Bass tone for modern aggressive music

Crapshoes

Crapshoes

Member
So, as the primary songwriter for my band, I've realized lately that my lack of appreciation for a good bass tone has left our music lacking in the low frequency department. We've never had a bass player, so in the studio I always end up recording the bass parts. As a band, we're trying to transition away from the studio that we've been using (which is more than 3 hours away) and begin the arduous journey of home recording...

How does any of this relate to bass tone? Well, we're hitting a roadblock. In the studio, our engineer uses some series of plugins on his bass and magically a decent tone appears. If I were to compare it to something, I'd say it sounds relatively similar to Nolly's tone from Periphery's newest albums. Now that I'm at home, trying to replicate that tone has been something of a nightmare. Thus, I ask you the Fractal Audio community to assist me with your collective wealth of knowledge.

Since I'm obviously using the Axe Fx for all things guitars, I was hoping to just tone match a bass line that we've pre-recorded, but I have no idea what some good amp blocks are to start with for bass tone. I'm also not sure if such a thing exists, but I was hoping that there might be some good bass cab IRs out there that some of you may be able to recommend?

For the record, I'm using HS-8's to monitor, and I'm using the Axe as the interface, recording wet and dry simultaneously.

TLDR; How to Periphery bass tone with Axe Fx?
 
Hi,what kind of bass do you have ??
And could you give me a link to the bass sound you have on the song (your band)

And if you could upload a clip (just the DI signal,of your bass)

The nolly preset,is too old,it will not work at all,on FW Q 1.05
 
SeeD said:
Hi,what kind of bass do you have ??
And could you give me a link to the bass sound you have on the song (your band)

And if you could upload a clip (just the DI signal,of your bass)

The nolly preset,is too old,it will not work at all,on FW Q 1.05
Click to expand...

I'll be able to send the clip when I get home from work.

The bass I'm using is an older Dingwall Afterburner.
 
Thanks for the info.
I have a Dingwall Combustion V5 myself.
But i still need a DI clip og "your" bass sound
The Afterburner is passive ?
 
Crapshoes said:
We're recording completely DI and then re-amping the signal in the studio. The engineer does it totally with plug ins.
Click to expand...

First I would recommend using the DI track and the reamp track submixed together for the bass track in the mix.

I would typically EQ the amp or reamp track to provide the bottom end and the DI to provide the mids and upper mids. The upper mids are important for cutting the guitars.

The lows are tricky because the drums will play a big roll here. Low tuned toms and the kick drum will influence the perceived low end of the mix. For sections of the song where the drums are prominent and have a kick or tom groove going, try a high pass filter up higher than you think. I solo the drums and bass tracks and change the high pass cutoff while I'm listening to get the sweet spot.

After the rough mix of the entire song is done, I play the entire song back while adjust a finishing EQ to bring out the growl and pick attack of the bass track. I find this to be easiest with the whole mix playing.
 
SeeD said:
Thanks for the info.
I have a Dingwall Combustion V5 myself.
But i still need a DI clip og "your" bass sound
The Afterburner is passive ?
Click to expand...


As I said, I should be able to provide some clips later tonight. The pickups are indeed passive!
 
barhrecords said:
First I would recommend using the DI track and the reamp track submixed together for the bass track in the mix.

I would typically EQ the amp or reamp track to provide the bottom end and the DI to provide the mids and upper mids. The upper mids are important for cutting the guitars.

The lows are tricky because the drums will play a big roll here. Low tuned toms and the kick drum will influence the perceived low end of the mix. For sections of the song where the drums are prominent and have a kick or tom groove going, try a high pass filter up higher than you think. I solo the drums and bass tracks and change the high pass cutoff while I'm listening to get the sweet spot.

After the rough mix of the entire song is done, I play the entire song back while adjust a finishing EQ to bring out the growl and pick attack of the bass track. I find this to be easiest with the whole mix playing.
Click to expand...


Those EQ tips will be really helpful, thank you!
 
Will the Afterburner,have the paralell pickup option ?
More Mids.. Or do you use just one pickup ?
 
SeeD said:
Will the Afterburner,have the paralell pickup option ?
More Mids.. Or do you use just one pickup ?
Click to expand...


The bass is not mine so I only have an elementary knowledge of it's wiring, as far as I know we've been using both pickups and the pre-amp. I was really looking for more knowledge about amp blocks in the Axe that might be a good starting point to get me to my tone match.
 
ahh,i have been sitting here making you a good bass preset.
If your going to do a TM.
My bad

... and the Pre-amp,then i would think the bass is Active
 
If you're wanting general philosophy I'd suggest a parallel set up. You get two chains going, one that is heavily distorted and compressed, eq out the lowest lows and all but the very beginning of the highs so that basically you have just a big mid hump. Be prepared for this to sound like garbage when solo'd. 5150 style amps seem to ALWAYS do the trick for some reason, but in a situation where you aren't doing aggressive stuff try something plexi-ish. The second chain should be cleaner and less compressed. Often just having an amp and speaker in this chain will give it enough compression, or you can do it lightly with a compressor on a DI track. If the clean track is too rumbly and round, experiment with gutting it's mids as much as you need to. You might see a pretty ugly curve drawn in, but trust your ears.

On the clean track you very likely will experience trouble setting the level, where it goes from too loud and dominant, to one notch down on the fader and all of the sudden the bass disappears in certain parts. Get a real bass player and this will happen less, as this seems to be a "guitarist playing bass" problem, but this is where we use the dirt track.

Bring up the clean track and give it a listen in the mix. In my experience this will give me the lows I can "feel" but the intelligibility of what note I'm actually playing is often only barely there. Bring up that dirt track now and get it to sit right with the guitars. Group the pair and from now on try to adjust them together as one unit.

So, the dirt track gives you the "always present" steady signal, and the clean track gives you the bottom end, and the personality of your hand and performance. There's also the benefit of the dirt track having a bunch of gain that throws out overtones and harmonics that are in a small speaker or earbuds' range. If the listening system can't reproduce the lowend, the "hair" and evidence of a bass track will still be there and fool listeners into thinking they are hearing it.

the best thing you can do for your bass tone is listen to SeeD and hunt down everything Jimfist has to say on the matter as well. Both great assets to the community

OH! last thing (I promise) be careful with tight Q spikes in your EQ down low or else you run into resonant frequencies where a certain fret just seems to jump right out of the mix. You should consider cutting out what you DON'T like instead of boosting what you do like as much as you can. Although sometimes a tight spike up high can give you cool fret rattle, even if it's boosting frequencies that aren't supposed to be there because you rolled off most of the top. I've done this with something inspired by a pultec or baxandall late in the chain (or on the whole group)
 
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These suggestions are all on the money IMO. Complex bass tones aren't as easy to create to sit well in a mix as people think....very under-appreciated. Seems like a lot of sound mixers come up with a formula using plugins and just apply that universally, resulting in a bass tone that serves its function, but is hardly inspiring.

The good news is that the AxeFx allows you to step way outside the box if you care to make more of a statement. Don't be afraid to dial up a Mesa or Marshall guitar amp model going into a 4x12 cab IR, and blend that with a nicely shaped parallel clean path.

etc...

Good Luck!
 
The best advice is to learn technique and not formulas.

Specific EQ and Comp settings apply to a particular mix.

Learn how to dial in the EQ, distortion and compression instead of using presets

For the bass guitar, establish your goals. I like to have the level of the bass consistent in the mix. The exceptions would be fills, intros, solos or dramatic effects.

Then I like to balance the low frequencies with the drum kit.

Finally I add an EQ at the end of the bass chain to polish the pick attack and overall cutting through the mix.
 
The latest Nolly patch I saw didn't have any amps or cabs in it. He uses both drive blocks and many filters and EQs. A complex preset for sure. I can ask him but I think he might keep it a secret.

Personally I used to struggle with understanding "where bass belongs" in a mix. I've had all the most common bass mix problems: inauthenticity, disappearing in the mix, boomy over the top low end, ear piercing high end.... My cure has been the ML SV Bass IR's. They place the low end and high end where they need to be for guitar and bass to coexist.

However that must be one of the most misunderstood pack I've put out and I am to blame. It's not going to make your $200 bass sound like a $20000 bass sound. Rather it throws a natural EQ curve on top of that DI unprocessed sound we usually have to start with. I think people use too much gain on bass these days to compensate for getting natural cut. F.ex. this bass sounds IMO more massive in a mix than most modern bass sounds and it's completely clean:

https://www.soundcloud.com/clark-kent-job/dani-california-sv-bass-cab-pack

I know it's not that heavy but here's a heavier mix.

https://www.soundcloud.com/clark-kent-job/sv-bass-im-so-sick

Although there's drive in the intro the actual bass tone is completely clean. I bet it didn't feel that way right? So it's IMO all about EQ and I'd rather cheat with my SV Bass IR's since it's a lot faster.
 
Thank you everyone, I've learned a lot just by reading your responses, particularly about EQ and parallel tracks.
 
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