Keeping bass guitar low-end controlled - how?

[dave gross]

There are so many factors involved. What kind of bass? Amp, DI (or both), upright? Arrangement? EQ pre or post compression (or both)? Do you hi pass? Saturation? What kind? What else is going on in the lower midrange and down? Check out the bass (soloed) on an analog VU meter after processing if you can't tell from your monitoring, and see if it's fairly consistent, or if you have a certain range of notes that are significantly louder than others. There are no magic bullets that apply to every situation, so I'm sorry if this response didn't point out what you're after. Good luck!

[chrisrulesmore]

If you are tracking in an untreated room with a mic (no DI), this is likely a result of bass build up in the room.

[Marogru]

I have 4 thoughts:
1) as Chris said, It can the the cause of the recording room
2) As Dave said, It can be a problem in the arrangement
3) The quality of the setup (Starting form the Guitar itself)
4) Maybe someone can't play bass good. I was recording a lot of demos some time ago and this was in most cases the main reason, people that unable to play good bass.
You do not start to play bass because you have too fat fingers for e guitar strings...

[sportyspice]

For me this somtimes happends around 90-110hz. This is were the bass "blooms" up over the mix. It seems to happen more often with a cleanish bass tone on my P-Bass E string. It does'nt happen as much with dirty tones and just mic'ing a cab alone w/o combining a direct signal. Along with good EQ and some limiting (ELOP and an Ashly CL50E or EL-RX DocDerr) I just identify what and were the peaks are and knock them down in the computer.

[DavieB]

Some instruments have odd resonances, some strings sound louder than others at certain positions and some notes are louder than others. If you find a note that always sticks out, find the frequency of that note and create a little notch filter using an eq and pull it down, make sure the notch is quite narrow. Don't just throw a compressor on it and turn it up, that will just ruin your dynamics.

FREQUENCIES: What are the frequencies of bass notes? - FAQ courtesy of GollihurMusic.com

[j2dafo]

notch filters on bass guitars have saved me more than once. but, you should treat the illness and not the symptoms if possible. try a diff. cab, try blending diff. if you have a blend, try side-chaining a comp with the offending freq.

[blackcom]

Originally Posted by j2dafo

notch filters on bass guitars have saved me more than once. but, you should treat the illness and not the symptoms if possible. try a diff. cab, try blending diff. if you have a blend, try side-chaining a comp with the offending freq.

I allways just DI the bass.

[gammalord]

Assuming your monitoring environment is reasonably flat in the lows (a common problem area)...here's my thoughts:

1) like others have said, e-bass is notorious for generating huge level fluctuations up and down the neck, and not necessarily in a linear fashion. Sometimes a low B averages 20dB lower than the E 3 steps up. Is this what you mean?

If so, a compressor is a pretty common tool for use on e-bass. I like the 1176 with pretty fast attack and medium release, 12:1. You can put this up in parallel with the uncomped signal if you lose too much dynamic. Parallel compression on bass sounds great most of the time for me.

Also, a player's consistency has quite a bit to do with this. I understand that if the track is printed then you're kind of stuck now - but if not, let him know how important it is to maintain picking/walking balance from note to note (much like we want our drummers' snare hits to stay consistent through a given passage). This is many times the case especially with players who use fingers instead of picks.

[Ward Pike]

EQ before compressing.

Use a shelf and roll off 3 to 5 db from 120hz down. Then compress, I recommend an 1176 or type thereof. You want to average about 2 db of compression with loudest notes getting about 6db.

Now you should have a fairly even and manageable bass sound. If you're missing low-end, then you can post EQ.

This is not new thinking or new technology. This is pretty much de rigeur for recording engineers.

[phatbeatstudio]

[QUOTE=Flymax;7640076]DOnt be afraid to hi pass the bass...
Just because its bass dont think you have to add loads of low end before or after recording its already there. Get a analyzer and see what youve got if you cant hear it. If its in the analyzer and you still want more bass it probly not the low end you want its some other frequency getting in the way.
Sometimes you have to turn things down faders and knobs work in both directions. If you have flabby bass guitar its probley cuz your kick is booming and you bass guitar need way to much low end to be heard. Try adjusting your kick to something suitable not the rock concert at a stadium sound thud thud. then you can lower your lowend on bass now they play nice together nobody,s beating each other up for frequency territory . Try it. youl see

The short buy more gear answer is a multiband compressor or side chain frequency compression

[Jeff Hayat]

Originally Posted by blackcom

No matter how hard I compress a bass guitar certain notes will allways sound super boomey and jump out of the mix and create low-end rumble that comes and goes.

This is an issue that many, many engineers deal with regularly. You either kow how to fix it, or you do not.

Some of the replies here are good, some of them not so good. The best thing that you can do for this situation, is take a look at this vid:



Mastering Audio by Bob Katz - YouTube

Cheers.

[chris@theblue]

i volume down the offending notes;
or split to a 2nd track where i change the hpf, eq, and volume. . .
the new balance does not over activate the comp.

thanks Bob for the demo. . .
C