Let's talk about mixing bass guitar

I think this will work, but it's a download. I don't see how to get the little player with the "play" button to come up first. I do have tracks I like the bass much better on, but I wanted to post a track where I feel the bass tone wasn't very good, and see if you guys have any suggestions on what I might do to improve it, other than hiring a great bass player and a good studio ;-)



www.dropbox.com/sh/wxykh3ij3d69wut/5377ACJp5-/_What%20The%20Heart%20Only%20Knows_CRC%20Master.wav


Bass into Warm Audio WA12 pre, to Apollo, all else was in the box.

How about this tone...

Same issue with this link. I assume that you don't have the permissions set to public.

Cool song. I think the main thing here is the bass is too quiet. It gets lost in a lot of the sections, you can bring it up where it fills out the low end more, I am sure. Don't be afraid of the bass! haha. I have had to tell myself that sometimes.

Oh yeah, untreated rooms and speaker placement can have a lot to do with bass accuracy from the monitors being sub-optimal, I can say this from experience.  Just do an acoustic sweep measurement of your listening position with a measurement style mic, and be prepared for huge peaks and valleys in the graph.  You can never eliminate them completely, but the idea is to get things as flat as you can.  Even getting out of a corner a little might help you.  A few inches can make a big change.  It's just amazing to me how not-flat my frequency response even when I spend time with placement and acoustics.  It makes headphone graphs look a little more believable as reference quality response.  We are not generally dealing with flat lines on playback systems.  I guess that's why there's a market for super high end room design and treatment.  I wonder how those places measure up.

You might even add some reavealing-ish headphones like AKG K702 to help in your situation, along with a good headphone amplifier.

I am hearing some compression on the basses in your demo tracks. That can get things to sit exactly in one spot, level wise, when dialed in correctly.

I don't know much about bass amp outputs, some might not need a DI, some might.

A DI is designed for instrument level and impedance input, to be sent directly to a mic pre. So either a bass guitar and a cable, or maybe some pedals in the line. Most DI will let you split out to the amplifier as well, and give you two potential tracks to record. The output on a bass amp might be able to run straight into a converter or preamp, or maybe not. If it's unbalanced you'll need a DI to run into a balanced microphone input. If it's an XLR output you don't need a DI, maybe not even a mic preamp.

I know some guys like the outputs on their bass heads. I would personally shoot it out against a good DI, since I've had great luck with them. A Sans Amp type idea is another one, closer to the bass head output scenario. You get the tone stack and all that, the compressors or gain if they're there. A DI box is usually a flat, clean affair.  Unless you feed it with pedals or whatever.

I am hearing that too, on the acoustic guitars.  They sound like they are going through a wah-wah pedal.  If you've got a midrange bell boosted on them, or a high shelf that starts in the midrange, might want to flatten that out a bit.  Most of the other stuff sounds quite well mixed, to me.  Increase the bass level and I think you're getting pretty close.

You have a Tonebeast right?  This depends on your bass amp.  Some are DI outputs, some are line outputs, and some are switchable.  Personally, I would plug the bass into the amp, and take the line or DI direct from the amp into your Tonebeast.  Line from the amp into line in of the TB or DI from the amp into the pre of the TB.  I would also slap a mic in front of the amp so you could have both options or a blend of the two.

You could also plug your bass direct into the Tonebeast and then into your interface, but you would miss out on the mic'd amp sound by doing this.

A DI will convert either instrument or line level into mic level so you can plug into a pre.  Most DI's have a thru built in so that you can run thru the DI into the amp too.  Hope this helps man.

thanks jcoutou, I'll take a look at my bass amp tomorrow and see what kind of output it has. When I do mic the bass amp, it's kinda noisy though. Personally, I hate amp hum.

Jordanvoth, drastic, I played with a guy once who had been with Don Henley and another guy who'd been with Barry Manilow, both used Music Man basses. The Don Henley guy's tone just kicked ass, the other guy's sounded like poo poo, so it's true, ya never know..

As for the mid range strangeness, you guys nailed it. That was an early mix where I had two guitar mics. one an LDC, one, an SDC. I blended a little of each, but ultimately, it really served as a EQ instead of improving the acoustic guitar sound, so I dropped the second guitar mic track and mixed happily ever after.

A lot of the basses I like on records turn out to be Musicman basses. I love a good Fender though. My bassplayer recently brought a vintage Höfner violin bass that sounded amazing. And I just recorded a Musicman 5-string bass on a 70s rocktrack, it sounds killer but it's not easy to handle the low lows. It was recorded through an Aguilar tube amp and speaker with a U47, a D12 and DI. First time I recorded a 5-string, any tips on handling the real lows? I found a plugin called TrackSpacer very useful to eq bass frequencies out of guitars and keyboards. It's a dynamic plugin that reacts in real time to what the bass plays. Another great one is the Clarisonix plugin by Plug And Mix, a sub bass and harmonic enhancer. That thing does wonders, it's become my secret bass weapon (Clarisonix). Bass is always the hardest part in any mix for me.

I remember seeing the Stones at Madison Square Garden when they had all Ampeg equipment. That SVT bass amp was amazing to hear live, really cranked.

Played MM's for years and loved them. Still prefer Fender for recording though. I find Rickenbackers are the hardest to make sit in a mix. It's almost as if you have to feature the quirkiness of a Rick.