Cactus Music

I'm very careful how I sit and play... you need good clean bass technique to record. 

+1


I struggle at times with the live approach to playing when I'm in the studio. Funny, I have not played a live set in like 20 years. An odd, one or two song performance at a wedding and such but not a full set.

Excerpt from an article by Bobby Owsinski (http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com)  "A very cool and helpful guy to check out!!"

The most difficult task is the bass and drum. To have impact and punch you have to make space.
Simply EQing bass high and kick low or other way around might work at it's simplest,
but it's best to have a more in depth strategy – consider the following:


 EQ the kick drum between 60 and 120Hz as this will allow it to be heard on smaller speakers. For more attack and beater click add between 1K and 4Hz. You may want to drop some boxiness between 200 and 500Hz. EQing in the 30 to 60Hz range will produce a kick you can feel but it may sound thin on small speakers and probably won't translate well to a variety of speaker systems. Most 22” kick drums are centered somewhere around 80Hz anyway

 Bring up the bass with the kick. The kick and the bass should occupy slightly different frequency spaces. The kick will usually be in the 60 to 80Hz range whereas the bass will emphasize higher frequencies anywhere from 80 to 250Hz (although some are reversed depending on the song). Shelve out any unnecessary bass frequencies (below 30Hz on kick and below 50Hz on the bass, although the frequency for both may be as high as 60Hz according to style of the song and your taste) so they're not boomy or muddy. There should be a driving, foundational quality to the combination of these two together.


A common mistake is to emphasize the kick with either too much level or EQ, while not featuring enough of the bass guitar. This gives the illusion that your mix is bottom light, because what you're doing is shortening the duration of the low frequency envelope in your mix. Since the kick tends to be more transient than the bass guitar, this gives you the idea the low frequency content of your mix is inconsistent. For Pop music, it is best to have the kick provide the percussive nature of the bottom while the bass fills out the sustain and musical parts.

Jones Studio


Excerpt from an article by Bobby Owsinski (http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com)  "A very cool and helpful guy to check out!!"

The most difficult task is the bass and drum. To have impact and punch you have to make space.
Simply EQing bass high and kick low or other way around might work at it's simplest,
but it's best to have a more in depth strategy – consider the following:


 EQ the kick drum between 60 and 120Hz as this will allow it to be heard on smaller speakers. For more attack and beater click add between 1K and 4Hz. You may want to drop some boxiness between 200 and 500Hz. EQing in the 30 to 60Hz range will produce a kick you can feel but it may sound thin on small speakers and probably won't translate well to a variety of speaker systems. Most 22” kick drums are centered somewhere around 80Hz anyway

 Bring up the bass with the kick. The kick and the bass should occupy slightly different frequency spaces. The kick will usually be in the 60 to 80Hz range whereas the bass will emphasize higher frequencies anywhere from 80 to 250Hz (although some are reversed depending on the song). Shelve out any unnecessary bass frequencies (below 30Hz on kick and below 50Hz on the bass, although the frequency for both may be as high as 60Hz according to style of the song and your taste) so they're not boomy or muddy. There should be a driving, foundational quality to the combination of these two together.


A common mistake is to emphasize the kick with either too much level or EQ, while not featuring enough of the bass guitar. This gives the illusion that your mix is bottom light, because what you're doing is shortening the duration of the low frequency envelope in your mix. Since the kick tends to be more transient than the bass guitar, this gives you the idea the low frequency content of your mix is inconsistent. For Pop music, it is best to have the kick provide the percussive nature of the bottom while the bass fills out the sustain and musical parts.

Funny. I *know* this yet I still flub it every once in a while. But I have a co-producer who reminds me that I'm being a dork.

I struggle at times with the live approach to playing when I'm in the studio. Funny, I have not played a live set in like 20 years. An odd, one or two song performance at a wedding and such but not a full set

Bapu man, we gotta get you out of the house!!! Your turning pasty coloured!
I always thought it would be cool to go and play bass on a Cruise ship!! I think you play 12 hours a day!

I too don't get to play bass live much anymore as I leave that job to my good friend Corky. He has amazing skills on stage but man is he sloppy in the studio. Keeps hitting the PU's. When he not looking I just overdub his parts :0

CM,

Bleh... cruise ship? No thanks. I'd rather record than play yet another "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" or "Along Comes Mary".

And schlubbing equipment around for $100. Again, no thanks.

I enjoy what I'm doing now. 

Oh god ,,, they don;t really make you play those songs do they??? That would certainly not go over well with my sensibilities. I'm spoiled and our band gets away with playing anything WE like as long as it was recorded in the 60's or 70's. People also like the originals mixed in.

FWIW,I would not call KRK Rokit 8 monitors "great",they are great for the price,but I find my Rokit 5's overly "hyped" in the bass/low end,and the high mids are pretty harsh,and not fun to mix on for long periods of time.

I find them reasonable,as long as I keep the level pretty LOW,but compared to a Tannoy "Eaton"-Dual Concentric Monitor[yes I only have 1-so annoying]from 1978,and sold as a"high end" Hi-Fi speaker[that were often used as studio monitoring/mastering apparently]the Rokits pale.

I was given the set of Tannoy Eatons years ago,and one didn't work,and as I was living in the inner city of Sydney,I threw out the non-working one,without knowing what I had!,they now go for $1000-$1500 each!,but as a final check,I'm using that ONE Tannoy more and more,as it just seems to show so much more than a speaker in the price range of the Rokit.

Now if I could just find another one[plus a huge power amp]that wasn't going to be $1000,minus the cabinet!
Bob

Razorwit


Here's one strategy for producing bass guitar. Put your DI bass git on one track and your amped bass on another. If you don't have an amped bass copy your DI and run it through an amp sim or an IR. Copy the DI to a third track and name it "fuzz" or "bite" so you end up with three tracks, DI, Amped and fuzz.

On the DI track drop a fast FET compressor (1176, PC76 etc) on it and compress a fair amount. I sometimes like to add some wooliness by turning the attack and release to their fastest settings. This track will provide the presence and solidity of your bass guitar line.

On the Amp track compress a bit but don't go too fast on attack and release. This should be your big, round, low bass sound. I think of this track as being most like what I hear with a bass guitar playing through an amp in a room.

On the fuzz track drop on a tube simulater (the TL64 does a pretty good job with this) and drive it so you're really fuzzy. EQ out the low end so that you're really only getting mid/mid-hi's and above. This track provides bite and definition.

Route all three tracks to a bus and mix each of them to sculpt your sound. I usually like some kind of LA2A-type compressor (TLA-100, PC2A etc) as well. Next, put an EQ on the bus and use a hi-pass filter at about 500hz with a really gentle slope...on the ProChannel EQ I usually use a 6. Drop the gain on that filter all the way down so you're only left with the frequencies above it. Sculpt the mids and hi's and when done slowly dial back in the low end. I usually dial back in the lows with the rest of the material playing to get the balance right. Potentially carve out a space for your kick with the other bands of eq. Adjust futher where where needed. Use the tracks feeding the bus to change the character of the bass sound. Don't be afraid to compress a fair amount and don't be afraid to automate the relative levels of the different bass tracks..sometimes the character of the sound needs to change (from verse to chorus for example).

Good luck,
Dean

This is good advice. Mixing in a little bit of the fuzzy bass can give it some grit and make it more audible. Just a little bit can go a long way.

Thanks to all that have replied.  I spent a couple of hours in the music room tonight focusing on the bass.  I got out the trusty cakewalk analyst and started looking at various tracks. Kick first and guitars next. I eq'd above the kick (low end about 80hz) and right at the edge of the guitars. 400 hz. Then played back and slowly brought up the bass. Once I got the bass to an appropriate volume, which was way less than I would think, i started sweeping the shelf down from 400 hz until I got some seperation from the guitars. I am using Guitar Rig as an amp sim mostly to smooth out the tone. In some spots it sounded a but muffled. Applied a litte compression at the beginning of the signal and a little at the end. I think it sounds much better. However sounds a tiny bit muffled.  So I am not sure if I am happy or not. But I need to give my ears a rest and take another listen tomorrow.  As far as the KRKs. For the price they are fantastic. I also have the KRK sub. I will listen with the sub, then bypass the sub, then listen on headphones, then bounce and listen on my crappy computer speakers, and on the ipod.  I do have a Spector czec made with emgs, but they are so powerfull, hard to record with direct. -6 db pad is still not enough. As I mentioned, I know the room is not ideal, but I have to work with what I have. Don't have a pro budget, just try to spend the money wisely. I applied several of the tips suggested to me today and have noticed an improvement. 

Thanks!!  I'll be checking back for any more good tips.

Well my Focusrite VRM box just came in the mail and I must say it's causing me to completely rethink my bass. It sounds way too pronounced and boomy on almost all of the studio monitor simulations, as well as the living room hi-fi settings. I also switched my cans from Grados to ATH-M50's which are giving me another bass perspective. Acoustically treated rooms are out of the question for me right now so I'm relying on cans and speaker simulations for the time being. 

TracyStudios, do you have a subscription to Lynda.com? They have a couple of excellent video courses on mixing. The one on EQ by Brian Lee White is particularly good and he teaches a lot about getting bass and kicks to sit well in the mix together. 

http://www.lynda.com/Audio-DAW-tutorials/Foundations-of-Audio-EQ-and-Filters/86649-2.html