrow Q at around 800. And I have a mild compression working on the track {Sonitus} before the EQ, in the FX bin. That is a good idea about using clip gain to taim those pesky highs. I was contemplating modifyint the compression to really go after it... that would have robbed the track of life, though. So no articles, eh?

I usually don't eq the bass track. I choose to use a pick or not and toy with my attack. I also track from my P-bass into my Presonus MP-20 and play w/the IDSS. Also, I have an old dbx 160x inserted in my preamp which I use for everything... but for bass, have it often set minimally at around 2:1. Lastly, I find I usually have to roll off the bottom from 60 down at mastering using the shelf on the Voxengo Glisseq.

Kawika

ORIGINAL: river

...the fundamental frequency on the E string is around 110.

I have to disagree with you there. The fundamental of an open E string for bass is around 41Hz and the first harmonic around 81-82Hz.

The trick to the high pass is to use a very low Q, so the slope is slow. That way the responce is only down say from 6-10dB at 40Hz but keeps cutting off into the subsonic range. Here's a couple of reasons to do so:

Depending on the playing style, there can be a whole lot of subsonic information from resting hands or fingers on the strings. Have you ever just shaken an E string while pluggen into an amp with responce well below 20Hz? You can basically move the woofer cone significantly just by grabbing the string and wiggling it. Recording direct will put that subsonic info into your mix.

Have you ever directly measured the frequency responce of a bass amp? I tested a very common stack, a Hartke single 15", and a 4x10". The 15" was down 3dB at 80Hz and rolled off quickly. The 410 began it's decent at 60Hz and had a slightly slower slope than the 15. Note that Hartke rates their single 15" to 30Hz (yeah, when it's down 20dB!) Frequency responce ratings mean nothing without tolerances. If you're micing an amp, you're using a high pass filter.

My opinion on bass EQ:

*Below 100Hz: flat or low Q high passed... let the kick drum drive the beat down there with support, not dominance... but this depends on the bass of course, most have plenty of output down there to not need any help
*200-400Hz: the warmth zone... feeling weak? add a bit, too much and you'll turn it to mud
*400-2kHz: definition zone... can help when you want to bring the bass more forward in the mix, heavily dependant on the song
*above 2kHz... attack and clarity zone... playing slap? boost the crap out of the highs from 4-8kHz and hear that percussive slapping come out

Personally, I give myself a whole lot of gain in the highs, typically 15dB+ near 10kHz. This lets every little string noise be heard and the slaps or any hard attacks come straight to the top of the mix to share the beat with the snare as another percussion instrument. The sound of the bass changes that setting drastically. My passive mexican p-bass needs that amount of gain, but it varies depending on the age of the strings. I plugged an active musicman stingray in and was nearly deafened with highs. Playing with that kind of responce in the high range makes tone more dependant on the bass player. When you add compression, you can control a wide range of tone by how hard you hit the string or if you put fingernail into it etc.

That is a good way, comrehensive and to the point.

It's a matter of taste also.

My bass sound "ll knock your socks off

Jazz american bass...........no not vintage. EMGS with exb replacing the tone......roll the exb back a bit.........go direct into a fw410. It needs nothing else. Pick, fingerstyle, slap..........it doesn't matter.

I have found a great comp setting however, the sonitus with vintage and then dbx 165. Seems to add punch without the pumping thang.