Originally Posted By: Bass Thumper

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; 09/02/23 12:17 PM.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe