Bass consistency

MetalGarret

Inspired
I'm losing my mind here. I can't for the life of me compress or mix my bass properly. I either lose the low end at parts or it jumps out at me and flubs. I can't seem to keep it level throughout. I've looked up several compression methods and toyed with different presets. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Have a listen.

[soundcloud][/soundcloud]
 
Didn't listen to it super closely... don't have time at the moment to critically listen (and I am not at the studio or have my good cans here, just my klipsch setup)...
Are you doing sidechain compression with the kick? It doesn't sound like it, and would be my first suggestion.
To get rid of flub, high pass the bass... look where the kick is and work up from there. I hear some, but only slight, contention there.

Otherwise it doesn't sound bad really - just some minor tweaking. The bass just gets buried during some parts... super common anyway. The change at ~0:24 is rather abrupt, but that's all instruments.
 
I would add a bit of high end to the tone to get it to cut through a little more. Maybe a 2000-4000 Hz boost. Do you have the tone rolled of on your bass? Might try leaving it wide open. It will sound bad solo but will give the bass some grind and cut.
 
Im using an Peavey Fury IV bass. all the knobs are all the way up and the the pickup switch has only the bridge one active.. Both are active pickups. I tried running with both pickups on but it was too boomy. In the mix, I'm using a waves Renaissance comp with the Sanz Amp distortion (the plugin that comes with pro tools.) I have a high pass going up to about 70hz and I cut some mids around 300.

Bass compression is at a 2.72 ratio, -28db threshold, 10 attack, 621 release. Its like when I hit the higher notes on the E string (which is drop D for this song) the bass gets a bit boxy and over takes the other instruments. But then I hit the higher notes on the A string and I lose a lot of low end. And a lot of songs I hear have a consistent low end doing this. So I'm kinda stumped.

Also, I didnt think to side comp the kics becaues I didn't see the kicks as a huge issue.
 
Im using an Peavey Fury IV bass. all the knobs are all the way up and the the pickup switch has only the bridge one active..
Ouch! Turn the three EQ knobs to their center detents. That's likely part of the issue. I'd blend in some of the neck pickup as well... that'll provide the depth you're looking for, especially on A/D/G strings.
Both are active pickups. I tried running with both pickups on but it was too boomy.
Just a quick correction. It has passive pickups, but an active preamp.

In the mix, I'm using a waves Renaissance comp with the Sanz Amp distortion (the plugin that comes with pro tools.) I have a high pass going up to about 70hz and I cut some mids around 300.
You cut some of your low mids... I wouldn't do that, unless you had a fine reason to :). I'm obviously not looking at what you are, so I don't know what the guitars have going on in that range, but 250Hz - 2.5kHz is crucial for bass.
Bass compression is at a 2.72 ratio, -28db threshold, 10 attack, 621 release.
That might be fine... compression is heavily dependent on the player. I'd even try taking the compressor out entirely on the strip, unless you have some crazy level issues.
Its like when I hit the higher notes on the E string (which is drop D for this song) the bass gets a bit boxy and over takes the other instruments.
Fairly typical for basses - it's known as "wolftones" or wooly tones. Heavier strings make this worse, and is why a lot of players keep in first/second position as much as possible.

But then I hit the higher notes on the A string and I lose a lot of low end. And a lot of songs I hear have a consistent low end doing this. So I'm kinda stumped.
I'd dial in a bit of the neck pickup to help with this. You have the blend at 0/100, now, I'd do more like 20/80 or 30/70.
Also, I didnt think to side comp the kics becaues I didn't see the kicks as a huge issue.
It's not a huge issue, but it almost always helps create separation between the two, and also helps muddiness.
 
I have found too that placing a fast compressor, like 1176, on the insert and then add another slower compressor, like maybe a 3A, on the buss can catch any lingering spikes. Just "kiss" the signal on the slower compressor. This helps a lot. EQ is essential prior to the compression though in finding the right place in the mix. Hope this helps....
 
It's pretty far back in the mix and bottom-heavy vs. helping to fill in frequencies just below acoustic. Most people think bass = thundering low end only, but that doesn't help it fit in the mix, and it often gets in the way of the kick in the same way a bottom-heavy guitar gets in the way of the bass. You can compress frequencies out of existence - LOL - it's harder to compress them into existence. I recommend re-doing track from scratch, sculpting a tone with more mids/highs that doesn't step on the kick, focusing on consistent frequencies during tone sculpting and focusing on even dynamics during playing. This will give you a better end product after you compress.
 
I'll give these ideas a go. Thanks. What frequencies do kick normally need for this style of music?

What doesn't help is that my monitoring system doesn't have a whole lot of low end that I can hear. I have a pair of M-Audio BX5a's. No sub. Everytime I mix and I compare it to a reference track it'll sound close to what Im looking for. But then when I hear it on another sound system it sounds too boomy or muddy. Like I can't hear what I feel like Im suppose to be cutting.
 
You can use a pair of good headphones to help dial in kick/bass separation since your monitor system doesn't have a sub.
 
Also if you are using a DAW, you can analyze the low end of professional tracks that you like to compare to your tracks.

Spectrum analyzer plugs are useful.

One thing I learned from Dave Pensado's Into The Lair youtube series is to loop playback a professional track that you love then:

Slowly roll a high pass filter from 20hz up to 20,000hz and / or a low pass filter from 20,000hz to 20hz. Listen for where instruments "come in" and "drop out of the mix". This gives you an idea of the frequency ranges of the instrument tracks. For example, listen to when the kick and bass guitar disappear. This would be where the low pass for those tracks might be set. If the kick comes in before the bass, then the bass is high passed above the kick etc.
 
Fairly typical for basses - it's known as "wolftones" or wooly tones. Heavier strings make this worse, and is why a lot of players keep in first/second position as much as possible.

I highly doubt that is the reason for staying out of the high positions. I listen to my heros Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Les Claypool and all the other great bass players and they play all over the place (just like I love to do). I have never experienced wolf tones on my electric basses in all those years of playing. Yes on my upright basses when bowing.

I think it has to do more with the room in the arrangements. That's the problem with most rock songs. Guitar and drums are is too dominant and there is not much place in the mix and arrangements for bass. Other important thing is consistency in playing attack and tone. Maybe the most important thing of all. If that is good than your bass is more likely to be heard. Better than any compressor. A compressor can only help so far and can not totally flatten out sudden jumps in volume or attack.

These are general statements and not necessarily apply to the above sound file.
 
I highly doubt that is the reason for staying out of the high positions. I listen to my heros Stanley Clarke, Jaco, Les Claypool and all the other great bass players and they play all over the place (just like I love to do). I have never experienced wolf tones on my electric basses in all those years of playing. Yes on my upright basses when bowing.
I didn't mean to say that no one ever leaves first/second position. But a lot of players are mindful to stay there. I see it _all the time_ with five string players who complain about notes above the G on the B string. Play the octave B on the B string, then play that same note on the A string, and it is obvious. It is much less pronounced on the higher strings -- hence, "heavier strings make this worse". If you haven't experienced it - wonderful, but atypical. There are other ways to help work around wolftones as well (slap playing helps, espcially the EQ that is usually applied to slap playing actually benefits from this), and they can be a musical tool to express differently.

I agree with the rest of your post too.. especially there not being much room left over with bass-heavy guitars and the kick (and even some low floor toms) right below bass guitar.
 
Im using an Peavey Fury IV bass. all the knobs are all the way up and the the pickup switch has only the bridge one active.. Both are active pickups. I tried running with both pickups on but it was too boomy. In the mix, I'm using a waves Renaissance comp with the Sanz Amp distortion (the plugin that comes with pro tools.) I have a high pass going up to about 70hz and I cut some mids around 300.

Bass compression is at a 2.72 ratio, -28db threshold, 10 attack, 621 release. Its like when I hit the higher notes on the E string (which is drop D for this song) the bass gets a bit boxy and over takes the other instruments. But then I hit the higher notes on the A string and I lose a lot of low end. And a lot of songs I hear have a consistent low end doing this. So I'm kinda stumped.

Also, I didnt think to side comp the kics becaues I didn't see the kicks as a huge issue.

I have the same problem. I can't move on till I fix my basic bass tone. I did more experiments on Tuesday and I found that I had been turning my bass knobs all the way up too. I went and read the tech specs of my replaced bass preamp and it turns out I was boosting 12db at 100hz (shelving) and boosting 12db at 2khz (also shelving)

So I figure at this point the best thing to do would be to return those controls to flat. No boost and no cut. That's the centre position on my bass controls. If you need more bass then do it in post or on the amp itself.
Also try not having a cabinet at all. Put the bass through an amp model then ad some low cut and high cut and sculpt your own tone with a visual EQ of some kind. This way you eliminate the possibility of a boomy Or dark IR.

Useless information? Possibly. It's just where I'm at right now with my bass tones. Speaker resonance and boundary interference make it a much hard job :/
 
Another technique mixing wise is let a heavily hi-cut Vst instrument take the very low end of the bass part ... so the song has a very stable low end with kick and let the olayed parts just above between 150/200hz ... the down side is that you need to write all the midi for the bass . Something like JST Sub-destroyer .
Didi you tried to change the bass sound with MaxxBass ( as you satated you're using some Waves staff ) . There is some useful preset helping to translate in different environments.
Anyway sidechain is a good thing even if the song is not so much full .
Multiband comp too.
You can try splitting the bass and just lets the low mids and highs going with sans amp , pretty common technique.
Is that bass recorded using a patch with amp and cab on axefx ?
As always there is no rules , what works for you just works .
Last and most important question of all the above ... didi you replace the strings before recording ? New strings make all the difference
 
I didn't mean to say that no one ever leaves first/second position. But a lot of players are mindful to stay there. I see it _all the time_ with five string players who complain about notes above the G on the B string. Play the octave B on the B string, then play that same note on the A string, and it is obvious. It is much less pronounced on the higher strings -- hence, "heavier strings make this worse". If you haven't experienced it - wonderful, but atypical.

Of course playing notes higher on the lower strings have a different timbre than the same note on a higher string lower on the neck but that doesn't mean you can't use them. But this has nothing to do with wolftones. Wolftones are a totally different thing and appear mostly on bowed acoustic instruments like cello and double bass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone

You can use of those different timbres to your benefit. Sometimes a high G on the E string for example sounds better than the one on the A string, depending on the context and what you are trying to achieve. Also higher notes on a B string can sound good. Players like Gary Willis use that all the time.
 
Of course playing notes higher on the lower strings have a different timbre than the same note on a higher string lower on the neck but that doesn't mean you can't use them. But this has nothing to do with wolftones. Wolftones are a totally different thing and appear mostly on bowed acoustic instruments like cello and double bass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone

You can use of those different timbres to your benefit. Sometimes a high G on the E string for example sounds better than the one on the A string, depending on the context and what you are trying to achieve. Also higher notes on a B string can sound good. Players like Gary Willis use that all the time.
It always is confusing, because Electric Bass and Double Bass use the same word, but with different meaning - at least on the two largest forums (talkbass and basschat) -- there, it means that timbre change. I have about 15 years on DB and 17 on EB - I'm quite familiar with it in both contexts :).

And you're second paragraph is just expanding on what I said in the same post you quoted -- "and they can be a musical tool to express differently. "
 
First - that recording sounds fine to me so I think you might be being over critical to an extent.

Second - if I'm playing more melodic bass parts further up the neck I often separate that out onto an entirely different track in Logic and apply different processing. Sometimes it's impossible to get a 'one size fits all' solution. Completely different processing can often sound more consistent!

I rarely use multiband comps (only to fix very specific things that are 'wrong') as I usually find they cause more problems than they solve and one can end up in an endless rabbit-hole of tweaking. I frequently use multiple single-band comps in series though - and make use of sidechain filtering on them. I try and avoid parallel processing on bass as you can run into nasty phase issues.

You can also get away with adding a surprising amount of distortion to bass without it sounding overly distorted in the mix.

I'm no expert - these are just things that have worked for me. Bass can be very hard to get right.

PSP Mix Bass (part of the mix pack) is a very useful plug-in. Also Waves CLA bass is very useful and frequently on sale (I got that for $29).
 
It always is confusing, because Electric Bass and Double Bass use the same word, but with different meaning - at least on the two largest forums (talkbass and basschat) -- there, it means that timbre change. I have about 15 years on DB and 17 on EB - I'm quite familiar with it in both contexts :).

And you're second paragraph is just expanding on what I said in the same post you quoted -- "and they can be a musical tool to express differently. "

Don't want to knit pick but timbre changes are no wolf tones so it is used in the wrong context on those forums. Usually on most cellos or double basses there is one wolf tone. You will notice when bowing that tone that your hear a very annoying fast uncontrollable tremolo/wavering effect and your bow starts to act weird. if that wold tone is on note between a regular pitch than (say between A and B) you won't notice as much, but if it's straight on on regular pitch (say A) it can be really annoying.

I think we both agree on the things that have been said. I just don't like limitations. Most good bass players play all over the place and therefor I reacted to the remark about staying in the low positions. I understand what you are saying but that's just not how I like to look at my bass. Even on double bass I use notes high on the E and A string just because I like that sound in certain situations.

But I like this bass discussion topics and hope more people are going to to use the Axe fx for bass. Getting a good recorded bass sound is not so easy. And in most rock production the bass is usually the first that has to suffer and often gets lost in the mix which I hate.
 
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