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.

Bapu,

I too felt like a 'dork'! the post jogged my memory and because of the post... it made me recall this info from Bobby O.  lol  

Have to get to the reality of the mission and this has served me well in the past and indeed I needed a refresher!!!

jonny3d

Beepster


In regards to this pitch correction method using Melodyne... will V-Vocal do a similar job? Can't afford Melodyne and don't really see using it enough to justify the cost. Also I'm assuming this method wouldn't work as well with fast picked/plucked basslines. Is that correct? This is an awesome thread BTW. :-)

V-Vocal will do the job perfectly - PROVIDED it's a clean, monophonic line

I've never thought of a P-Bass and it's bright sounding single coil sound as being muddy.

The most common reason I know of that a P-Bass would sound muddy is that it is plugged into a direct box or mixer with a 1500 thru a 10kohm ohm input impedance.

A P-bass want's to see a 1 MegaOhm input. I use a preamp with a 2.2 Megaohm input and I turn down the hi frequency shelf 3dB.

Hot rodded pickups, for any application, emphasize and fatten the mid range frequencies and are especially suited to making a muddy sound. If you want to avoid a muddy sounding bass... don't use a hot rodded pickup. Use a basic, good P-bass pickup... just like on that Hondo.

I low cut the Bass below 40hz so that the low E is included.


best regards,
mike

mike_mccue


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

Mike - simply stated I never thought to do it - but it kind of makes so much since.   Thanks for sharing...

Mike - simply stated I never thought to do it - but it kind of makes so much since. Thanks for sharing...

 
Another thing to mention about fretted bass (and guitar for that matter) is than no instrument is in perfect intonation on every note.  It's just not possible...
Melodyne makes perfect intonation quick/easy. 
 
Think of it as being similar to percentage quantization with MIDI.
With Melodyne, you can percentage "quantize" intonation.

In songs where the bass plays a lot of lines, I take the super lows out of it and let the kick take the bottom with the bass taking the low mids.  If you leave the bottom in both, you won;t have any headroom for anything else.  Getting kick and bass right takes a lot of time and I agonize over it and am always questioning myself.  This is the toughest part of a mix, with lead vocal being #2.

I guess I should re define "hot rod" pick ups. Pour choice of a term. 

I guess what I recommend is using "good" pick ups.
Replacing the stock Pick ups on lower end instruments can make a world of difference. not just for tone , but in way less noise and shielding issues. And sometimes a well played older instruments need an upgrade too, must be the magnets die of old age. 
There are so many different P bass's made all over the world, you cannot trust that any 2 would sound the same. 

Op- have you tried using just the raw bass track without all the fancy gimmicks ??  
Somehow I can't help cringing when I read your using guitar rig to enhance the bass. I guess I'm a purist and other than compression and a touch of EQ would never dream of processing bass. I'm the same with guitar tone too. Guitar-Cable- Tube Amp. But then each type of music requires a different approach I guess.

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!

A cruise ship vacation is a blast!


Music on a cruise ship is *super* "milk-toast"... so as not to offend anyone.
It's a "dinner music" type gig...  (yuck!)

Music on a cruise ship is *super* "milk-toast"... so as not to offend anyone.

Except us musicians ha ha

I had "Tie a yellow ribbon" stuck in my head all night  thanks to Bapu! I flushed it out with some Derick Trucks this morning.

This is also one of my favorite tricks. Oftentimes bass notes come out at vastly different volumes (esp. high octaves vs. low octaves.)


Melodyne makes it easy to select all instances of a particular note and change their amplitude. This is very helpful in getting things to sit right.

mike_mccue


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

Another thing I've found is that sometimes folks set the attack on compression too fast on bass. You want enough of the attack of the signal to come through first, so setting the attack a little slower can help.


To be truthful, getting the bass to sit right is one of the things I find the hardest, too.


Peace,


Tunes