I pretty much know what I want for "our" good sound. I just need to know which tools for which job and where in the chain to do it. I come from a bass players viewpoint, so I want the bass to be crisp and isolated from the kick. I may lock on the kick as a bassist but I don't duplicate it. The way I do groove is play off the kick and the rhythm guitar. My tone is straight old school Pbass into an Ampeg head and 2x15 cab. I can dial in a little J(pup) with EQ and I'm fine. Basically round but with a little hump in the mids to make it punch on the attack.
 
So that's what's goin in, and it's finger picked thus the need for a little punch on the attack.
 
But hey, that's just me. My collaborator John loves every bass tone I let him hear!

Thing is, depending on the mix, you generally have to sacrifice a bit of that "great" tone on some or all the instruments. Just enough to get them out of the best tone of the other stuff that's conflicting. Thus the kick/bass thingie I was talking about earlier.
 
Another thing you might want to check out is "ducking" the bass with a sidechained compressor controlled by the kick.
 
So the compressor is on the bass track (it's gonna turn down the bass for a split second every time the kick hits). You set the sidechain on the compressor to respond to the kick drum track (instead of the bass).
 
With the right settings the compressor turns down the bass just enough (and long enough) to let the kick drum transient to cut through. You gotta set it right though to avoid an unnatural "pumping" sound.
 
Tons of articles about this and there are a few compressors in Sonar that allow sidechaining.
 
You'll still want to get your EQ stuff down as well.
 
Cheers.

Hey Charly,
Have you considered side chaining your bass so that the kick will get slightly lower in volume when they both strike together?  It would allow for a fuller kick AND a fuller bass at the same time.
This can be done with a compressor OR an EQ that accepts side chaining. 
 

Cool stuff guys! I also should gave mentioned on top of everything else, I always tell folks at church(where I play most of my bass), "you're not really supposed to hear me as much as feel me"......

Ducking is another option for sure, and Beeps' points are good (esp. the pumping concern). I tend not to use this often because a generic compressor is "frequency dumb"  so dives the entire signal.
 
For separation, frequency (EQ), depth (volume (fader/ducking), reverb (more reverb is further away)), and panning are the three biggies. Typically panning is used more for higher frequencies and not for lowest (for a few reasons). Because of this, kick/bass are also "special" in that they are both commonly center-panned, which removes the "panning option" out of the picture as a solution, but Beeps hit upon the volume aspect.
 
SPAN will allow you to overlay up to 4 signals which is really nice but not intuitive to set up. Frequency masking is most prominent when signals are not separated by a couple dB or so, with the caveat (very important) of the most important component frequency getting priority. Using an audio microscope is helpful for this to find the material you want to keep so you have a mental record of the key frequencies to work with, then an overlaid frequency spectrum will reveal where they are ("frequency collisions").
 
I apologize for the basic presentation, but after commenting about keywords not getting dropped and making posts clearer for future folks who may find it I have been trying to adjust my own explanations accordingly.

mettelus
Ducking is another option for sure, and Beeps' points are good (esp. the pumping concern). I tend not to use this often because a generic compressor is "frequency dumb"  so dives the entire signal.
 
For separation, frequency (EQ), depth (volume (fader/ducking), reverb (more reverb is further away)), and panning are the three biggies. Typically panning is used more for higher frequencies and not for lowest (for a few reasons). Because of this, kick/bass are also "special" in that they are both commonly center-panned, which removes the "panning option" out of the picture as a solution, but Beeps hit upon the volume aspect.
 
SPAN will allow you to overlay up to 4 signals which is really nice but not intuitive to set up. Frequency masking is most prominent when signals are not separated by a couple dB or so, with the caveat (very important) of the most important component frequency getting priority. Using an audio microscope is helpful for this to find the material you want to keep so you have a mental record of the key frequencies to work with, then an overlaid frequency spectrum will reveal where they are ("frequency collisions").
 
I apologize for the basic presentation, but after commenting about keywords not getting dropped and making posts clearer for future folks who may find it I have been trying to adjust my own explanations accordingly.

I've been meaning to check if the Sonitus multiband has a sidechain input. If it does that could be an option so at least the multiband can be set up so compression only occurs on the band(s) where it's needed.
 
I have also considered modifying the trick of using the old Cakewalk Analyst (which outputs frequency based automation) to create an envelope that is then used to adjust an EQ's parameters. In the method I've seen (Anderton Advanced vids) a boost is applied to an EQ band then the envelope tracks the frequency envelope outputted by the Analyst. This changes the Freq setting so the boost gets applied to wherever the signal Freq was (in that case a vocal and the Freq dial follows/applies the bbost to the notes being sung).
 
For this I guess the envelope would be set to dip the Gain on an appropriate EQ band on the bass everytime the kick hits. Not sure how that would be routed and I think it would require the envelope be inverted (I think that's possible).
 
That's probably a little wackier than what Charly wants though and of course there are much better tools that do this automatically (like Melda Spectral Dynamics AFAIK).
 
You reminded me I need to learn more about SPAN as well.
 
Cheers.

Ok, I think I'm ready to enter the mixing stage. O thought I'd put it up on soundcloud so you guys can tell me any issues I have since I am not sure which tools to use for what. I still need to separate but I figured it qould be more helpful fot you to see where we are at.... Or if I need to go back and fix something....
 
https://soundcloud.com/ch...n-of-the-south/s-JKfbS
 
Thanks, as always
CharlyG

I am creating a bundle for Dropbox if anyone is interested in a little online coaching. I should have a public link by 1130 PST.
 
 

Hi Charly, have you posted this to the Songs forum? That is often better to get feedback on things and is a better place to post for analysis/feedback. I do not have a great deal of bandwidth these days so wanted to mention that option. Some folks are predominantly in the songs forum and better resources.
 
This is done nicely. The only things that came across for me were the instruments seem mostly centered (the lead and rhythm guitar could be panned apart) and the high end is more present (louder) than the low end -  the high end seems to have more competition to it. Neither of these have any rules to them, however, so please bear any feedback with a grain of salt. The kick and bass are fine, the bass is lower volume in general compared to the kick, so unclear with the changes you had made from the OP.

One other technique you might consider when you just can't seem to find what's competing
for space in your mix that you can get rid of is to take a band with a very narrow "q" and boost it crazy high and sweep it. You will of course, hear that frequency very loudly. The point is to slowly sweep it until you hear the real ringers and howlers.Use that frequency and q to notch those frequencies out.The tighter the notch, the less it will effect the overall tone of the instrument. You can widen the notch if necessary, or leave it. Another thing to try to get past is trying to make each instrument sound perfect when soloed.Sometimes there's just too much going on to do the above method and more aggressive cuts are necessary. "Sounds like crap" when isolated often becomes"sounds perfect" in the context of a mix.
 Take snapshots of the mixes before you make any changes. You can save yourself a lot of grief if you have a before and after to go off of.