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Author Topic: bass on small speakers?  (Read 8739 times)

wildplum

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bass on small speakers?
« on: June 23, 2008, 08:48:06 PM »

There is something that I have not been able to achieve and that I am (as the old song goes) in need of some advice.

When mixing rock, folk-rock, country, that sort of thing, how does one get the bass (or low end in general) to sound loud and also good on small speakers- say some 2 inch ones that are part of a portable CD player- while at the same time not have the bass being over whelming on a full range hi-fi system?

My studio has speakers ranging from full range to really tiny. Of course, you do not hear the same low end in the tinys that you hear on the biggies. But if I play back, say, Abbey Road (“I Want You” is a good example for this) through the tinys, you can clearly hear McCartney’s bass lines. Not as deep, full, and present as in the biggies, but noticeable none-the-less. When I play back my mixes, the bass sounds fine through the biggies, but just is not present at all through the tinys.

I have long assumed that this was an EQ trick. You boost the upper harmonics (on electric bass, that’s usually somewhere around 700-1,000Hz, and maybe also around 300-400Hz; on upright it is somewhat lower- the 2 or 3 inch speakers used on the portables don’t go much below 150 so boosting there doesn’t help). Problem is, I have a very hard time getting that balance right. When I boost the harmonics so that I get a present bass on the tinys, the midrange of the bass sounds too artificial on the biggies. So, I have tended to sacrifice the tinys response (i.e., make them sound good on the biggies is first priority- actually, make them sound good on the biggies and the near fields). But the Abbey Road example still haunts me.
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Paul Tumolo

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Jason Poff

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2008, 12:23:11 AM »

Miking tube amps is a good way to capture those harmonics in the tracking phase.
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MagnetoSound

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2008, 08:56:58 AM »

You can boost the harmonics or you can roll off (or cut) the fundamentals.

One might work better than the other, depending on the tone of the instrument, the key of the song and the type of track it is.

In general, I try and make sure that the mid-range is represented good and wide, if necessary at the expense of the thick upper bass area.


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rankus

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2008, 02:02:30 PM »



Small amounts of distortion can help a lot as well.  Sans AMP bass driver is a good one for mid cut.  

The Beatles used a lot of very subtle distortion from what I can hear. (not sure about this particular song though)





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Jay Kadis

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2008, 02:29:02 PM »

Reluctant as I am to recommend Waves plug-ins, the MaxxBass plug-in effectively employs the harmonic psychoacoustic principle to boost the "appearance" of bass.  I tracked a couple of acoustic slack-key guitar CDs on which that the producer later employed MaxxBass and it sounded very natural, much to my surprise.

brett

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2008, 04:56:31 PM »

You beat me to my maxx bass punch line... Reluctant is the word. Stay away from plugins like this at all cost. They usually do more damage than good. This is done by mixing and plug-ins can help if used as subtle tools. But old recordings made before maxx bass accomplish this just fine. Don't ever use maxx bass on the whole mix. It is just an eq and multi-band parrallel compression device anyway and it degrades what ever goes through it.

There are two componants to the bass and the kick. on the kick you have the inner and outer drum mics. outer for the thud and punch and inner for the thwack that cuts through. the thwack cuts on the small speakers too. Same with bass, you can use the DI mixed with the cabinet for a low harmonic and DI for the upper clean with some mid boost that cuts better on small speakers. And compression on both on the track and bus will put emphasis on that if done properly. Of coarse there needs to be room too to do this. Keep the lower mids on the guitars from over occupying all of that space.



Most small pc speakers roll off hard above 120. Some even higher. Other than that, make it balalnced and the mastering engineer will worry about getting it to translate completly to small and large play back systems.

Also, as you're mixing have a small set of cheap pc speakers to go to A/B... the boom box test.  

If you can't hear the bass on small speakers you are mixing or tracking the bass too dark. You can always roll highs and mids off once tracked, but you can't bring them back if they were rolled off the amp.

This why you should always track the cab and the DI, in case you need to re-amp at mix time.    
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Fletcher

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2008, 11:04:35 AM »

Gee... I've always found that if you have good content in the 2-300Hz range you can "imply" bottom in a small speaker... now granted I'm kinda handicapped because I had to figure this out before "Waves" existed [probably a good thing as I sincerely feel their products have helped to ruin recorded music at all levels].

Often a "hi pass" filter can very much be your friend to get a thundering bottom on big speakers while getting the pronouncment and definition you require from small speakers.  

On the occasions when a little 'wool' on the bass is called for then that is usually obtained through the amp or a Thermionic Culture "Culture Vulture"... but there really are no rules and I use "fuzz" on a bass pretty infrequently [as most of the music upon which I work doesn't call for the effect].

Peace.
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch.  
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

rankus

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2008, 01:42:00 PM »



Yes, I have stopped using Maxx Bass altogether.  It can be quite unpredictable as to how it translate IMO.

High pass on bass?  (shhhhhhh)

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Toby M

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2008, 05:52:17 PM »

I find it essential to check that there are something sounding like bass on the computer style speakers i mix on. I think most people in the world listen to music on these type of small speakers nowdays.200-500 ish.

I find it hard to judge low bass, i especially do not want any low-lows getting out of control down there. Those waves eat bandwidth:) I kinda like the trick of muting kick and bass stuff and make sure it´s not anything else dirtying up the lows.

Also great to listen to Really big speakers, things sound a lot different when you really blow up the picture. I guess low bass can only develop in large volume speakers.. Rolling Eyes  /Toby
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Fletcher

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2008, 07:37:24 AM »

FWIW this was my primary use for Yamaha NS-10's... I would watch the surround on the woofer cones with the volume up around 90db SPL... then use a Hi-Pass filter on the bass until I could get the song up to 90db without the surround 'crinkling'.  Seemed to translate well to the cars of the day.

Peace.
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch.  
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

mattrussell

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2008, 03:50:47 PM »

have to agree with fletcher 100% here on both of his posts.  i feel like i'm finally starting to get the low end in my mixes "right" and it's been a TON of experimenting to get there - along with a lot of advice from other guys.   have paid a ton of attention to it over the last year and very recently, it's really started to pay off.  no maxx bass needed.  maxxbass is actually a cool plug that can do wonders, but it's not a solution you should rely on.  bust a move with with an EQ and compression (if needed) to make this happen.  you'll learn a lot more along the way.

have to add that it's a lot easier to do this when you've gained some control over the low end in general - (right around) 63, 80, 125 and how those freq's affect from 50 and below.  if you find yourself really starting to nail those, it will make finding the 'small speaker spot' a lot easier.

i also back the use of NS10's for checking out the low end.  use them every day for that purpose (and for a few other things - like the snare and vocal levels on a mix and their direct relationship.  great for that).
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leonardo valvassori

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #11 on: August 05, 2008, 05:33:29 PM »

Fletcher wrote on Wed, 25 June 2008 11:04

Gee... I'm kinda handicapped because I had to figure this out before "Waves" existed [probably a good thing as I sincerely feel their products have helped to ruin recorded music at all levels].



Agreed.
x10
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Leonardo Valvassori

wwittman

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2008, 04:13:27 PM »

no one EVER sounds as good as McCartney on later Beatles records.

I give up on THAT front.

but you can go a long way toward that great sound by thinking like that.

Amp in good room, mic'ed, compressed a bit but ONLY a bit with a good compressor.

that gives you, right from the start:
a bit of distortion (from the amp),
some air in the sound so it blends better with the bass drum,
and a natural band pass from the amp AND the mic


Plus, the bass guitar is mixed LOUD on those records, and the drums sounds are natural. not huge and stretched.

It's pretty safe to say that no Waves plug ins were used on Abbey Road.



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Fletcher

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2008, 06:03:32 AM »

A good bass player doesn't hurt the process to be sure!!  Though you have to wonder if they had the Abbey Rd. plugins available [as we do today via Chandler LTD.] might they have used them?
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch.  
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

Harland

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #14 on: March 18, 2009, 12:21:59 PM »

My personal Holy Grail of bass sounds is With A Little Help From My Friends and Good Vibrations. If I could get sounds like those... sigh
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Tom L

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2009, 01:17:03 PM »

Harland wrote on Wed, 18 March 2009 08:21

My personal Holy Grail of bass sounds is With A Little Help From My Friends and Good Vibrations. If I could get sounds like those... sigh


well put

leonardo valvassori

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2009, 11:31:36 PM »

wwittman wrote on Wed, 13 August 2008 16:13

no one EVER sounds as good as McCartney on later Beatles records.



Almost depressingly true.
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Leonardo Valvassori

wwittman

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Re: bass on small speakers?
« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2009, 12:17:54 AM »

Fletcher wrote on Fri, 15 August 2008 06:03

A good bass player doesn't hurt the process to be sure!!  Though you have to wonder if they had the Abbey Rd. plugins available [as we do today via Chandler LTD.] might they have used them?


we'll never know.
On the one hand Emerick was certainly adventurous and forward thinking.
But on the other, he has terrific ears and was picky.

So I'm guessing "no"


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William Wittman
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