Check Out This Bass Sound

[chielio72]

The raw sound of bass sounds good to me .. ofcourse the tighter and better you play, the better it translates. So i def agree with the statement that a big part of the sound is the playing. But I don't want to offend your playing by saying this, it's hard to judge without the music.

The whole thing is to get it sit in the mix, try to make it sound and play it as good as you can during tracking. Without hearing the rest of the music it's hard to judge the sound, I've heard worse basstracks soloed from hit records .. they still worked out for the song and nobody complains.

[soundrick]

Originally Posted by Muser

Any instrument alters tone by the way you play it.. That's the beauty.

I read daniel lanois saying that if he plugs a mike into a preamp on a recording session at any time, and it sounds great, He often records everything he can with that mike and doesn't turn it off. if He turned it off and plugged it all up the same the next day, His experience is, it won't sound the same.

if you want to contest this, please email him at

I'mdaniellanoisbutyou'renot@googlemail.com

cool story

I'm a huge Daniel Lanois fan, but as long as we're being snarky, I'd like to point out that Mr Lanois is human, and therefore just as susceptible to psychoacoustic anomalies as the rest of us. So it may or may not actually sound different every time.

[Muser]

Originally Posted by soundrick

cool story

I'm a huge Daniel Lanois fan, but as long as we're being snarky, I'd like to point out that Mr Lanois is human, and therefore just as susceptible to psychoacoustic anomalies as the rest of us. So it may or may not actually sound different every time.

I would think He has it on record though.
quite literally.

what the cause might be (or) the cocktail of causes, would be hard to gauge.

but it would be interesting to test something along those lines.

it might be that, sometimes equipment just loads each other perfectly sometimes.

[JeffS65]

To the bass tone...

I will leave all other form of discussion aside other than to focus on tone.

My thought is always less in terms of processing and more in terms of eq. Sure, we need the various processors to enhance the performance. However, I do think more can be achieved up front with eq and thereby less processing on the back end.

Of the stuff I fiddle with, I'm not afraid of spawning off multiple tracks of the same performance. I recently got EZ Drummer to mess with (hey, I don't play....). In just messing around with a drum track, I had four tracks just for the bass drum. Two left, two right. With each 'side', the two tracks were really so that I could hone in on the bottom end 'thump' on one track and hone in on that snappy, higher end 'thwack' on the other.

I can't make one track do both the 'thump' and the 'thwack' and make it sound worth a darn. Also, by having a separate 'thump' versus 'thwack', I could control blending of each aspect.

In getting the tone to carry both aspects I was looking for, and having two channels each of 'thump' and 'thwack', I could pan a 'thump' and a 'thwack' on each side and pan fairly wide to give it lots of space.

Point being, while tracks may hog resources a bit, I wouldn't be afraid of having multiples for some mixing and matching of differently eq'd sounds to blend together.

Honestly, I first saw the multi-track trick when I was at a studio watching a mixdown and they thought the bass was too soft. They re-ran the track through a different bass amp and recorded a second track to blend with the original. Made a big difference.

My thought, anyway.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by numberforty1

Got any suggestions?

Download something like Camel Crusher, it's free and it dishes out some pretty good distortion... mix it in with your bass sound, it should help it sit in the mix a bit better.

CamelCrusher - Distortion, Compressor, Filter - Free VST plugin & Audio Unit

[Aa63]

2.5¢...

Anyone who tells you that a 400 bass made out of the same wood will sound the same as a higher quality, or well aged vintage instrument (even from the same manufacturer) is delusional. I have Fenders from every era that they made them and they all sound quite different. I have and have recorded with clone versions of P's, J's and MM's both cheapo and boutiques, they all sound different. Same wood type, same strings, same pups and pre-amps, they all have a different raw sound - some more prominent than others but all different. I've spent over three decades comparing and discussing this with players, bass builders and engineers.

Raw bass tone comes from 3 things, the electronics and their placement (in the case of the pups), the wood (predominantly the neck), the player. Choice of strings pre-amps, amps and processing of course play a part, but those are the basics of raw sound.

Your sound is not bad by any means. I find the low to mid range narrow and lacks resonance.

Immediate gains can be had by (without it costing a lot) ...

- altering your right hand attack either pick harder near the bridge or looser closer to the neck. It depends on what the tune requires which you did not post so it is hard to get more specific.

- Choosing a different spot on the neck to play your notes - on that cheap(ish) bass the tone is being choked/muted. This is made more obvious by that bass. Where possible play the notes closer to the nut and use open strings.

- The same performance on a higher quality bass or one with dual humbucking pickups (say a Musicman) would sound much fatter. Rent one and try it out.

- picking up something like a Sadowsky di/pre-amp

- mic an amp and record both at the same time. Tubes are good friends of average quality basses. If you do not have a tube bass amp, use your guitar players with the preamp dialed up and master vol down so you don't blow his speakers!

It would help a ton if you give an example of a tone you are trying to achieve, or even the style/genre of the song.

Hope this helps.

A

[Teddy Ray]

Originally Posted by Podgorny

For example, listen to Motown records. If you ever get a chance to listen to the multitracks, sonically, these are not the best tracks ever recorded by a long shot. They did what they could with what they had - but performance wise, they are unparalleled.

pshaw...

[Billy Maddox]

Originally Posted by soundrick

I can see where the guy would get frustrated with statements like "play better and your sound will improve".
It's like the countless responses such as "use your ears", or "get the sound right at the source".

Yes, those are valid suggestions, but they are also a given most of the time.
There is obviously good timing for those remarks, but time and again around here that's the ONLY response a question will get, and it's not good enough on a forum dedicated to recording gear.

I'm always a little suspect of users with low post counts who constantly spew the "use your ears" comments and make little other contributions to the forum.

It would be like joining a fishing forum and trying to sound like you know what you're talking about by replying "first you're going to want to go to a body of water......."

Sorry, if that's all you have to contribute, I'm not listening......

The guy is asking how to improve his bass sounds, I'm telling him how he can improve his bass sounds...not sure where I went wrong. You must be one of those people who like to fix things in the mix.

[traumerei1838]

change yo strings mothaf#@ka!