If I have posted in the wron category, I apologize.
 
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!

I have a Warmoth P-Bass with quarter pound pickups.

I have begrudgingly begun to admit to myself that there is a great advantage to running all the bass through Melodyne after I have the selected a best take or comp.

It makes the bass much easier to hear and discern and I find that I can often lower the amplitude level immediately after running the tuning process because the bass just seems more prominent when it's well tuned.

Call me crazy. Lots of folks do.

Good luck.


best regards,
mike

I am embarrassed to ask, what is Melodyne?  I looked it up but there seems to be several products. Which are you referring to? Is it a plugin ?

Melodyne is basically a really fancy pitch correcting software like auto tune or Sonar V-vocal. And I agree that having the bass perfectly in tune does wonders for the mix (just discovered that a couple nights ago). I have no idea why.

I think I've read on here to pan the bass just slightly out of center to get it away from the other frequencies. Also sometimes the kick will steal your bass frequency. I've seen reference to a very slight side chain + compressor being able to help with this problem but I've never tried it.

i have a tuner and I tune before and check periodically thru the recordings. So I think my tunning is good. If that is what you meant. What I am getting, is the the bass track solo'd sounds good. when I am listening to the mix it is either too "boomy", so I adjust and then it becomes not enough. I make small adjustments. Does anyone else use a P-Bass? What is your typical EQ setup look like?

I have tried the side chain on the kick. It worked really well to bring out the kick a bit.

You could try the various EQs in Sonar and look for the Bass presets then tweak from there. Also have you tried Guitar Rig? I find the Bass Pro model (or whatever the bass amp sim is called) can help.

Yes, I am using Guitar Rg 5 -the bass amps and have tried several presets. I have downloaded some prochannel presets and still have the same issues. I really only use the plugins that came with sonar (Sonitus). Not sure why, but the cakewalk plugins didn't install and I am not into going thru all of that again just to add the plugins.

I have a Warmoth P-Bass with quarter pound pickups.

I have begrudgingly begun to admit to myself that there is a great advantage to running all the bass through Melodyne after I have the selected a best take or comp.

It makes the bass much easier to hear and discern and I find that I can often lower the amplitude level immediately after running the tuning process because the bass just seems more prominent when it's well tuned.

 
Interesting Mike, I am going to have to try this now.