Remix of "A Bridge To Somewhere" With Bass by Jimmy!

hey ken

I'm having fun "studying" you. Its fun bevause i like
a challenge. I cant figure out why your ears hear the
way they do.

Do you think bass on comercial recordings have too
much 200 hz down?. If I'm correct in saying this your
talents far outway your training (your ears that is) .

No your monitors arent your problem. The human ear is
so sensative to sounds yet so untrained.

You mentioned how hard mixing bass was. My song
"your love" had about 25 tracks of music. try to get that
to fit in one song.

its no wonder i got so much flack about the leads being
spacy. but no one said a word about my bass.

I know whats happening with you.

first let me say the bass stinks! I can say that right?
after all I played it.

o.k now to the issues. I admire you so much and in so
many ways. look what youve done. im impressed

BUT you have the guitar player ear. You know what i
thought about hearing your first song? I said to myself
"man" he should have left out the drums. Why? the
guitar sounds great by itself.

What would a bass player say about your mix? he would
say you destroyed the bass sound to make it fit with your
low end mud on the guitar!

You compressed it to the point that you cant even tell
that on the bass there are 1/8 notes being played.
tell the bass player to not give up his day job.

When you mix you have to put yourself in the shoes
of the other player or instruments. you have to put on
many hats. You would think bass guitar is an easy thing
to mix or play but it isn't.

I think one way to put it is if your gonna play with other
players (instruments) you gotta "share" you gotta sacrifice
some things so they can be a part. the more the players
the more everyone has to sacrifice something or another.

less is more and more is less

less clutter is better sound. more clutter is less sound (quility)

Feature the players in the band in the sence of tone.

I've got a project for you to do and your gonna absolutly
hate it! and maybe me too LOL

got sonitus eq? take your mix (without bass) high pass it
at 200 hz Q of 1 this cuts out 200 hz and down (on the mix)

do the oppsit with the bass (cuts out 200 hz up)

Play it and listen to it like that untill you wanna cry!
after the tears dry up and you go through rages of
anger ( dont break anything) maybe take some tylonal.

then go back and listen to "your" mix. do you hear it
differently now?

How does a 100 piece orhcistrta manage to have you
hear everyone?

Also what is a bass? what is a guitar? what is a duck?
what is a fire breathing dragon?

I have to use phylisofical terms or paribles sometimes
to display "what is being said"

I pick on ya because i care and i see such remarkable
talent. to all else who read this please know that EGEVERY
me know each other. I hope i can say were freinds.

Imagine what he'll be like in a year, or two, or ten

Till nest time.
jimmy

Thanks Jimmy! No Worries! I always appreciate the feedback and you don't need to justify it. It's up to me how I take.

As I was reading, I kept thinking back to the mixing problems I was running into.

Here's the problem I was running into Jimmy - a practical problem.

Let's say the mix hovers around... I dunno... let's call it X, or even a relative 0db for simplicity's sake. Most of the frequencies are in that range, and let's say +/- 0.4db.

Then we add the bass. Let's say we use the fader so that the bass peaks in that range too, or even a little louder like it does on many commercial albums (like you mentioned).

Here's the problem (for me) - the 60-200hz frequencies are literally 15-20db higher than the note frequencies. So, if I just leave the bass "as is" and call it a day, we get 2 problems

1) The notes aren't heard - it's just a hum or boom. There is no definition because it's buried under the 60-200hz frequencies.

2) There's lots of mud and conflicts with other instruments, because acoustic guitars and drums all sort of peak in the 190 to 210 range (and even beyond those points). There's also the kick drum conflict too.

Now, the first goal is to get rid of the conflicts so that 5 or 7 tracks aren't clashing. This takes awhile, and eventually, we have some cleaner separations.

However, now we have a mix that is balanced, but you can't hear the bass anymore because it's just rumble... so we need to boost 500-600 to hear the notes. The problem is that boosting it too much is going to ruin the bass sound - it starts to sound really bad. All we can really get away with is about a 4-5db boost.

Now, if the 60-200hz frequencies are literally 17db higher than the notes, a 4-5db boost isn't going to cut it... so quite frankly, *I* can't see any other solution or than filtering 60-200hz. Or compressing it. Or *something*. Because at this point, not only can we not hear those 1/8th notes, we really can't hear any of them. It's just humming and felt, but totally lacks definition.

So, off I go cutting 60-200hz - not all in one go, but shelving lots of it, and using bells to get the peaks to flatten it out.

Now that we lowered the 60-200hz hump, the bass's volume is too low now. So, what can we do? Well, we raise the fader now - and presto - we are hearing some notes!

That's basically what I did. Now that you know my thinking process, where is my thinking flawed so I know for next time? :)

This is a real bass played by Jimmy ;)

I'm thinking it has to be the same issue. I mean, if I'm mixing it so that it sounds good to me, my ear is probably fine. It sounds great with the bass boost on ;)

I guess the flat sound is what I need to go with. That's the only option these speakers have, so I might as well try mixing with it off and see what you guys think. I'll post a new mix in an hour or two ;)

Thanks for helping me figure out that problem! I knew it wasn't my ears. I have rather good ears... actually "too sensitive" isn't kidding! I can actually hear close to 20khz freqs, and I avoid bars/clubs like the plague because I can't stand it. LOL.

Okay, I'm finding this rather frustrating :( I uploaded a new mix with flat speakers, which I suspect many of you will think it actually sounds better. Listen here:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7114047

Here are some notes I took as I did it.

First, I'm not sure the flat speakers are helping :( Yes, the bass doesn't sound as bassy, so I'm not afraid to turn it up "some", but I'm actually running into all the same problems with the original bass volumes that I ran into when the bass boost was "on" :( It's just only slightly noticeable rather than very noticeable. But nonetheless, very similar EQ fixes are required to fix the conflicts, but they aren't as harsh. The only EQ I did not apply was the -17 db reduction on the bass - I left it alone on purpose.

Using no "bass boost" on my speakers, this is all I did:

1. I started with no effects - a clean bass track. I set the volume to initially be the same as the other instruments that are already mixed well, and then went a little higher to compensate for that "ear's are not flat" problem. My goal is that with proper EQ treatment on the bass track, we can occupy a frequency space that lets us push at the best volume possible without having to resort to lowering the volume in order to mask what is actually an EQ problem.

Because the bass recording is so loud (or rather than 60-215hz range is very loud), the volume is set to -11.4db so that it peaks with the other instruments.

The goal is to maintain the volume so that we don't have a weak bass in the mix, which is what everyone is saying. So I'm not touching it.

2. Okay, I high-pass filter 38hz - many would consider this an auto-decision.

3. There is a problem with the kick. I cut 7db @ 100hz on the bass, and boost 7db @ 100hz on the kick. Both changes use a pretty narrow band (2.5). Real simple - it sounds good and it's distinct yet still blended.

4. I play bass guitar with just one rhythm acoustic at first... and there is a crap load of mud. I have to high-pass filter all 4 rhythm tracks @ 120hz. Now, 158hz to 238hz is what I'll call the "master mud" for this mix, and that's the real challenge with this mix.

5. I basically decide the shelve the rhythm somewhere between 200hz and 238hz down as many db until the mud somewhat resolves and we still get a good acoustic sound. -8.5db gets rid of most all the mud... so I try a shelf with -8.5db @ 225hz on the rhythm to start. Anything less is not good enough. Acoustic still sounds pretty good on its own too.

We can't take away from the base because even a -2db cut will kill definition instantly... and that means we'll have to raise volume to compensate... which causes lots of other mixing headaches (cutting more low-end for example to compensate because that'll get even louder!). I did a similar process to the other 3 rhythm tracks, but values were slightly different depending on the sound. Most of these shelf cuts were much more moderate, mostly due to the recordings being a little different in strumming and what not.

6. I high-pass filtered the leads @200hz. I cut more around 240hz to remove mud. Pretty simple.

7. The bass still sounds a little moud, the bass is definitely loud even though it's DB is close to other instruments, and the bass lacks definition (to my ears)... despite all the work we've done to virtually get rid of every freaking conflict in the mix.

However, I'm not going to EQ-out the crap out of it like I did last time. I'm going to upload it now and have you listen and tell me what the next step is ;)

I apply some mastering EQ though, and took some of the loud-end that was booming, even on the flat non-boosted bass speakers.

My guess is to cut the low-end, increase definition of the bass, and cut the right freq's of the rhythms to allow audible bass notes to be played. That's my solution. I'm curious what you guys think! How does it sound to YOU?

ORIGINAL: Guitarhacker

That actually sounded much better than the first version I heard this morning. The bass was much more present in the mix.

Yeah!!!!


BTW: I like your picking.... good job.

Yay! It actually doesn't sound "too" bad to me. I do have to cut some db from the master eq though... or it really would irritate me. Even at it's current level, I think it's too loud still. I'm tempted to start cutting using a multiband compressor at the master level, or start taking a hatchet to the bass guitar's eq... but I'm resisting for now per the advice I'm getting on these forums :)

Do you think the bass could be more audible/clear? Maybe some slight multiband compression on the track level perhaps? Something just doesn't sit right with me the way it is now... and it doesn't stand up to reference cds.

That might be hard to do... because it's not easy for me to turn off the eq's on all the tracks. I hardly actually touched the bass itself. I touched everything else in the mix to accomodate it ;)

I can give you the base track by itself though:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/443421/bridge-bass.mp3

It sounds pretty good on it's own, so you're right, there's probably a way to get it to come out from under the mix. I tried this on my first upload of the bass-mix. I was boosting where the bass had peaks and cutting that from the acoustics to get a clear sound. I didn't do that this time because I wanted to see how it was "as is".

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

listend on my digital moniters and my akg 240 cans
loved it

jjimmy

This is a simple elegant piece and my only personal crit would be that its too simple ... having only garage band elements, no vox, no peculiar bass riff, etc.
As such it would work (for me) as a backround piece to driving, working, a movie, or such.

-- I might like a little fade-in at start. Your end-fade is fine.
-- Possibly some wider and diverse drum dynamics

FWIW, To make bass stand-out, I myself oft:
-- HPF it at 25Hz, give a slight boost at 400Hz Q=1-ish (+3 dcb)
-- HPF Kick at 50-60 and notch-reduce 400Hz Q=1 ish (-3 dcb compliment)
-- HPF lead guitar(s) well, above 120.
-- Minimal to No bass reverb during critical riffs while increasing reverb of all other instruments.
-- Tube/tape saturation at 30-60Hz and high-mid and high harmonics.
-- Relatively Heavy compression/limiting at 0-60Hz ... also, with high attack times at all frequency ranges to allow plucking transients.

I hear your sweet guitar transient well in this mix.

sounds like gold to me. Beautiful. Bass is articulate and 'felt'...a marriage i often have a difficult time achieving. Is that 3 acoustic guitars Ken? Very nice sound. It's a lovely piece.

ORIGINAL: No How

sounds like gold to me. Beautiful. Bass is articulate and 'felt'...a marriage i often have a difficult time achieving. Is that 3 acoustic guitars Ken? Very nice sound. It's a lovely piece.

Thank you so much!

Yes, I recorded 2 rhythm tracks and panned them to each side, and my lead guitar takes center. There's a little pad or "beep" at certain spots where the main part builds, and that's actually a distorted acoustic with a gate, some extreme compression, some chorus and some delay on it ;)