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Bass Seperation

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danielbon
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May 24, 07 10:24 AM (permalink)

Bass Seperation

I'm finishing up recording an album and am now moving on the to mixing stage. I'm having a hard time creating bass seperation in the mix. It just sort of blends into the songs. I recorded bass through a tube preamp with slight compression. The music is rock, ala Third Eye Blind / Foo's. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to pull the bass up in the mix clearly and seperate? Thanks so much!

Daniel Bon & The Future Ghosts - Energetic and charismatic pop/rock.
TheFutureGhosts.com
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    Dr. Mac
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    RE: Bass Seperation May 24, 07 10:32 AM (permalink)
    EQ is the way to go here. You want to add a bit of high end to the bass signal (guitars usually have a +6db boost at 8K, so try something slighly less or greater than this for a boost). I KNOW THIS SOUNDS STUPID, and by itself, the bass may sound less than perfect, however, It will provide seperation. Play around with the EQ settings until it sits where you want it. This may also bring the perceived volume up in the mix, but there are other plugs you can use to do this sort of thing, such as Waves MaxxBass, RennBass, Sony oxford inflator, Sonic Maximizer (BBE), etc.

    I would fool around with some MINOR compression/limiting, but do so after the EQ is right.

    Make sure you don't add too much low end to the bass either. Too much of the low frequencies (below 50Hz) may contain a lot of energy, but are not heard well on most home stereos.

    Good luck!

    Ian

    RME FireFace 800, 3.4GHz quad-core AMD-64, 8 Gigs RAM Sonar X2a Producer, Fav. Plugs: Ozone 5 Advanced, Waves, Sonnox, Melodyne, Voxengo, SSL Native, Drumagog 5 Platinum
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    Roflcopter
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    RE: Bass Seperation May 24, 07 10:59 AM (permalink)
    That sortof covers the frequency bit very nicely, I sometimes use 2 equalisers, one on the input, one on the output, and that also gives some prominence control, but maybe also check gating- it could be the 'blending' happens in the leadin/out phase of the notes, so clipping them a bit could make it stand out more as well, esp on bass this has helped me a few times, the notes cut in more abruptly.

    I'm a perfectionist, and perfect is a skinned knee.
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    UnderTow
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    RE: Bass Seperation May 24, 07 11:45 AM (permalink)
    Also make sure it isn't other instruments crowding the frequency space of the bass. Hipass everything that isn't bass or kick. And usually you will need to dip everything arround 250-300 Hz (that isn't kick/bass) to avoid mudiness. often you need to dip the kick/bass in that range too.

    UnderTow
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    droddey
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    RE: Bass Seperation May 24, 07 2:09 PM (permalink)
    What kind of monitoring situation do you have? Do your monitors go below 80Hz? Lots of them don't unless you have a sub. So you might have way too much bass that you don't need and not enough that you do.

    All the EQ'ing stuff mentioned above as well. Getting more stuff out of that 200 to 300 range (around where the 2nd and 3rd octaves of overtones from the bass live) will definitely leave it a lot more room. You can also bring down a fair chunk of the mid-range of the bass and push up around 5K'ish for a little extra cut, but you have to experiment with it and it might suck and become rattly, it depends. But the pull down in the mids it also helps the other way to get the bass out of other instruments way as well. And sometimes pulling down pretty sharply at 500 or 900 on the bass can tighten it up sometimes for whatever reason.

    And you may want to roll off the bass below 80hz and bring it up a bit above that, to push more of the emphasis a little upwards into the second and third octave where it can cut better and be less flabby. The low, low end is still there, but just moevd downwards a bit. You have to experiment a lot with that to get it right but it definitely helps.

    You may also want to try a bass extender plugin which generates higher harmonics to extend the bass up a bit where it has more presence at the frequencies where most people's speakers actually extend down to. If you use the extender thingie, then it will do the upper octave push for you so you don't need to EQ them up, and do it smarter since it can track each note and generate just those harmonics needed, but you can still roll off to some degree below 80Hz to keep it from being boomy and let it cut more.

    Dean Roddey
    Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
    www.charmedquark.com
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