PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Bass weak...

Hey all,

I'm reminded today of posting my demo on a forum sometime back: the listener said my bass sounded weak. { working with standard biab real tracks, mainly, to my DAW. }
,
I'd forgotten about that till recently, when I started
doubling the bass tracks exported from biab to my DAW.
I even boosted the EQ on these duplicated tracks. Why? weak bass. Result, better but still - ho hum.

today I recorded on some external budget recorders, and
was shocked: the bass tracks sounded FULL - like real
electric bass! Something my ears have not been hearing.

I'm not talking about speaker/ headphone issues - these signals are coming 100 percent direct from biab to my DAW.

Are you using the exact same Bass as you did in your previous demo?
Were they both MIDI, RealTracks or a mixture of both.
Definitely not all Bass instruments are played the same across all RealTracks, even MIDI.

[quote=Definitely not all Bass instruments are played the same across all RealTracks, even MIDI.
[/quote]

Not just Bass, I find there is a lot of variation of volume across most intruments.
Very irritating at times!

Vintage

Yes, these are reasonable comments.

We need to know how to compare apples with apples in this case. As you correctly state, results do vary, so lets try to find the baseline to use for the comparison.

Problems with stacking audiofiles like real tracks is that frequencies over lap. Especially basses and acouctic guitars end up in the same bandwith at times.

A good mixing job is not just a piece of cake. Get a set of better plugins than PG offers; i never use them since they are quite mediocre.

Especially basses and bassdrums sometimes can really stand out by using some specializing EQ.

Bass guitar sims that allow custom sound tailoring. Make sure that panning is used properly so that as mentioned above the frequencies don’t step on each other. A good starting place is to mix the instruments as if they were standing on stage before an audience. Picture in your mind bass player to one side lead guitar on the other drums in the middle etc. help mentally to pan instruments off each other.

For VideoTrack - he stated RT's, not MIDI
Sometimes it is better to cut certain frequencies than continue to boost, but that doesn't appear to be your true issue hear. (spelling not intentional but I decided to leave it <grin>)

Now we're getting to the crux.
What DAW did you use initially? It occurs to me going from BB to DAW is a digital conversion. Did the external recorder involve transforming digital to audio before getting recorded?
Just wondering if how your particular DAW is converting the WMA files may be part of the issue.

FWIW, (and this may sound weird) sometimes cutting around 100HZ and boosting 2 kHZ can make a bass stand out. One of my favorite sayings from our long absent friend Mac was that, when solo'd, 'a bass track should sound like someone is working on an old Buick'. The higher frequencies a bass produces adds a lot to how we perceive it and also adds character.

As for differences in the recordings; I'm pretty sure PGMusic isn't present when a lot of these RTs are created, so individual artists' recordings are what they have to work with. They do the magical slicing/dicing, but that actual recordings, as far as I know, are pretty much something they receive from elsewhere. Example - somewhere around here is video of Bret Mason recording some RTs. Something in that video explanation implied the above to me.
Add to that each RT is created for a given style; some styles are more bass heavy than others, and handled to work well with the other RTs in that original style..

thanks guys for replies. A lot of these tips I've tried already. Good to see others have noticed the volume issues, as well.

videotrack

Are you using the exact same Bass as you did in your previous demo?
Were they both MIDI, RealTracks or a mixture of both.
Definitely not all Bass instruments are played the same across all RealTracks, even MIDI.

I generally use realtracks, but sometimes I guess I'll
accept the midi. No cant say I was using the exact track.



rharv t occurs to me going from BB to DAW is a digital conversion. Did the external recorder involve transforming digital to audio before getting recorded?
Just wondering if how your particular DAW is converting the WMA files may be part of the issue.

I don't think I explained well. The recorder had an onboard bass vst. I played through that. The recording
was played back to head phones direct from the recorder { not going to my DAW{} I was struck by the excellent tone and clarity of the bass notes.

these issues and ones responses to sounds, are all subjective of course.

I listened to some of my other past projects today.

Not all the bass tracks are too low. BUT the ones where I can hear it at seemingly good mix level --- the bass seems muddy. It's like I hear a pressure of low end bass notes, but can't really distinguish the individual notes. Does that make sense?

That may me a larger problem I think.

thanks

That does make sense, and sounds like the low end EQ needs to be cleaned up.
Guitars can muddy up a low end pretty easily for one. Maybe cut some low end out of the guitar(s) .. get surgical with the drum EQ too, give the bass some room.

Panning can be a useful tool, to a point.

For me, channel strip EQ is the real scalpel (continuing with rharv's surgical metaphor)for this job

Using eq on each Channel strip I try to carve out little pockets in the frequency spectrum that each instrument can "own".
I will boost the eq curve for the particular instrument in its sweet spot range.
I don't exclude an instrument from other frequencies, I just try to find a solid voice for an instrument focused within a limited frequency range. I can visually inspect all separations by comparing the eq curves simultaneously on the channel strips.
Its not brick-walled, but you can see it. Adjust as necessary. Lather, Rinse, repeat.

This approach really seems to get some separation on the band.
It got rid of a lot of mud in my mixes, especially at the lower end.

I may add a little panning. especially where I have two chording instruments, usually no more than 20-25 points left or right.
I also use volume automation to deal with oddball notes.

I'm far from an expert at doing this. There may be better ways
For my work (instrumental backing tracks) its been an improvement

Yes, your described method is much the same, except that I do not just boost the desired freq for a given track, I cut all un-needed frequencies also.

There is no sense letting 60 hZ or 30 HZ add mess on a guitar track. Simply put, none of the valuable data is in that range and all it can do is add noise/mud, which sometimes gets exaggerated by FX. Try cutting below 60 hZ with EQ; you'll likely see no noticeable difference in the guitar, but now it is in its own space and the bass can breath. You may find the EQ cut adjustment on the guitar track didn't affect the guitar so much, but may indeed affect the drums and bass. <grin>

What you cut is just as valuable (and many pros will say it is MORE valuable) than what you boost.

I think what makes this hard for some to understand is while you are working on a guitar track, your mind is thinking 'how do I make it stand out'?
But the other view is 'how do I make it not intrude, and add mud or noise to the end result'?
By simply boosting suddenly your guitar can stand out but the drums and bass are still muddy, and maybe muddier .. all you gained was frustration.

That's why I used the term surgical EQ.
It's not just adding more of what's good, it is also removing what is bad (surgery).
Every track is different, but you start learning some basics quickly (cymbals do not need anything below 100hZ, guitar below 60 hZ is only adding to the problem, bass above 5kHz is expendable and often somewhere else in a bass frequency range it is battling with guitar and/or bass drum, etc,)
As an example, too much bass in the 30hZ area can kill the thud of a bass drum .. and too much in 100hZ can fight with the guitar low end (you have to decide which is more important and whether cutting 100hZ on guitar or bass is the better solution to give the other more room) .. luckily these tests are easy once you start trying them. Look for a clean mix first, boosting the whole mix later is easy once it is clean to start with. Trying to boost a song that already has conflicts is a nightmare and at best a concession (accepting trade offs). ie mastering

EQ can clean a lot of this up and add definition to each instrument, but again, cutting works well for many purposes. Don't always look for what to boost, also look for what you can cut. EQ adjustments go up AND down for a reason. <grin>

Thanks mrgeeze and rharv!

Great tips to get me back on the right track { pun not intended ? } with biab!

thanks all!