I am having a hard time getting a good bass guitar sound in the mix. A few things to mention:
 
1) I have great monitors, KRK Rokit 8
2) I have treated the room a bit with foam, however it is the spare bedroom in my house so I can only do so much. (I understand room treatment is important, I'm not a pro, I have to use what I have. Don't want to get into that discussion again. Hoping for a work around)
3) Using an Avalon U5 preamp / Direct
4) P-Bass with SD Quater Pounders pickups
 
As indicated above, I think I have very good quality gear. I am just having a hard time getting the bass guitar to sound right and sit in the mix correctly. And also lack good "seperation" of the guitars and bass. I have referenced other recordings, for example AC/DC Back in Black album and I'm just not getting close. Either way too much or way to little. Have the guitars shelved at about 360 HZ and they sound fantastic Drums sound really good, vocals are cutting thru well.  I have read a few recording books and searched online and viewed a few videos on the subject. And I am still struggling with it.
 
Does anyone have any tips or tricks they have picked up? Would love to learn them if you are willing to share them!
 
 
 

http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2658773

best,
mike

There may be two separate issues here: getting the bass to sit in the mix well, and getting it to sound that way no matter where it's played back. Two different problems, with different solutions. Which one would you like to address first?

Agreed bit. Another thing to keep in mind Tracey, you mention the guitars are sounding great. Sounding great may be the problem. If you can't fit your bass in the mix, there is something being presented by the guitars that probably needs to be curbed. Instead of a shelving, you may need to use a high pass and really remove some of the stuff you actually like in that guitar tone.

For example, there are times when we hear a guitar tone all lone to where it sounds great. So we think that it will work in the mix when 8 times out of 10, it probably will not and will need to be tweaked. The first place I always start when a bass will not fit is with the kick drum and then the guitars. When you solo up your guitars, try high passing to the extreme and then allowing more lows to come in a little at a time. When you start to hear a low end uhhhhhhhh type sound in the back of the guitars, that's bass that you want taken out of there because it will walk on the bass guitar and mask it as well as your kick drum.

It's really hard for me to tell you what to do without hearing your mix to be honest. But most times, when a bass doesn't seem to sound as it should, I immediately check out the guitar low end as well as what kick drum frequencies I'm pushing that may be similar to the bass. Most times it's just frequency masking...other times, it can be something else...but it can depend on a few things which are hard to pinpoint without hearing it. Just remember, if you can feel the low end in a guitar, you are usually using too much. We want to hear a little low end, but as soon as you feel it, you're in bass guitar territory. Best of luck.

-Danny

Tracy-Im an ameture at all this but I agree with Bit and Danny.
One thing I have found in Sonar to help is the Analyzer AN-870  (or something like that)

Drop it in your Master buss then solo the each guitar and the bass seperately one at a time and which will help you see the conflicting freqs which you can then EQ as required

Good reply, Danny. As usual. 

OP: I recommend listening to some of Mr. Danzi's work, with his above advice in mind. 

On a related topic...Mike, have you seen the new analyzer (MMultiAnalyzer) from Meldaproductions? It lets you watch multiple tracks at once. I've downloaded the demo but haven't tried it out yet.

Sure havent Dave, 
Thats gotta be one of the best having the ability to have multiple tracks up at once to work and finesse 'em as needed.
Id imagine being able to see and hear the difference in real time will be great.
Thanks, Im gonna check it out

tracey-

do you have a "pro' release recording, of a section of a song that features a bass sound that you really dig?

if so, take it and run it thru something like HarBal, or SPAN


just the bass, as much of just a section of bass to help isolate it from other instruments......


look at the eq curve, and figure out why it is what it is.

that is KEY to beginning to learn how to carve a nice niche for you bass.
now, this wont be the same curve for every song...... even with the same bass.
because the other instruments come into play...
the arrangement comes into play...
your choice of processing (limiting, compression, eq and even panning) comes into play.....

but you get the idea.
what you want to do, is have a full bass, but get rid of problem areas that cause build-up, or step on other frequencies within the song.


guys build entire careers, on just being able to dial in their bass, because after that, the rest is cake!!!


(yeah, sure.)

Alloy has some great bass presets.

I also like Voxengo's MaxPunch;

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

And coincidently? From the September 2012 issue...
 
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep12/articles/mixing-bass.htm
 

Just to echo what Danny and Batsbrew mentioned, I was very surprised when I started mixing to find out how much low frequency sound guitars generate (as seen by running them through the Voxengo SPAN plugin). When you mix them all together the lower frequencies really pile up, so it was a revelation to start (even brutally) applying high pass filters on every track that doesn't belong in the lower registers. Cleaned up the whole mix. (Still have a lot to learn though.)