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[j.hall]

talking with a few friends, it seems like there is a decent amount of techniques floating around for dealing with bass guitar in the mix phase.

what do you guys typically do.

i just EQ, compress right on the existing track.

seems like some guys mult it out and treat each one different.  

i've heard of crossovers being used.

guys re-amp......

just curious what you guys typically default to

[Gabriel F]

eq, compression, sometimes amp simulators or some saturation or overdrive. sometimes i blend the clean bass with an overdriven mult.

Gabriel Fonts.

[beau]

depends on the track.. if it was tracked well, there normally isnt much to do besides some eq and compression... however, if the track is in need of major help, ill do whatever it takes to get it where it needs to be...

peace

beau

[A.J.]

I've been doing a fair amount of direct bass tracking through a BAE312->Distressor, just trying to get the best sound I can out of the instrument itself. At mix time I've been either re-amping or using the Sansamp RBI along with compression and EQ (if needed).

That said, I still really dig the Sansamp unit at the mix stage. Sometimes the re-amp wins, but many times the Sansamp sounds really focused and spot on... especially with a dbx or the Distressor.

Best,

[Podgorny]

Duplicate track and ad Sansamp
Then EQ and Compression du jour.

[fallforward]

I have a Kern IP 777. I stumbled across it on Ebay, and I love it. I also use it for jazz guitar. I add a heavy dose of compression if I need extra attack, and most rock mixes I do I always end up doing the duplicate track and add sansamp routine. I don't do any compression on the front, just the built in eq's.

Here's a link to anyone interested. I picked mine up off of ebay for about 700 bucks.

http://www.kernacm.com

Robby

[bob ebeling]

One of my favorite bass tones achieved was a combo of 3 signals.  1 DI.  2 was a fifteen inch speaker wired up as a 'microphone' then placed infron of the bass cab.  3 was the dI signal multed out to a Vox AC30.  The Guitar amp signal made the whole thing very close to the classic 60's bass tones.

What were they doing in the 60's?  Those bass tones just destroy anything modern.  I think it has something to do with the in-house tube mastering that was going on then.

In my Beatles tones quest I read about them micing McCartneys cabinet about 6-feet out with a C12.  This is a pretty cool thing to try but be extremely careful with your compression and have an amazing room.  

[j.hall]

Podgorny wrote on Wed, 28 January 2009 20:24

Duplicate track and ad Sansamp Then EQ and Compression du jour.

if you print the sans, you have to zoom in and make sure it's time aligned.  i've had problems with this.  and of course it's totally random.  some times it's on, sometimes it's off.

[Podgorny]

Haven't noticed that.
It always inverts the polarity though.

[rankus]

Podgorny wrote on Fri, 30 January 2009 11:12

It always inverts the polarity though.

Mine does this too!  Annoying as hell!

What about EQ'ing strategies folks?  any favorite EQ tricks?

What I have been chasing lately in bass is the ability to sound huge and bassy on a 3" car stereo speaker... Some of the shit I hear on oldies radio sounds killer huge in the bottom, but the speaker has not much low end to reproduce it

[garret]

rankus wrote on Fri, 30 January 2009 13:34

What I have been chasing lately in bass is the ability to sound huge and bassy on a 3" car stereo speaker... Some of the shit I hear on oldies radio sounds killer huge in the bottom, but the speaker has not much low end to reproduce it

Harmonics... lots of harmonics.

My theory is that a lot of modern bass sounds are so pure, they're not generating the higher-order harmonics that can be reproduced on a 3" speaker.

I have read that the human ear/brain can recreate the fundamental when presented with a set of harmonics.   So when you listen to those old tracks on a 3" speaker, and hear bass, you are hearing a phantom... the human brain is an amazing thing.

Try a saturator plugin, or reamp through some tube gear...

I use Voxengo Analogflux Tapebus for this sort of thing.  Cheap and effective, but Windows VST only.

You don't have saturate so much it sounds like stomp box distorted bass.  Just enough to build some harmonics...

[Podgorny]

garret wrote on Fri, 30 January 2009 15:08

I have read that the human ear/brain can recreate the fundamental when presented with a set of harmonics.   So when you listen to those old tracks on a 3" speaker, and hear bass, you are hearing a phantom... the human brain is an amazing thing.

This is the concept behind MaxxBass.  And it works quite well.
As far as bass disappearing in smaller speakers, try keeping more low-mids intact (and not relying upon the sub 100Hz stuff for bigness).

[A.J.]

Podgorny wrote on Fri, 30 January 2009 16:16

This is the concept behind MaxxBass.  And it works quite well. As far as bass disappearing in smaller speakers, try keeping more low-mids intact (and not relying upon the sub 100Hz stuff for bigness).

Yeah, I completely agree. I think bass tone is all about the low mids and I'm always working that stuff to get it to sit right...  but I do like what MaxxBass does. It can really fill in the missing pieces.

As an aside, has anyone used any of the Aguilar DIs? I was looking around awhile ago I think on of the discontinued models... maybe the 900?

[NelsonL]

AJ, the Brick is an excellent Tube DI, and would give you another pre in the bargain.

It often beats a host of expensive options in this application-- for me anyway.

[0dbfs]

I recently used a technique of duplicating a bass track and inverting polarity on the inverted track to null the bass, then eq'ing the original to reveal only a specific portion of the original sound...

wouldn't work in every case but it worked for the tune in this particular instance.

Cheers,
j