What is the threshold, attack and release setting you most often use when recording bass direct?
I am learning about these settings,

I want the attack of the bass to come through so the bass seems punchy and not too flat but then want a fairly consistent level so I can hear all the notes.

I have found that a 4:1 ratio helps this more than a 10:1.

Your thoughts?

Rimshot

Hi Jimmy how are you going. Well with compressors the order of settings should be ARRT.  Attack, Release, Ratio and Threshold in that order.
 
With Attack I would not have it real fast eg 10 ms or more. That way the comp wont jump all over any punch or attack transients.
 
Release. This depends a bit on the tempo of the song. At 120 BPM you are looking at 500ms between beats. So the Release should be slowish but fast enough to recover for the next beat.
 
Ratio. I would not go too hard here either even lower than 4:1 Say 2:1
 
Threshold.  Set so the desired gain reduction is only slight eg 2 to 3 dB and not all the time either. Half the time the bass should go through untouched (ie no GR) and the other half maybe a bit of GR. That way the comp will take care of the louder bits and you will end up with a pretty nice even bass part. With still some dynamics left. Go easy on this comp on the way IN. Remember it is hard to undo what this comp does once it is recorded.
 
You will be using compressors again on the bass sound once it is inside your DAW so this comp does not have to slam or work too hard. Just take the louder things down and keeping things more under control during recording. 10:1 Limiting is a definite NO NO. That would sound awful.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There are no correct answers really, other than 'it depends'. Arguably one of the most used compressors out there, the 1176, has a longest attack of 80 *microseconds*, which is very fast even at its slowest. And it works great on bass, one of the best bass comps ever for more aggressive rock bass. And plenty of great engineers wouldn't hesitate to use pretty high ratios on bass, or to commit to the full compression during the tracking. 10dB of compression at the peaks on more aggressive stuff wouldn't be unusual in such cases. For slower, quieter music you can often use much slower attacks and much lower compression, but it all depends. No matter what anyone says here, there's someone out there more famous than them who does it differently. And it's going to be very dependent on the type of music. In some cases as much of the punch may come from the kick in conjunction with the bass. And even a pretty good bit of compression with fast attack may not really remove too much punch anyway. It all just depends on the circumstances. Is it long and sustained notes or really attacky type notes, all that kind of stuff.
 
Ultimately you will just have to figure out what works for you with a given player, bass, type of music, and comp. I know it sucks but it's kind of the bottom line.
 

I should have explained what my settings are basically for. They are for a very laid back smooth, transparent form of compression on the way in which would do very little to the sound. But simply contain louder bits and and things slightly. You may be after more than that.
 
But it does really depend on what you are doing at the time and what sort of sound you are after for the bass on the way in. Other more extreme settings/and compressors will work perfectly well depending on desired result and genre etc.. Higher ratios (with lots of GR) produce a smaller sound. (ie you need more volume of this in your final mix) Lower ratios (with less GR) produce a bigger sound. (ie you need less volume of this in your final mix in order to still hear it well) The amount of compression may vary though. You can have a lot of GR with a low ratio eg 1.5:1 and it will still sound good. High ratios with lots of GR will sound not so good, that is simply overcompressed for some genres but might be OK for others.
 
I think you have to experiment at the time. Just use your ears and listen to the bass sound after the compressor, simple as that really. If it sounds good then print it. If not, go back and tweak the compressor. But if you are not sure, either use my settings or simply do not do anything at all. A bad desicion made at the tracking stage will make it much harder for you later on. But then again some great compression on the way in can also make it easier for you later on too.

"Higher ratios (with lots of GR) produce a smaller sound. (ie you need more volume of this in your final mix) Lower ratios (with less GR) produce a bigger sound. (ie you need less volume of this in your final mix in order to still hear it well)"
 
But, there again, it depends. If what you want is a really long, sustained bass sound, and that's not uncommon in various genres for some types of songs, then lots of gain reduction will provide that, and that's what makes it hearable in the way you want it heard without having a massive, clipping peak on the initial note. You need that much GR in order to have the trailing ends of the notes brought up for lots of sustain. If you were mic'ing an amp, you might get that effect by cranking the amp up really loud, which effectively compresses the signal. For DI'd bass, the compressor is a way to make that happen.
 
And it does create a very big bass sound if you do that. Though, it also means that the bass has to be a very featured instrument because it's going to be taking up a lot of space. But that's not uncommon in rock music.
 
If you are depending on the initial impact of the bass, and not the sustain, then yeh, you don't want to choke it with too much GR. You might use a high ratio but keep the threshold up, so that it's more there to catch the occasional over-loud note, not so much for an effect. But, again, as I mentioned, if it's a situation where you have a tight kick/bass, the kick may be providing a lot of the impact, and heavy compression with a fast release may serve to keep the impact of the bass from stepping on the impact of the kick, leaving the rest of the bass note to then trail after it.
 
I posted an example of this the other day over in the how to record DI bass thing. It's the bed track for a new tune I'm working on. The bass is heavily compressed, but it sounds super-punchy because I worked really hard to learn the bass part so that it's dead on the kick drum all the way through. Well, not inhumanly dead on as would more likely be the case these days, where each part would be edited to death to be microscopically (and I say boringly) together. But, you get the point. It's sounds really punchy because the kick is providing the punch, and the kick and bass have tones that work together well, and the bass' initial impact is quite muted due to compression so it doesn't fight the kick. It's a combination that works well for this particular style of rhythm section.
 
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/TmpAudio/TestD.wma
 
And the compression gives a bit more sustain to a tone that would otherwise die out too quickly because it's not a heavily over-driven tone, just a somewhat overdriven tone. I'm not going for the massive, uber-sustained bass type thing here, but the kick/bass are very featured instruments so I wanted the bass to fill in between the often fairly widely spaced kick/bass hits, without being overpowering, which I think it's doing pretty nicely, though it does involve a pretty considerable amount of compression. And it was done with a pedal on the way in (while it's all still fully analog), so no more is required in the mix, and the less processing done ITB (IMO), the better.
 
There are obvious reasons why someone recording another bad would be light handed on compressing on the way in, because it can't be undone and they are doing it for money and don't want to have to do it again. But, for self-recorders, I don't get the point of not learning how to commit up front and commit to compression, EQ, and even effects. It used to be common to do this, and I think it creates a lot more 'happy accidents' that lend uniqueness to music, as opposed to the modern trend of everything sounding exactly tuned, exactly timed, exactly sample replaced, etc...
 

The bass in Dean's example is firstly too loud in the mix. (IMO of course!) Many have the bass too loud and this is a good example.
 
(TIP) Turn the bass off completely and listen to your track for 10 minutes without bass. Then if you have a small mono speaker listen through that at low volume and slowly bring the bass back in and stop where you think it is a nice level. It will be lower than where it is now.
 
I can hear the extra sustain the compressor has created but to my ears it sounds a little unnatural and if I were doing this I would actually let the bass notes die a little faster. It would give the bass some more dynamics down low. A good bass guitar is going to almost sustain that long anyway but naturally.
 
Also every note start or the attack part of the sound is a little distorted or I can hear the compressor working a little hard at every attack point. With less compression this would ease off and sound a little cleaner.
 
What is way more important here is the fact that the timing of the bass is so nice and spot on with the kick. That is what makes this bass line work, not the amount of compression involved, for me it is a little high and backed off would still sound great and effective. I think if you can use less of something and it still works well then that is always a good thing.
 
But these are my ideas and opinions only and also the rest of the music is still not there so it is hard to tell how Dean's example will work when it is all in there. It might be OK but I also think less bass compression will still sound very good and maybe a little cleaner and more dynamic and even more punchy because if the bass note dies a little further before the next one comes in then that adds to the dynamics. The compression used in this bass example is actually hiding the 'black backdrop' behind the music when one should always aim to try and expose the 'black backdrop' rather than hide it.
(The 'black backdrop' behind the music is the silence behind the music. Many are afraid of it and are always trying to fill it in somehow rather than let it shine through at times. Many also hide it by putting in too much stuff into their music too. Good producers are always taking stuff out and trying to find it or let it shine through)
 
I think Dean has been someone who has complained about squashed masters and loudness wars (I think not sure) Starting this way only makes that worse not better.
 
There is no right or wrong here only two different ways of treating the bass sound and both are equally valid. I just prefer it less compressed that is all. That is what is so interesting about music production.
 

The bass isn't too loud in the mix, the mix isn't there now. When the rest is there, then the level you'd play it at would end up making the bass lower in volume relatively speaking. But the bass and kick are featured instruments in this tune, so they are very purposefully quite present.
 
The bass is overdriven on purpose as well, which is why you hear the distortion, it's not the compressor. And the fact that the bass is heavily compressed has nothing to do with the final level of dynamics on the overall mix. The issue isn't compression of specific tracks within the mix, it's the compression of EVERYTHING and then massively limiting the whole mix on top of that. The drums are very punchy and only modestly compressed, so the dynamics of this example are already way more than the average these days.
 
I'm not trying to hide anything. The bass is going to be, as I said, a very featured instrument. The other stuff is going to be either fairly back in the mix, like the organ, or fairly sparse and rhythmic, like the piano, so the bass is going to be what's keeping it a lot of the time from sounding too empty. And they will be quite frequency constrained as the piano is, so the bass is really going to be providing a lot of the frequency content.
 

The final level of dynamcis in an overall mix is certainly dependant on the amount of compression and limiting used on that final mix but also what the individiual tracks are also doing dynamically has a big bearing on that too.
 
Things begin at track level and the dynmaics of your individual tracks should also be carefully observed. Squahsing individual tracks will only create a squashed stereo buss mix at the end of the day even without further squashing on that. To say otherwise is simply incorrect.
 
I find I get a better sound by actually letting the tracks breath a lot and process buses and the final stereo master a little less. Once an individual track has been squashed it remains that way for ever on. Remember too that compressor ratios multiply when used in series. So if you have used a lot of compression on an individual track and you use more over the two buss mix then the the result is even more compression over the individual tracks. More reason to ease off on the tracks.
 
I like to think live. How would all of that sound live. Pretty dynamic I would imagine. There would be no compression an anything anywhere and it would probably sound great. I supose that is one of the great thing about live performances. They are more dynamic and they tend to breath a lot better.
 

Squishing a single track isn't going to affect the overall dynamics of the final result. This is why we always end up butting heads. You have these apparent rules which you want to apply to everything, though they are only actually applicable in specific circumstances. That track I posted is very punchy and dynamic, because only one of the core tracks is heavily compressed. The overall dynamics of a track depend on the overall combination of what makes it up. It's been not at all unusual since the 70s to have some tracks heavily compressed and others much less so, because it provides a desired result. That's what I'm doing in the track I posted, for the reasons I enumerated. The drums are quite uncompressed by modern standards, and they are doing one job (maintaining punch) while the bass is because it's doing another job (providing a foundational tone for everything else to sit on top of without the initial attack competing with the kick.)
 
And this is a high energy, pop-rock type of song, which though I'm certainly not going to squash it (and won't do anything on the master bus most likely), it's supposed to sound punchy, but constrained. It's not supposed to sound like a singer/songwriter track. 
 
The right tool for the right job. No one set of rules applies to everything, which was my whole point in the my original response. You seem to have a tendency to want to apply a fixed set of rules, which is where we've butted heads in the past as well. But there are no fixed rules that work for everything.
 
Unfortunately, I can't hear anything on Soundcloud because I don't allow tracking cookies in my browser and Soundcloud shares your information with various other companies. If you don't allow them to do that, the player won't play.

Yes I agree that having some tracks compressed and others not so much is very valid too. I think in any very dynamic mix there is always going to be something that is quite heavily compressed. The trick is to not have too many.
 
I do not apply the same rules to everything I do, in fact the opposite is true. I am also producing another track for a girl and this one is Aggressive Hip Hop with Dubstep bass drops! I work on many styles and they all require a very different approach. I am slamming all sorts of things in this one because the genre calls for it. And it is sounding great too. But despite some tracks being heavily compressed I am still creating a dynamic by automating these compressed parts up and down in volume and it really works well.