How to make guitar and bass sound in a distinct, separated way ?

Orchestration and complementary EQ.

Also, believe it or not, cutting the low frequencies on both instruments helps make them clearer in the mix.  Dialing back on everything below roughly 100 Hz +/- and placing a steep, narrow cut at +/- 200 Hz helps a lot.

Zaapataa,

just who do you think recording software is for - musicians?  But really, you are asking some basic questions and I suggest to get the most out of any DAW find a good recording book or buy a bunch of mags - subscribe to SOS or EM for a couple of years and you'll find them repeating the basic stuff.

"Does anyone know what mean exactly "low shelf, "peak", "high-end", "gain", "center frequency", etc ? I have a sense it has to do with frequency ranges.
The same for the bands 1, 2, 3 and 4 : is band 1 the lowest one and band 4 the highest one ? "

Shelves are a type of filter eq - after you set the cut off frequency the filter rolls off everything above (or below) that frequency.  Usually the slope (how hard a filter/eq changes) takes some time to get to its final point where you don't hear anything.  When recording with mics, it is generally advisable to use a shelving filter to cut out low end rumble.  Like w/ a vocal - there is little energy below 100 Hz even if you are barry White.  Mostly what you'll get is noise, which can be safely excised w/ changing the characteristics of the voice.  You'll get cleaner vocals and all that noise won't be interefering w/ your bass and kick.

"Peak(ing)" EQ is one where it boosts/cuts the frequencies around a "center frequency" equally either side of it.  Visualize a U.  Depending upon the slope the frequencies a couple of octaves away won't be effected.  Pick the frequency and raise the gain (or lower it).  This allows you to pick out certain aspects of a sound and emphasize them, or more likely, get rid of too much of a frequency.  Such as silibence in a singer.

"High end" for EQs (which I guess you are asking about) is the higher frequencies of a sound.

the sonitus eq can be set at any frequency and slope (w/in reason).  It is parametric.  Gain, Frequency and slope are the parameters you can control.  1 - 4 are separate bands of EQ (there are actually 6 if you open the plugin up) so you could use a high pass filter to cut out the low, use a negative peak Eq to take out some bass build up at 250 Hz, use a wide Eq to boost around 800 Hz and add a high shelf to add some 'air' at 12,000 HZ..  You'll find a visual readout of the pattern in Sonitus - give it a look.

@

zaapataa


Hi all,

For those who answered to my previous post, thank again : I can now record with the guitar directly plugged into the computer, and the Line6 pod works fine.

Another issue, now : when playing the dry mix, the guitar and bass kind of overlap, and their respective sounds get blurred together. The bass doesn't stand out and acts as a second guitar.

I tried and worked out the parametric equalizer to deal with this issue, with some success.
The bass is now much better and you can really hear the two intruments.

Still, I just played with the knobs at random, and I have no idea about what I've done.

How do you guys deal with the issue of getting each instrument sound its way without interfering with the others ?

Does anyone know what mean exactly "low shelf, "peak", "high-end", "gain", "center frequency", etc ? I have a sense it has to do with frequency ranges.
The same for the bands 1, 2, 3 and 4 : is band 1 the lowest one and band 4 the highest one ?

I know you have to be a sound engineer to fully command these stuffs. So my real question is : which MC's feature do you use to avoid tracks overlap ?

Thanks to all

You can try to get them in different frequency ranges or even pan the guitar and that will help but in some cases the only way to get the bass to punch out is to play higher up on the neck.  Those low notes can often get lost in the mix and some stereo gear doesn't even reproduce them well.  A good bass player should stay away from overlapping notes in the same range and practice good contrary motion.  If the guitar goes up go down, if the guitar goes down go up.

For those who answered to my previous post, thank again : I can now record with the guitar directly plugged into the computer, and the Line6 pod works fine.

 
There's your biggest problem right there. You need to get some real equipment and seperate the instruments better. Plugging into the computer may be conveinent and cheap but it is not a quality hookup. I assume you're running the bass through the Pod?
What is the Pod plugged into? Clarity depends on equipment when you're interfacing multiple inputs. 

How do you guys deal with the issue of getting each instrument sound its way without interfering with the others ?

Look into Complimentary EQ'ing Techniques and dynamic controlled processing, otherwise called compression.
 
Here are some things I wrote on compression
http://audio-mastering-mixing.com/FAQ___Q_A.html#22
EQ
http://audio-mastering-mixing.com/FAQ___Q_A.html#23
 
Bass guitar techniques:
http://audio-mastering-mixing.com/FAQ___Q_A.html#31
 
Do look into complimentary EQ techniques. I do not have anything on that, yet!!!
Cj