I struggle to some degree with each bass recording I make to get the sound I’m really looking for. Here is an example of a bass track tone that I strive for; full, fat and fabulous.
Like any other aspect of music, I’m sure there is a tradecraft used by those that do it well. I’ve become aware of 4 major approaches to EQ bass.
1. Dynamic Equalizing. Studio One has a “Pro EQ” plug-in that’s my standard go-to. I think this is basically pass-band filtering where I roll off the muddy super low end and I roll off the high end that might contain finger noise and other high frequency artifacts.
2. The Ampere (or other) Plug-in. This gives you a choice of common amps and cabinets but so far I haven’t been able to get results any better than approach #1.
3. Dual Channel Bass. This I leaned about recently where you make a copy of your bass recording and on the original you high-pass filter and on the copy you low-pass filter. I haven’t tried this yet but it appears similar to approach #1. See this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJICf83SQP0
Of course, these approaches could be combined in any number of ways but I’d like my workflow to be as simple as possible, ideally using just one approach. And there may be overlap amongst these approaches. There may also be other major approaches that folks use.
What I don’t want to do [at least for now] is to use Melodyn or any other software to post-process my notes one by one or quantize my bass recordings; I want “me” in my recording performances as much as possible. I realize that playing technique is important, but that's another subject entirely. I'm also aware of volume automation and use that frequently. For now, I'm searching for ways to increase the fatness and tightness of my tone in a consistent way across recordings.
I know this is a BIG subject but any helpful suggestions/examples are welcome.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Steve, without knowing exactly what bass (p-bass, upright, synth,etc), amp, how it ), was played (pick finger, felt pick,and effects the only option is to use your ears, i.e. exactly what you are trying to do.
I have had good luck with the Presonus effects along with Waves' JJP bass effects:
Amp syms are also another option. I have Amplitube but it is expensive. You would get a lot of guitar amp syms with it, thus I don't advise you purchase it. However there are a number of inexpensive and free bass only amp syms that you might want to consider"
That adds upper harmonics, which helps the bass be audible on speakers that don't have great low-end.
Distortion, yes. I've got way too much capability to create distortion, which gennerally I don't like. Clean and fat is what I strive for most often as in the Rain On Me track.
FWIW, I can't/won't mix my bass for speakers that have no low end; think a cell phone. Rather I start with my medium quality headphones and then confirm thru my JBL monitors. I'm guessing that anyone on this forum, or who visits SoundCloud enjoys music enough to invest in speakers with good low-end. Plus it's fun for me (and others) to listen to my recordings on our audio systems.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Steve, without knowing exactly what bass (p-bass, upright, synth,etc), amp, how it ), was played (pick finger, felt pick,and effects the only option is to use your ears, i.e. exactly what you are trying to do.
Fender Jazz Bass mainly played with no pick with flatwounds 40W Fender Bronco: Gain: 0 Bass: 3 O'clock Mid: 9 O'clock Treble: 9 O'clock Master: 12 O'clock Model Pre-set: Rumble Comp: Off FX: Off . . . Like I say, this is a big subject.
But doesn't any post-processing of the waveform in a DAW basically step on the above settings anyway?
As for purchasing additional Plug-ins, I already have a boatload of Plug-ins that come bundled with S1. Ampire is one that and hasn't given me anything close to what I'm seeking. Plus don't these plug-ins basically package-up a combination of frequency, gain and Q adjustments into a friendly user interface? Pro-EQ does that for me, plus I can make micro adjustments if needed. Or do you think there is there more going on under the hood in these Plug-ins that is relevant to the tone I'm seeking?
As it happens I do have a few bass synths on the Korg keyboard that actually sound deep and fat thru the JBLs. But I enjoy my Jazz Bass too much to even consider playing bass on a keyboard.
And yes, I have no interest in Plug-ins designed for 6-string guitar.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Are you recording your bass thru a mic, or the outputs from something at line level? Does the Bronco have a line out?
No mic is involved in. A Line Out to Channel 1 of the Tascam 208i Interface. From there it's a USB cable to my PC where I record in Studio One.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
I don't entirely follow this tread, however, from my perspective and experience it appears to be associated with a need to find that elusive TONE which many guitar players search for their whole lives. Sad fact is the magical tone is more found in the players fingers then in his gear.
But that don't stop us from looking for the right Modeling Amps and Pedalboard FX Plug-ins. I have spent my far amount of money and time looking for these plugins. They have come and they have gone. A couple sit in the back of my closet undisturbed for years. Some years ago I settled in on "https://www.positivegrid.com/products/bias-fx-2". And I have found some peace with this decision.
I don't entirely follow this tread, however, from my perspective and experience it appears to be associated with a need to find that elusive TONE which many guitar players search for their whole lives.
You are right in that it is elusive and may be a lifelong quest for the clean, fat tone I'm looking for. So I'm trying to find perhaps obvious things I might be missing that can incrementally move in that direction.
For example, I cut my teeth on Audacity and I recall that it had a "bass and treble". Studio One is so much more powerful than Audacity but no obvious/simple "bass and treble" FX. Instead, it has a boatload of Plug-ins. Other feature-rich DAWs have similar capability. So I wonder if I'm missing something in S1, beyond Pro-EQ, that might fatten my tone.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Reaper has a nice little vst that will split an instrument into three discrete bands - as set by the user...created a cople of copies of the track and set each of the three to a different band in the VST then treat according...usually sending all three to a common bus to "glue". Personally I'm not keen on that. I often create a send track and put a high pass on that, find the character freq for the bass & boost that a little THEN throw on an overdrive vst or VST pedal like a Tubescreamer clone. I then blend the two tracks as suites the track. The overdrive gives it some grit and bite. Reaper Mania has a vid about mixing bass freshly uploaded today all of which can be replicated in another DAW :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghEMSKgqjQo.
Kenny duplicates the bass track for this. I'm inclined to send as I can make timing etc changes to the original and not have to repeat them of the duplicate or, in fact delete & duplicate the media. Flat wound strings are difficult - they're almost a one trick pony. I have a bass set up with flats for when I need THAT sound. The variations they offer are limited by the actually tone they have...an exciter might add some stuff that's not there but not a lot. The BEST flat sound for me is on the early Scott Walker recordings...
Which starts with a mute in front of the bridge or on top of it if there's a cover. It's most effective in a mono mix as it REALLY sits perfectly...in a stereo mix it's still great. I look for a different tone with each song so vary the processing greatly. The one thing they all have in common is HEAVY compression (Modern Deathcore compressor) and sometimes VOLA2 to help that aspect. The MOTOWN EXCITER is a good technique for bass too. Duplicate or send the track, MASSIVELY compress it doubled one and then add lots of top end...blend the two - usually only small amounts of the treated track needed...it's what Motown used to do to bass & vocals to get "that" feel & sound.
Last edited by rayc; 08/30/2304:36 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
That adds upper harmonics, which helps the bass be audible on speakers that don't have great low-end.
Distortion, yes. I've got way too much capability to create distortion, which gennerally I don't like. Clean and fat is what I strive for most often as in the Rain On Me track.
FWIW, I can't/won't mix my bass for speakers that have no low end; think a cell phone. Rather I start with my medium quality headphones and then confirm thru my JBL monitors. I'm guessing that anyone on this forum, or who visits SoundCloud enjoys music enough to invest in speakers with good low-end. Plus it's fun for me (and others) to listen to my recordings on our audio systems.
Hmm ... there's distortion and there's distortion.
The aggressive clipped kind gives the very dirty sound that some people seek. There are much more subtle distortions like those from valve amps and speaker cabinets that don't really sound like distortion in the usual sense because the amount of distortion is modest and the character is often even-harmonic, rather than clipping, which is predominantly odd-harmonic.
It may be that your desire for a "clean" sound is a bit at odds with your desire for "full, fat and fabulous".
The character of sound of all instruments is formed in very large part by the harmonics and/or overtones produced.
Don't dismiss distortion too quickly; in a musical instrument it's actually quite important ... a pure sin-wave is a very boring sound. Even harmonics in particular are likely your friends.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
I've always absolutely loved the Rickenbacker bass sound. Clear, nice high end and a really kicking low end.
Of course, I don't have a Ric, but, I do use round wound strings to get that bite. But the gear, like for guitar, is only a part of the overall sound. The gear provides the foundation from which the player adds the tone and technique to get the sound/tone they want.
One of the things I like to do that sounds counterintuitive is to cut the bass below 100hz and to avoid having other things in that frequency range competing with the bass.
Like everything else about this thing we call recording, I'm still learning and experimenting to try to get it right.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Kenny duplicates the bass track for this. I'm inclined to send as I can make timing etc changes to the original and not have to repeat them
Ray, thanks for diving deep with me on this; there's much craft here to learn. I like Kenny, and on my path to finding Studio One I dabbled with Reaper for a few months and watched a bunch of his videos. He's a walking library and Reaper is a strong DAW. If I understand what you are saying, I agree in staying with just a single bass track.
Here is my current signal flow with the exception of the compression and limiting which I'm not currently doing but am learning that maybe I should. I need to read up/experiment on this more to determine exactly where in the chain to insert these, hence the question marks.
[Side Bar: Byron, when I asked you to produce a system block diagram, this format of a diagram is what I had in mind for you to produce to explain your evidence that RealPlayer extracts audio.]
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Assuming that you are happy with your amp or sim raw sound there are a host of great fx for sculpting the tone.
My favs for bass are:
Waves Bass Rider (always first in my bass fx chain)
Waves CLA Bass
Waves JJP Bass
Izotope Neutron's bass presets (easy to tweak)
Waves BB Tubes (great for a fat round effect)
The ones I use are, of course, based (haha) on the tone I want for the feel of the specific tune's mix.
So whether it is an edgy bass, a gritty bass, a little crunch hair around the edges, or the big fat tone these will get you there. I also pay close attention to the emergence of any unwanted changes on the bass when mastering.
Caveat: I'm an upright player (on occasion ) but for electric RT's I always render them direct and apply Logic Pro Amp sims prior to establishing an fx chain from the above.
FWIW I think that often a lot more than compression and or limiting is needed for the "right" sound. And another FWIW, the Bass Rider is exponentially better than any compression (other than the mildest of it). It adjusts the volume of all notes to your satisfaction just like riding the slides in the old days and it does not compress, i.e., squash the notes. That is a big difference in your sound. And yes most of the afore mentioned fx have a compression module but in most cases it can manipulated. And then there is tape sat, sculpting and other variables and the simple fact that some fx have a distinctive way of coloring the sound that is hard to define but often is helpful in a mix.
Fender Jazz Bass mainly played with no pick with flatwounds 40W Fender Bronco: Gain: 0 Bass: 3 O'clock Mid: 9 O'clock Treble: 9 O'clock Master: 12 O'clock Model Pre-set: Rumble Comp: Off FX: Off . . . Like I say, this is a big subject.
But doesn't any post-processing of the waveform in a DAW basically step on the above settings anyway?
Possibly. It is a delicate balance between your initial settings and post-processing, sometimes you get what you want and other times it is a total disaster. Unfortunately there is no golden rule in how to attain you tonal goal. But the old trial and error method will give you some starting points for your recording methods.
Originally Posted By: Bass Thumper
As for purchasing additional Plug-ins, I already have a boatload of Plug-ins that come bundled with S1. Ampire is one that and hasn't given me anything close to what I'm seeking. Plus don't these plug-ins basically package-up a combination of frequency, gain and Q adjustments into a friendly user interface? Pro-EQ does that for me, plus I can make micro adjustments if needed. Or do you think there is there more going on under the hood in these Plug-ins that is relevant to the tone I'm seeking?
As it happens I do have a few bass synths on the Korg keyboard that actually sound deep and fat thru the JBLs. But I enjoy my Jazz Bass too much to even consider playing bass on a keyboard.
And yes, I have no interest in Plug-ins designed for 6-string guitar.
Experience has taught me that each amp synth has its own tonal qualities. That can be also said about plug-ins. For example compressors can color sound. I have a few amp synths including Ampire and each one will color my bass or guitar in a different way. I also have a number of different plug-ins and all of them are either free or purchased while on sale.
Also plugging your bass/guitar into an amp them using a digital interface to record can also color your sound. You might want to try a different approach by recording your bass directly into you computer via your audio interface and/or using a mic.
FWIW - 99.99% of the time I plug my bass or guitar directly into my audio interface. Sometimes I use an amp synth and sometimes I do not. This give me the more options like changing an amp synth, trying different tone settings, compressors, FXs, etc. This way I have no preexisting settings, only the tone and volume controls on my instrument.
This is just my approach to achieving the tone(s) I am seeking. YMMV
I want my last spoken words to be "I hid a million dollars under the........................"
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
It may be that your desire for a "clean" sound is a bit at odds with your desire for "full, fat and fabulous".
Thanks for your perspective. But I’m not sure if we share the exact vocabulary. I distinguish distortion from harmonics.
I agree with the Reaper vid that Ray posted. At around 8:25 Kenny explains distortion very nicely with his BOD plug-in, he calls it “growly”. Others use terms like gritty or dirty. I believe bass distortion happens at relatively high bass frequencies. Revolution by the Beatles is a good example of distorted electric guitar. For the purposes of this thread I don’t want distortion in my bass tone and I don’t hear distortion in the Rain On Me track. In some rock songs you want distortion. But Rain On Me is not a rock song.
Harmonics, in my mind, are totally different from distortion. When you fret a note on the bass, the primary acoustic energy produced will be at a characteristic frequency. But lesser energy will be produced at multiples of that characteristic frequency. This has to do with the physics of how a plucked string in tension vibrates. I understand that these higher frequency tones are called harmonics. I do not want to remove these harmonics as they are not distortion. If you were to remove all harmonics (and assuming no distortion) you would be left with a pure sinusoidal tone as you point out. I can produce pure sine tones on my synth but that’s not what I want on my bass. I want to keep the harmonics but axe the distortion.
Kenny also addresses the subject of harmonics at around 4:40 with his ReaEQ plug-in. He is EQing/boosting the low(200Hz), mid(500 Hz) and high(3 kHz) ranges of his bass waveform to get the tone he wants. This too, is what I’m attempting in my Band Pass step but to a courser degree and I’m not boosting everywhere because I want a different tone than he does. And I think my tool can also surgically boost or attenuate similarly to what Kenny is doing. My task is to experiment/learn the parameters that will work for the tone I want.
But what I think I’m learning from Kenny is that the sequence order matters. At 4:19 he talks about EQing after compressing. The opposite of what I have in my signal chain diagram. I don’t (yet) understand why the sequence matters here but I trust what he says. It must be the acoustic equivalent of putting your pants on after you put your underwear on, not the reverse . . . . please, no jokes about not wearing any at all
[Side Bar: Notes Norton knows all about this from his nudist colony gig days.]
"The character of sound of all instruments is formed in very large part by the harmonics and/or overtones produced." Agreed.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
It may be that your desire for a "clean" sound is a bit at odds with your desire for "full, fat and fabulous".
Thanks for your perspective. But I’m not sure if we share the exact vocabulary. I distinguish distortion from harmonics.
You're not wrong to distinguish between them, but they're far closer related than perhaps you realise. The sound you get from plucking a string contains many harmonics. They're caused in part by the fact of the pluck being a non-linear stimulation that results in predominantly even-order harmonics that tend to sound pleasant to us. There are also sympathetic vibrations in other strings and in the body of the instrument. All those sounds also tend to decay at different rates. So far we're agreed, I think, though I would argue that the very fact of that pluck is strictly a distortion.
I think we'd also agree that clipping is a distortion and can be quite unwanted.
Where you perhaps don't agree is that, for example, a valve amplifier, even when well below the clipping level will introduce other sounds that are not a part of the basic sound of the instrument. Valves tend to give a slight distortion almost whatever level one runs them at, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Assuming the instrument's sound can be heard, then the various electrodes in the valve vibrate sympathetically, typically at some overtone (subtle difference from harmonic), which adds colour and hopefully richness. The same sound will also feed a small percentage back into the instrument also adding a small amount or colour.
The thing is, all of those colourations are strictly distortions ... they're not part of the pure sound that comes out of the instrument. Often that pure sound is pretty flat and boring. It needs some of those colourations to get 'life'.
What I'm saying, then, is don't fear all of those colourations. Even with a subjectively nice clean sound, there will be some present.
All simple distortion of a sound contains purely harmonically-related components, essentially by definition. The most natural sounds of most instruments also contain overtones that are almost harmonically related, but not quite.
For good, rich, sounds, you typically need a little of each.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
But what I think I’m learning from Kenny is that the sequence order matters. At 4:19 he talks about EQing after compressing.
The reason is, and it ends up being quite logical, if you boost and cut EQ before compression the compressor will attempt to level out the boost and cut...it will squash the boost & try to lift the cut. In a way compression will undo much of what the EQin does. Compress first and you have everything unreasonably level and then you can deal with EQ. In simple "how a compressor works" terms if you give a decent bottom end boost 1st the following compressor will react to the big bottom 1st and it won't, necessarily, address the needs of the rest of the signal - it'll clamp down to manage the low end and that means across the freqs.
REALLY good bass work flow would have the compressor before the interface. I have a little hardware comp that I use IF I REMEMBER but usually don't. When I do remember the signal 1st recorded is much more even in level so the I.T.B. stuff is easier. You could use the compressor in your amp. Realistically your amp isn't necessary. You'll find a great clean sound straight from bass to interface.
I'm not a fan of normalizing. I try to get a decent level on the way in and if I'm not loud enough I can lift the level ITB norm'ing will lift the noise floor as will raining the volume but normalizing reduces "head room" or the appearance of it anyway. Compression, EQ et al add a lot to a signal so I like to do those things without that process. I used to do it back in my dim darks but too often didn't like the sound I ended up with after processing. There's probably no logic in this but it is a process that ought to be unnecessary in 16/24/32 bit recording. The last issue for me is your export to MP3. It's a compressed, lossy format that doesn't decompress on playback, (unlike FLAC), so you're losing some of your very low bass in that - nothing that most folk will hear but - the loss and the compression undo a little of what you have achieved in processing. Unless you have really bad internet you should upload as a .wav file or equiv. Soundcloud adds it's own compression/processing so the better quality the file & the closer it is to their preferred LUF, (current wisdom - White Sea Studio - is that slightly over is better than under as the processing also lifts and that can be more damaging), level the less undoing occurs there and the better your bass will sound.
Last edited by rayc; 09/02/2312:17 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
Assuming that you are happy with your amp or sim raw sound there are a host of great fx for sculpting the tone.
Many thanks for your ideas Bud.
For now I'm going to explore and use the Studio One bundled plug-ins to refine my bass sculpting process with guidance from the likes of Kenny Gioia. I think what I'll eventually end up with is a working understanding of how to produce a clean, fat tone, a distortion-driven, gritty tone and tones in between.
Today I found a vid dealing directly on Studio One. The funny thing is that for a video on EQing audio, I notice there is a portion muted beginning around 11:50. Nonetheless, like Kenny, I think Joe Gilder make several good points.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Also plugging your bass/guitar into an amp them using a digital interface to record can also color your sound. You might want to try a different approach by recording your bass directly into you computer via your audio interface and/or using a mic.
Thanks for your perspectives. I'm finding (like many other things in life) that there is a heaping amount of personal preference going on here; which is good.
My preference is to always use my amp when practicing, jamming and recording. For me there's something un-natural about plugging my bass into the interface and hearing what I play playing thru the JBL monitors. And headphones are a no-go, they get in my way too much. I also like the fact that my amp is on the floor and I can stand directly in front of it while playing. Plus I like the rest of the "band" coming at me from across the room. For me there's no replacement for my big 10" speaker designed to push large amounts of low-end air.
I'm sure you're right that the amp and amp pre-set will color what gets recorded. I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing; and when it is bad, I'm sure I can EQ it out with all the tools I have available.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Just to put things in perspective here's the current song I'm working on. Bass is a short scale KnockHofner, (slightly deeper tone than a full or long scale as theirs less tension on the strings) into a Behringer BDI21 but only as a passive DI to covert it to a balanced signal as I have a lot of M & R Interference at this place. The bass is treated as per the picture. The drive comes in after the intro 1st verse...it doesn't make the tone "dirty" (though it does sound a bit that way solo)...it provided some harmonics and upper frequency noise to allow the bass to sit more clearly in the busy mix of the chorus. I needed some clarity to cut through as the chorus is busy and the verse has the bass, for the most part, not playing the root note. Latest Song WIP Lots of compression on the source bass track - stacked so that no one of them has to do too much work and end up "pumping" The Deathcore one really levels things out and adds a little "colour" while the PSP Vintage Warmer2 adds a little "warmth"/tape saturation to it's flvour of compression. The drive VST is a free generic one but, like most drive pedals/VSTs, cuts a fair bit of bottom end so it blends easily.
Last edited by rayc; 09/03/2307:55 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
This is a great discussion, thanks go to all that are participating.
You're not wrong to distinguish between them, but they're far closer related than perhaps you realise. The sound you get from plucking a string contains many harmonics. They're caused in part by the fact of the pluck being a non-linear stimulation that results in predominantly even-order harmonics that tend to sound pleasant to us. There are also sympathetic vibrations in other strings and in the body of the instrument. All those sounds also tend to decay at different rates. So far we're agreed, I think, though I would argue that the very fact of that pluck is strictly a distortion.
I think we are mainly in agreement here. I'll amplify your point a bit. Any instrument made of wood, glue, metalics and plastics is going to produce a complex sound map made up of compound and overlapping waveforms. My bass has an alder body and a rosewood fingerboard. These and other design details made by the manufacturer shape the complex tones that are produced and these are desired; it's what a bass guitar is. And the type of pickups and strings shape the overall tone much further. Personally, I prefer flatwounds.
Edit: A point where we may not completly align is "the pluck is strictly a distortion". From an engineering perspective, the plucking is the mechanical input to the system and the distortion is an output. If the input is in the form of a single pluck then it could be described (mathematically or in other ways) as a step function or a transient impulse/pulse and the system would ring out (or respond) and eventually decay. If the plucking is repetitive such as a sequence of 1/4, 8th or 16th notes then this input can be described as a forcing function with much different characteristics in it's response output. Both cases can contain distortion in the output. Of course inputs such as plucking with a finger, sliding or plucking with a pick will, in general, produce different system responses. Note, I didn't read this per se anywhere. Rather, the bass guitar and it's associated amplifier is an electro-mechanical-acoustic system which will be governed and described by systems theory.
In "another life" my peers considered me an SME (subject-matter-expert) in a few technical areas. One area is applied vibration. Terms for me that were as common as "hello" and "the" were transmissibility functions, Q, fn1, fn2, fn3, natural and applied damping treatments, tri-axial accelerometers, modal analysis, transient response, vibration isolators, single amplitude displacement, Power-Spectral-Density curves, FFT, compound spring-mass-damper systems, MIL-STD-810, S-N diagrams and mathematical modelling of the above. The list goes on and on.
One of my all-time favorite projects involved flying in a Boeing 737 test aircraft doing rollercoasters at 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of acquiring thermal, shock and vibration data on and around a flight-critical engine component we had design authority for. So I'm fortunate to bring an engineering background to my journey of music study even if, as the years go by, I'm forgetting more and more of what I once knew . . . happens to us all if we live long enough.
I think we'd also agree that clipping is a distortion and can be quite unwanted. Absolutely.
Where you perhaps don't agree is that, for example, a valve amplifier, even when well below the clipping level will introduce other sounds that are not a part of the basic sound of the instrument. This I have no experience in. I don't think my Fender amp has "valve amplification", but I don't know for sure.
What I'm saying, then, is don't fear all of those colourations. Even with a subjectively nice clean sound, there will be some present.Agreed. The distortion (not coloration) that I prefer to remove in some recordings is that gritty, dirty sound that you don't hear on the Rain On Me track.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
What I'm saying, then, is don't fear all of those colourations. Even with a subjectively nice clean sound, there will be some present.
Agreed. The distortion (not coloration) that I prefer to remove in some recordings is that gritty, dirty sound that you don't hear on the Rain On Me track.
The main place where we view things differently is in how/where colouration and distortion overlap. I've been trying to think of a good mechanical simile, but I've failed to think of anything in the mechanical domain that's really a convincing analogue of what I see in the electrical domain. Gas springs and therefore speakers in small cabinets exhibit the effect long before they 'bottom' and cause that coarseness, but it's hard to explain, even then, the effect. "column of air" instruments exhibit it.
You mention FFTs, so you'll understand well spectral data. Even-order harmonics tend to sound like part of the intended sound ... complementary; sawtooth-like waves. Odd harmonics are those that sound harsh; square-like waves, and the ones it's clear you definitely don't want. Worse still by far are intermodulation products.
I don't know if +++ this chart +++ this chart helps explain why odd-order, notably the higher ones, (clipping) harmonics can sound so bad. Even heavily distorted guitars try to avoid the worst of the upper harmonics. A small amount of some can help.
There's a good Sound-On-Sound article +++ here +++ that may or may not help you in getting the sound you want and may better explain than me what I've been trying to say.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
But what I think I’m learning from Kenny is that the sequence order matters. At 4:19 he talks about EQing after compressing.
The reason is, and it ends up being quite logical, if you boost and cut EQ before compression the compressor will attempt to level out the boost and cut...it will squash the boost & try to lift the cut. In a way compression will undo much of what the EQin does. Yep, this makes sense, I'm beginning to get this now. I will definately make this change in my signal diagram when I revise it.
Realistically your amp isn't necessary. You'll find a great clean sound straight from bass to interface. You're probably right on this, but I really like the sound of my amp when I record or practice.
I'm not a fan of normalizing. I try to get a decent level on the way in and if I'm not loud enough I can lift the level ITB norm'ing will lift the noise floor as will raining the volume but normalizing reduces "head room" or the appearance of it anyway. Compression, EQ et al add a lot to a signal so I like to do those things without that process. I used to do it back in my dim darks but too often didn't like the sound I ended up with after processing. There's probably no logic in this but it is a process that ought to be unnecessary in 16/24/32 bit recording. The last issue for me is your export to MP3. I need to research this a bit. I don't follow "I can lift the level ITB norm'ing will lift the noise floor".
It's a compressed, lossy format that doesn't decompress on playback, (unlike FLAC), so you're losing some of your very low bass in that - nothing that most folk will hear but - the loss and the compression undo a little of what you have achieved in processing.Alos need to research what this means.
Unless you have really bad internet you should upload as a .wav file or equiv. Soundcloud adds it's own compression/processing so the better quality the file & the closer it is to their preferred LUF, (current wisdom - White Sea Studio - is that slightly over is better than under as the processing also lifts and that can be more damaging), level the less undoing occurs there and the better your bass will sound. I do happen to have poor internet, not even full broadband yet; they keep saying "2 more years". But I recently discovered the M4A format. From what I understand it is higher quality than MP3 and is 40% smaller in file size. So far I haven't seen any incompatibilites with it yet.
What I'm piecing together in terms of importance to the listener regarding bass EQ and mixing is the following. 1. Volume Automation is top dog. No matter how well you process your bass waveform a volume that is too high or too low is bad.
2. EQ is 2nd in importance. The super-low end mud and the high frequency artifacts need to be attenuated.
3. Compression comes in 3rd.
4. Everthing else is less important.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
A great tip from the Mastering Engineer I use is that low end bass tends to get unruly around 70hz & 120Hz. He suggested/recommends reducing these areas - fairly narrowly & by ear - to help tame things.
Compression can, if used correctly, do some of what automation does...just need to ensure that the automatic "make up gain" isn't on. Another fairly useful tool is the free plugin VOLA2 - it works rather like a "vocal rider".
In Reaper there's an excellent automation form called pre FX volume. This is great because it controls the level of things going into the various VSTs/plugs on that track. The BEST bit, for me, is that this control visually alters the wave form image in the track to reflect what is done. TOO LOUD in one spots can be, visually, addressed by making the wave form section equal to the others - then an auditory check follows of course.
ITB - in the box
Noise floor - normalizing will lift the noise as much as it will lift the music. Tiny click, pops & interference from lights, the screen etc. will also be lifted. If the normalizing is done as a common gain across the track or section that's probably not going to be too much of an issue but some normalizing lifts everything to the it max level so that the noise in a quiet section could become as loud as a played note.
BIAB use WMA files, (I don't think it's WMA Lossless), which are decompressed/converted into .wav files to work in the BIAB mixer as well as your DAW. The .wav is a format that's easy to work with but having been WMA has A LOT of data was removed based on the usual psychoacoustic standards used etc.and is no longer present in the .wav. FLAC is a compression/storage system that unpacks "on the fly" when being played back...it takes some more CPU grunt, is supposed to be full original wav quality and doesn't reduce file size by anywhere near the up to 90% an MP3 will do so isn't hugely popular - particularly now that storage is cheap & bandwidth isn't nearly as restricted for streaming up & downloads etc. How your MP3 sounds will depend on the selected quality as well as the type of compressor (each has its own cut offs). Generally speaking a LAME 320 MP3 is considered to sound the best to most listeners but stuff below 1Khz and above 18Khz is less resolved and has more noise.
Export your track as a 24 bit .wav file then again as your usual MP3. Load them into you DAW and look at a spec. anayliser to see if there's a difference AFTER having listened to them by A B ing.
M4A is an Apple thing so I, inherently, don't trust it. All the stuff I read about it was comparing stuff compressed at 128kbs and that's really not a great sound in any format. Nevertheless this summary is pretty tidy.
"Window's Media Audio is Microsoft's contribution to high quality, lossy audio compression. Like most other new formats, M4A and WMA outperform MP3 in terms of quality and compression, particularly at lower bitrates. Consequently, WMA is probably the format of choice for streaming at low bandwidths and preferred for Windows compatibility. .. However, M4A is less platform restrictive than WMA as the latter is notably unplayable in Apple's iPod [that's the proprietary nature of Apple that I distrust]. MP3 (MPEG-3 Audio), a widely supported format, uses lossy compression to achieve reasonable audio quality at smaller file sizes. It's compatible with most devices and media players."(By Abby Poole ｜Last updated on August 31, 2023).
You like the sound of you amp which is a great start but how that is achieved in the modelling software may also be the start of your problems. May not be too!
Last edited by rayc; 09/04/2304:59 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
Melodyne Studio is very expensive but one can pick it up much cheaper during a sale. I actually got it very inexpensively during an upgrade sale. I upgraded from the Editor version to the Studio version. If it wasn't such a great deal I would have never upgraded. Don't ask what I paid as it was quite a while ago and I forgot but it was nowhere's near the asking price even with the cost of the Editor, which I also got on sale.
I want my last spoken words to be "I hid a million dollars under the........................"
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
The main place where we view things differently is in how/where colouration and distortion overlap. I look at this (like many things in life) as being on a spectrum. Where does "coloration" end and "distortion" begin. Ask a bunch of musicians and you'll probably get a bunch of different answers. That's why I gave Rain On Me as an example of what I consider fat, distortion-free bass.
You mention FFTs, so you'll understand well spectral data. Even-order harmonics tend to sound like part of the intended sound ... complementary; sawtooth-like waves. Odd harmonics are those that sound harsh; square-like waves, and the ones it's clear you definitely don't want. Worse still by far are intermodulation products.
Yes, I am well aquainted with FFT (Fast Fourier Transform). Here is a copy of a couple pages out of one of my engineering handbooks. I apologize for the poor quality, my handbook refused to sit flat on the scanner glass. What I have labelled "A" is a time-domain measurement with duration less than 250 ms. The Y-axis is acceleration, but could easily be velocity, displacement, force, electrical current, strain, pressure or other engineering quantity. So this transient signal could be the electrical current generated by a bass guitar pickup as a result of a sting being plucked. Of course, this signal (perhaps converted to voltage) is then sent to the amplifier to be shaped and amplified. Pickup design and amplifier design could fill many books, just like the required steps to process vibration data could fill many books.
What I have labeled "B" is the result of an FFT algorithm being fed the data from "A" and is in the frequency-domain. The peaks are of great interest to the engineer involved in interpreting this plot. So is the fact there is no significant energy beyond 2 kHz. Studio One and many other DAWs have this capability and the screenshot in the original post is such an example.
As Team Lead on the Boeing project I previously described, it was my responsibility to oversee the processing of the multi-giga byte, tri-axial accelerometer data set collected during the flight test. Before the flight test I needed to learn the mathematics behind the FFT algorithm so that I could write a custom program to process the data we would collect. It took me a couple of months of 12 hour days to understand the math, write and debug the code and finally validate my program against well-understood test cases. Then I assembled a small group of data processors (4 and a half junior engineers) that I could train to use my code and to do the actual processing. The end result was a set of laboratory-ready, broadband random vibration PSD spectra/profiles from 20 to 3200 Hz that when applied to our product would simulate (in the lab) an entire lifetime's worth (measured in years) of mechanical fatigue and other damage. The time required to do this lab simulation on our military-grade shake table was measured in days. This allowed us to quickly identify and fix the flaw in our design. To tell you the truth, I miss this stuff, but equally true is I'm fascinated by music and the side of my brain that music lights up
I don't know if +++ this chart +++ this chart helps explain why odd-order, notably the higher ones, (clipping) harmonics can sound so bad. Even heavily distorted guitars try to avoid the worst of the upper harmonics. A small amount of some can help.
There's a good Sound-On-Sound article +++ here +++ that may or may not help you in getting the sound you want and may better explain than me what I've been trying to say. Thanks for the web links, they're good background info.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
We're going round in circles a bit here and I'm not sure it's really helping.
Perhaps I'm approaching this from the wrong direction. If on my keyboard I play a C1 I'll get a note that's mostly C1 with some harmonics due, e.g., to where the hammer hits the string. (On a piano, I'll actually get multiple very-close tones, because each string for one note is tuned very slightly differently, a kind of chorus effect.)
If I want to add more richness to the sound, I might play a C2 at the same time. Probably a little less loud, but still there. Maybe also a little C3 ... why not, it's all still the same note. To some extent it can be done on a bass also, depending on where on the string you pluck or hit. I little fifth also richens things up
There tone are all closely related to the original C1. In this case I've added them by playing more notes, but they can also be added by distortion, provided it's done gently. A little bit of low order harmonics can be added just by going through a valve that doesn't have large amounts of negative feedback, or by some cabinets, or by tape saturation. The important thing for fatness/fullness is moderation. You definitely saying you don't want harshness, but gently distortion that add just a little low-order harmonics add richness.
When you look at suggestions from Mario, Ray and Dave, some of what they're suggesting is doing just that. Adding a little, subtle, distortion. Valves, tape, transformers, cabinets and older compressors create a small amount of distortion provided they're used gently. Over-drive anything and it'll sound rough. The important thing is moderation, particularly where there is more than one note being played as then you get multiplication products that usually sound awful (to my ears ... some metal fans may well disagree, though it's worth noting that "power chords" keep that effect to more moderate levels).
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
BassThumper, when Gordon Scott mentions valves he is referring to vacuum tubes.
Some Fender bass amplifiers use vacuum tubes while other Fender amplifiers use transistors. Vacuum tube amplifiers are sometimes referred to as "analog" amplifiers while transistor amplifiers are sometimes called "solid state" amplifiers.
This +++ Fender Rumble +++ amplifier is a "solid state" amplifier so it uses transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
I had a listen to the Utub vid in your O.P. That's almost certainly a synth bass with time & spacial modulation. If it's an actual bass then it's had most of the string & finger noise as well as upper mids removed leaving just enough to give spacial clues for the stereo image.VERY heavily processed.
The older amongst us have ears trained/calibrated by tube/valve amplification via radio/TV as well as LPs all of which have characteristics described by terms like warmth, saturation or fatness. The reality is that most of that is caused via distortion introduced by the valves/tubes/LP surface and today by deliberately created solid state, tube/valve or digital means. The dirt added is usually pleasing to our ears as it meets expectations and it involves a lot of harmonics that give a "richer" fatter tone.
An attempt to achieve this on the cheap but seemingly "trad" means is the inclusion of a starved plate tube/valve in a solid state circuit. becasue the tube isn't running warm or hot it won't generate the kind of harmonics or compression that is pleasing but they add some of their native noise to the circuit. In many cases the signal isn't even passed through the valve/tube - just some current to get some noise which is blended in. This rarely works well and simple solid state circuits can do it better - digital processes even more so. The attached shots of EQ & an amp sim suggest a Marshall amp which is a tube/valve amp which produces plenty of saturation/warmth even when not being pushed. The digital version of that would seek to replicate that. So I can really get my head around this please let me know what digital model you're using in your amp. We can assess what that does for your signal and what would, therefore, be unnecessary down stream.
Last edited by rayc; 09/05/2303:30 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
M4A is an Apple thing so I, inherently, don't trust it. All the stuff I read about it was comparing stuff compressed at 128kbs and that's really not a great sound in any format.
I don't use Apple, I never liked their proprietary/costly business model. Plus over a 30 year career, I never saw a single engineering dept. use Apple computers. Vax, Unix, Windows and various mainframe supercomputers such as Cray but never Apple. Apple has always been an innovative company but I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Windows guy.
I understand Apple did develop the M4A format to succeed MP3 and so far I'm seeing no problems with it. Studio One can export in that format, Windows Media Player can play them and I understand SoundCloud will except them.
Based on new info acquired, I updated my signal diagram.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
BassThumper, when Gordon Scott mentions valves he is referring to vacuum tubes.
I am ... is that a British English vs American English difference? I guess so.
Quite a lot of software will simulated the effects of vacuum tubes, cabinets, tape saturation and the like. One doesn't necessarily have to have the real thing in the chain to get a similar effect, though cab-to-guitar feedback is likely still best done the traditional way. That, though, is a whole different discussion. for some other thread, some other time.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
We're going round in circles a bit here and I'm not sure it's really helping.
When you look at suggestions from Mario, Ray and Dave, some of what they're suggesting is doing just that. Adding a little, subtle, distortion. Valves, tape, transformers, cabinets and older compressors create a small amount of distortion provided they're used gently. Over-drive anything and it'll sound rough. The important thing is moderation, particularly where there is more than one note being played as then you get multiplication products that usually sound awful (to my ears ... some metal fans may well disagree, though it's worth noting that "power chords" keep that effect to more moderate levels).
I agree, you and I are still not communicating as tightly as we could.
Let me try this. You keep mentioning valves and tubes and now tape, transformers and other (what I consider) older technology.
You do realize that I don't have tubes, etc. in my signal chain? Do they even build bass amps with tubes anymore?
And when I say "tubes" I mean vacuum tubes as in the 1960 vintage TV sets.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
BassThumper, when Gordon Scott mentions valves he is referring to vacuum tubes.
Some Fender bass amplifiers use vacuum tubes while other Fender amplifiers use transistors. Vacuum tube amplifiers are sometimes referred to as "analog" amplifiers while transistor amplifiers are sometimes called "solid state" amplifiers.
This +++ Fender Rumble +++ amplifier is a "solid state" amplifier so it uses transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
Yes, I'm trying to get clarification if Gordon thinks I have vacuum tubes in my signal chain . . . because I don't.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
I had a listen to the Utub vid in your O.P. That's almost certainly a synth bass with time & spacial modulation. If it's an actual bass then it's had most of the string & finger noise as well as upper mids removed leaving just enough to give spacial clues for the stereo image.VERY heavily processed.
OK, so now that I have confirmation that you listened to the target tone I'm seeking, or at least trying to approximate, the question becomes how can I approximate that clean, fat tone?
Am I wrong to assume that it can be approximated?
The older amongst us have ears trained/calibrated by tube/valve amplification via radio/TV as well as LPs all of which have characteristics described by terms like warmth, saturation or fatness.
I have no such calibration.
The reality is that most of that is caused via distortion introduced by the valves/tubes/LP surface and today by deliberately created solid state, tube/valve or digital means.
Ahhh, we might be getting somewhere. What precisely do you mean by "digital means" ?
The dirt added is usually pleasing to our ears as it meets expectations and it involves a lot of harmonics that give a "richer" fatter tone. Right, I'm seeking this tone precisely because it is pleasing.
An attempt to achieve this on the cheap but seemingly "trad" means is the inclusion of a starved plate tube/valve in a solid state circuit. becasue the tube isn't running warm or hot it won't generate the kind of harmonics or compression that is pleasing but they add some of their native noise to the circuit. In many cases the signal isn't even passed through the valve/tube - just some current to get some noise which is blended in. This rarely works well and simple solid state circuits can do it better - digital processes even more so. I'm not following this. What is "trad"? And I don't have valve/tubes in my signal chain.
So I can really get my head around this please let me know what digital model you're using in your amp. We can assess what that does for your signal and what would, therefore, be unnecessary down stream. Mario asked essentially the same question. I answered it as best I could in post #775189
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Yes, I'm trying to get clarification if Gordon thinks I have vacuum tubes in my signal chain . . . because I don't.
I wouldn't know whether or not you have them. It doesn't really matter.
The important thing is the soft/gentle/subtle types of distortion that they and the other things can add into the sound. All of those things have good simulations for some time.
This started mostly because I was trying to explain how/why not all distortion necessarily bad.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
Bass Thumper, I'm sorry I misread your amplifier; your amplifier is a Fender Bronco and you are using the Fender Rumble amplifier preset.
No problem at all Jim, Thanks for jumping in to help move this along; there is much I need to learn on this subject. And with British, Australian and American English at play (and btw, let's be honest here, the Brits have the correct mother tounge even if they do like warm beer ) combined with as many time zones and different levels of experience, mis-communication is bound to happen. It's the smart fellow/gal that can detect when miscommunication happens. Also, this is my first exposure to the term "valve" in this context.
You're right. My amp is the 40W Fender Bronco, no longer in production and I have several bass model presets available on this amp that can be further shaped by the onboard effects. Right now I'm favoring the Rumble preset, but that could easily change. Details on these settings were written above.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
I spent a while trying to get details on the Rumble setting of the Bronco. Lots of info on the Rumble & LOTS of info on the Bronco but not much on the Bronco's Rumble setting - I tried listening to demos but most were bad set ups or the player slapped & thumb thumped.
It's a solid state amplifier with digital models of many valve/tube amp included so the odds are there is, quite likely, some saturation/warmth/drive/ in the models. Why would you model one of them without it? However the Rumble is a solid state amp so there's likely none of those things in it unless introduced deliberately to the digital or solid state circuit.
I have a large Marshall 100w all valve Superbass MkII amp and it does clean very nicely but there's always a little tube in it. Usually played trough a 4x12 whih is a BIG sound.I also have an 80watt Jade Clubman bass amp that is all solid state with a footswitchable "distortion" circuit added to assist with a little poke in a live mix. The Jade is played through an HUGE Etone box with a single 15" speaker so it moved a lot of air and can get a very big bottom end in a room.
From your settings description you've cranked the bottom end, scooped the mids & lowered the top end. Looks like you'd need a gentle compressor on the way to your interface and then a gentler one in the computer after which some EQ will be the next step.
Maybe you should try the Lemmy Setting - he completely rolled of top & bottom while cranking the mids. JOKE of course.
Def a case of mild compression on the way in though as this will give you a move even recording to start to tweak. One of the most difficult aspects of recording and mixing bass is the unevenness of level due to the strings, variations in hand etc. I'd have thought the Bassman setting would've been already in the zone but I'm sure you've tried all of that.
One of the things in the vid's audio is that the bass is panned to the side so that it's not competing with anything for the bottom freqs AND there's no problem with it offerings some gentle high end for spatial clues. Panning it centre would've lost out on both through competition and the end result wouldn't sound as it does. In other words if you can approximate THAT TONE in isolation you may well lose it in a mix knowing, as we do, that many bassist resort to adding grit/warmth/saturation/harmonics to their stellar solo tone help their bass "cut through" the mix. Can you achieve it? Probably but, I suspect, you'd need a mix that replicated the one in the vid to leave you the space and tonality for it to work.
Last edited by rayc; 09/06/2306:26 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
All of those things have good simulations for some time.
I'm not following you again. "good simulations for some time" ?
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
All of those things have good simulations for some time.
The ability to add the unique sounds from any popular tube amp to a signal chain using digital versions of those amps and/or circuits has existed in the marketplace for several years now.
Can you achieve it? Probably but, I suspect, you'd need a mix that replicated the one in the vid to leave you the space and tonality for it to work.
I agree.
I’m sensing we are on the glide slope of diminishing returns. (Am I coining a new phrase here ?) But before we reach the soft landing and the end of the runway, I’ll put forward a perspective that might trigger a thought or two.
When us engineers face a daunting challenge we often plumb the depths of the applicable fundamentals and first principles that are at play. In this case I believe they are physics (sound) and computer science (DAW Plug-ins). If we were to closely look at the raw bass recording waveform signal I think we would find frequency content that ranges from 20 Hz to several KHz. And buried in this signal we have unwanted noise and distortion as well as desirable tones and their desirable harmonics. The task is to convert this (largely) chaotic and complicated mess of desirable and undesirable sound energies that are represented by a stream of bits and bytes into a much different and desirable stream of bits and bytes that approximate a target sound; the bass in Rain On Me for example. From the responses so far, quite a daunting task for us all.
But enter powerful 21st century audio processing software such as the EQ3 Equalizer within Studio One. This Plug-in doesn’t just have 1 band of EQ capability, not just 3 bands of capability but 8 bands of EQ capability. Five of which have independent controls for Q, Gain, Frequency, Threshold and Range. Moreover, there are slope adjustments for the low-cut, low-frequency, high-cut and high-frequency bands. In other words a boatload of processing potential; and there are many other processing plug-ins available.
If we consider the 4-string electric bass, it has the capability to produce frequencies between about 40 and 400 Hz. If we consider its desirable harmonics, this range may extend to 4000 Hz. In any given bass recording I’ve made I can see energy in my waveform beyond 2000 Hz. Middle C is around 262 Hz. I understand that a vastly different instrument, the alto flute can also play Middle C. I propose that in principle, with the right tools and skills one could process a bass guitar waveform to produce a good approximation of the alto flute. I believe this might be called “sound design” or perhaps "synthesis". So if this is possible across musical “species”(electric bass to alto flute) how much easier it must be across musical “siblings” (bass 1 to bass 2) ?
Also note from the above that it doesn’t matter what amp we pre-process the waveform thru or even if we use an amp at all. The downstream processing will be able to boost it, alter it, shape it or attenuate it.
So I’m thinking that this task is boiling down to 1 simple question. What skill level do we have with today’s powerful audio processing tools? If we have the skills we can do what I’m asking, if we don’t, we can’t.
If this makes sense I have 2 options. Either to spend the required time to learn the necessary EQing/processing skills or to do the best with the skills I currently have. I’m leaning toward the later as time is valuable.
When I first posted this question I was hoping someone would say “Yeah, this is a no-brainer, just do a, b, c and d.” Nonetheless, I’ve learned something from this thread and hopefully others have too.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2024 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Bass guitar 4-string offers fundamentals from 41Hz-392Hz with overtones and harmonics spreading up to 4kHz-5kHz. Most recordings dilute bass below about 60Hz becasue it's can overwhelm an amp as well as compete with a kick drum. Mind you for the last decade kicks have had the batter head click accentuated, (a hangover from modern "metal"), and the bottom end of it almost obliterated...I REALLY dislike that sound and it is prevalent in BIAB RealDrums.
Pop n rock bass tends to accentuate some of the harmonic/overtone growl to cut through the mix and give solid spatial clues while tightening, (reducing and compressing), the bottom end so that there's still some oomph. John Entwhistle's tone is a good example of a toppier bass in a mix. I miss the days of live gigs and the thud of bass in my chest when on the "dance" floor.
One thing you might like to experiment with is the JS Spectrum Matcher. It's a Reaper community plug in but will run in other DAWs. You can run it with a bass sound you like and drape it over your recorded track to "correct" it. It works pretty well & I've done it with a couple of my songs but, by & large, I'm pretty happy with my own tone.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
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The Bob Doyle Media YouTube channel is known for demonstrating how you can creatively incorporate AI into your projects - from your song projects to avatar building to face swapping, and more!
His latest video, Next-Level AI Music Editing with ACE Studio and Band-in-a-Box, he explains in detail how you can use the Melodist feature in Band-in-a-Box with ACE Studio. Follow along as he goes from "nothing" to "something" with his Band-in-a-Box MIDI Melodist track, using ACE Studio to turn it into a vocal track (or tracks, you'll see) by adding lyrics for those notes that will trigger some amazing AI vocals!
Wir waren fleißig und haben über 50 neue Funktionen und eine erstaunliche Sammlung neuer Inhalte hinzugefügt, darunter 222 RealTracks, neue RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, "Songs with Vocals" Artist Performance Sets, abspielbare RealTracks Set 3, abspielbare RealDrums Set 2, zwei neue Sets von "RealDrums Stems", XPro Styles PAK 6, Xtra Styles PAK 17 und mehr!
Add updated printing options, enhanced tracks settings, smoother use of MGU and SGU (BB files) within PowerTracks, and more with the latest PowerTracks Pro Audio 2024 update!
Download and install this to your RealBand 2024 for updated print options, streamlined loading and saving of .SGU & MGU (BB) files, and to add a number of program adjustments that address user-reported bugs and concerns.
Did you know... not only can you download your Band-in-a-Box® Pro, MegaPAK, or PlusPAK purchase - you can also choose to add a flash drive backup copy with the installation files for only $15? It even comes with a Band-in-a-Box® keychain!
For the larger Band-in-a-Box® packages (UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition), the hard drive backup copy is available for only $25. This will include a preinstalled and ready to use program, along with your installation files.
Backup copies are offered during the checkout process on our website.
Already purchased your e-delivery version, and now you wish you had a backup copy? It's not too late! If your purchase was for the current version of Band-in-a-Box®, you can still reach out to our team directly to place your backup copy order!
Note: the Band-in-a-Box® keychain is only included with flash drive backup copies, and cannot be purchased separately.
Handy flash drive tip: Always try plugging in a USB device the wrong way first? If your flash drive (or other USB plug) doesn't have a symbol to indicate which way is up, look for the side with a seam on the metal connector (it only has a line across one side) - that's the side that either faces down or to the left, depending on your port placement.
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows® Today!
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows for free with build 1111!
With this update, there's more control when saving images from the Print Preview window, we've added defaults to the MultiPicker for sorting and font size, updated printing options, updated RealTracks and other content, and addressed user-reported issues with the StylePicker, MIDI Soloists, key signature changes, and more!
A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
One of our representatives will be happy to help you over the phone. Our hours of operation are from
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One of our representatives will be happy to help you on our Live Chat or by email. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday; 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST (GMT -8) Saturday; Closed Sunday.
) but for electric RT's I always render them direct and apply Logic Pro Amp sims prior to establishing an fx chain from the above.
and I have several bass model presets available on this amp that can be further shaped by the onboard effects. Right now I'm favoring the Rumble preset, but that could easily change. Details on these settings were written above.
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