Adding more grunt to a bass

i like to split a signal, and run it thru a guitar amp, set for breakup, to get distortion in the upper mids and highs....
i roll off the low end on that track, and blend it with the direct, which should be clean and low-rich

my focus would be more in the 400-800 hz range, for what i call 'grunt'

at 100 hz, you will actually get more low end than you think, try cutting a high Q at 150, leave your 100 and 200 just slightly boosted with a high Q again, start with 1db boosts

I was just watching a Groove 3 tutorial on this, and that mixer cloned his DI track 2 times.  One was strictly for a dirty sound (he added a nice bass distortion to make it high and crunchy) and the other was for "girth" as he called it.  It was sub bass low end meat.  

All told, he had four bass tracks.  1 DI, 1 amped, then the two cloned DIs I just described.  As each was its own track, he just blended them in to taste and ended up with a very nice, balanced track.  

Furthermore, you can automate the crunchy one for chorus sections and such.  it was a pretty cool technique.

Have you tried any of the ProChannel presets?  Some of them are killer on bass.  Check out the FX Chains as well.

Keep us posted on results!

You want to saturate it.

http://www.voxengo.com/product/lfmaxpunch/

i have found that all these 'tricks' to getting bigger better bass sounds, end up only washing out the bass.

historically, the best pro-produced bass tones, usually are of a real bass, with at most, a DI and a mic blended.

the real pros can put together multiple tracks and do all kinds of magic with it, but most of the home recordists that i listen to, that attempt this, end up with mushy bass tracks.

it's nice to have a real amp, to move air.... it's quite a different feel and vibe than using sims.

that said, if you don't have anything else to use, try the guy's suggestions about cloning and finding the right plug-in, and the right eq scheme, to come up with a way to blend clean and dirty to get grunt.


there's nothing to lose but time, and if you trip across something that sounds really unique, it can become a 'signature' bass tone.

but ultimately, finding your tone with nothing but your bass, technique, and a good direct signal, is the ultimate.

this is the tone search.
the bass, the strings, your personal technique, the way you set your volume/tone/pickup heights, all that..... 
 
 

it's not a random thing that just occurs.

batsbrew


try the guy's suggestions about cloning and finding the right plug-in, and the right eq scheme, to come up with a way to blend clean and dirty to get grunt.

That's where I'm at right now.
 
Regards,
Dan

 

When I think of "smooth and round" bottom, I'm not thinking EQ so much as compression. In particular, compression for the low frequencies while allowing the high frequencies to be more dynamic. 

Traditionally that would mean a multiband compressor. Lately, though, I've been using FabFilter Saturn to achieve that. Not only can it give you punchy/aggressive/growly upper mids, it's also surprisingly adept at multiband dynamics.

As a bass player, when I think about wanting something "smoother" or "more punch", the last things I would think about would be eq, compression or anything like that. It starts with right hand technique, the instrument, rhythmic feel and all of that. 

Having said that:

1. 100-200Hz often adds mud more than anything else. If you boost too wide of a range you end up taking up too much room and having to lower the overall level making the bass even less punchy and audible. 

Try dividing the bass between a low frequency range for "body" and something between maybe 800-2kHz for attack/growl/punch. You want the frequency ranges to not be too wide and put them where other things ain't (and vise versa). And what something sounds like on its own vs. in the mix are two different things.

2. If you overcompress you will again end up taking up too much space and have to lower the overall level. "Punch" doesn't imply "Compress it more!" to me. It implies each note gets in and gets out of the way quickly. Use your compression (or transient shaper) accordingly.

3. If someone asked me for "more punch", I'd first try some combination of: moving my right hand closer to the bridge, playing tighter and perhaps more staccato, and play more on top of the beat. If you play lazy and behind the beat, it ain't ever gonna sound punchy.

Oh and the Pultec EQ works wonders on bass... I don't know what it does, but I like. I use this free boy  http://sonimus.com/site/page/downloads/

Excite it. Have you looked at Izotope's Allow? They have some nice bass presets.

There's nothing quite as enjoyable as an excited bottom end...

I've got it done for the current project. Cloning the track and treating the split tracks separately solved my problem. I do need new strings though. I'll have to research what I want to replace these with.

I basically created a crossover and split the frequencies between the two tracks. Then I was able to focus on the "growl" separate from the "grunt", which I see now was misconstrued as "growl". This bass is very punchy and I was having a hard time getting a fat bottom to balance the growl.

Next time, I'll record this thing differently and plan for this up front. It'll be a lot easier, I hope.

Thanks everyone for the advice!

Regards,
Dan