PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production The Tradecraft of Bass EQ and Mixing

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAQ5SqUOX4g

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

4. Compression. Also haven’t experimented with this yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFNMd1J8Bwc

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.

Don't forget the use of distortion on the bass.

That adds upper harmonics, which helps the bass be audible on speakers that don't have great low-end.

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:

https://www.waves.com/plugins/jjp-bass

Waves bass rider is also a good purchase:

https://www.waves.com/plugins/bass-rider

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"

https://midination.com/vst/free-vst-plugins/free-bass-amp-vst/

Sometimes I use them all, sometimes none, and sometimes everything in between those two options.

You are on the right path but even then you may not be able to exactly duplicate that bass tone.

Good luck.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.]

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.

YMMV

Bud

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joe Gilder and Studio One

PS> Watch out for the racoon

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.