Mixing Questions for Charles and Friends

[Jose Mrochek]

Today I came across an Unusual situation. I don't know if it's a great thing or bad. We finally finished tracking drums and editing them for timing and velocity issues. They sound great to my humble opinion. Today we layed the first bass track and it sounds amazing, rock solid. But this is the thing I'm not sure of. The bass player lowered the forth string (E) to a (D), and it sounds amazing... we used a jazz chorus guitar amp, with sans amp bass DI. And the combination works great, the bass goes into a very low low tone with a mid edge, (thanks to the guitar amp and tuning modification ) and the outcome doesnt distort or make the room vibrate. It's just there solid. On the genelecs it sounds amazing. I brought a little mix home and sounds great on my home stereo, but forget about my laptop speakers, and i guess TV devices or radios. You simply don't hear the bass guitar. It's out of the mix. What should I do!!! Please help, when is LOW END , TOO LOW ? ?? I bought CD's that didn't sound as good in my stereo but great on my TV when played on videos and vice versa ? Do I keep up with this, or do something about the bass low tone ?? Any suggestions ???

Another question please ( I didn't know where to put this one) It seems that everyone in this forum has a high end protools HD system or Mix. We are using a 001. We are tracking on 2 Mackie MDR 24/96 hardisk recorders. At 24 bit, 48Khz resolution. I wanted to know if there is a huge difference when I transfer tracks from the mackie mdr to 001 through Adat optical, versus doing the same transfer to a high end HD system ??? We assumed that since it's all in the digital domain there shouldn't ?? I will hopefully mix on a HD system afterwards, but for time and budget reasons I would like to edit everything on 001. Or do you think I should just do all the editing in the mix stage with a HD system ??? Thanks for your thoughts!

[Charles Dye]

Jose,

Your bass recording is fine. You may need more low mids in the mix to help it be heard in smaller speakers, or a plug like Waves RenBass or MaxxBass could help. They are designed specifically to aide bass to be heard from smaller speakers.

Re your digital x-fers, I beleive there should be no quality loss by digitally x-ferring to a 001 instead of a TDM system.

Hope this helps.

[Jose Mrochek]

Thank You Charles, I will go ahead and work on the Guitar sound now. The what if questions always arise on lower end studios trying to get high end results, the what if I was using a TDM system, what if I was using tube pre's, etc.. and thanks to your HDL articles and forum, we are getting those high end results so I thank you enormously! I will be posting the mixes as we move on and hopefully will meet your expectations. bye bye

[Charles Dye]

Originally posted by Jose Mrochek
I will be posting the mixes as we move on

I'm really looking forward to hearing how it is turning out. And I'm glad I could help.