I acknowledge that each recording is different, but I'd be curious how people who think they have a good handle on recording bass go about doing it? Type of bass? Aftermarket pickups? Fingers or pick? Front and/or back pickups? Tone controls? Preamps? Direct or through amp/modeler?
Once in your recorder/DAW, how do you EQ? Do you high pass most items in your mix to make room? Do you carve out space with notch filters? What else am I missing?
Thanks in advance.
Peace to you.
Blooby
My one tip is for those of us who don't play with their fingers, a felt pick closely approximates the sound of flesh on string (w/o any pick attack as well).
While I play bass with fingers and am far from expert seems like I get the best sound recording direct then tweaking for what I need. Sometimes just eq cutting the highs and other times applying a bass sim studio devil seems like I struggle with the bass he most of all the instruments as the low Frequency often interfere with the kick drums sometime separating them in left right channel helps
Tim
Gawd, you just made me realize there's a bunch of stuff I never think of. And I'm supposedly a bass player.
Quote from: Blooby on March 02, 2022, 07:15:35 AMOnce in your recorder/DAW, how do you EQ? Do you high pass most items in your mix to make room? Do you carve out space with notch filters?
I almost always plug directly into the Micro BR and use the BASS CLN patch. Same whether it's my electric bass, or my acoustic bass.
Ibanez Blazer Bass (in storage in USA, but used in a lot of songs I've posted)
Michael Kelly Acoustic
Yamaha P-Bass (not mine, but it's the electric bass I use here in Madagascar)
I've always been a big fan of the bass tone of players like John Entwistle and John Wetton, so roundwound strings, always.
I play with my fingers, usually right on top of the pickups, or closer to the bridge. Picking close to the neck doesn't feel right.
If I mix and master on the Micro BR, that's it. If I export the WAV files and bring them into GarageBand, I may putz around with different bass patches, but I don't have a go-to method.
I usually assume that the people who made the EQ presets were very smart, and I shouldn't tweak what they did.
Stand by for better answers...
I have tried a number of methods, but I think that the key is to apply the right amount of compression and EQ and to side chain the kick drum onto a second compressor. That way the bass and the kick do not compete with each other.
I find that a bit of EQ push at 80hz (depending upon the key you're playing in) to add depth and richness, and a cut at 125Hz to remove mud works nicely.
To compress, you need a fairly fast attack and somewhere in the region of 3 to 6 dB of compression, it's worth listening to the bass in isolation and aiming for a bit of transient on the attack, too much dulls the attack and makes it washy, too much puts a big spike into the mix and makes the mixing difficult (and subsequent compression).
I put the kick into the control input of a compressor and the bass into the signal input, you can do this by making the bass track a double stereo track, putting the bass in tracks 1 & 2, the kick into 3 & 4. Add a compressor into the effects chain of the track and put the kick into the control input and the bass into the signal input. Adjust the threshold until the kick is compressing the signal, then increase the compression ratio until the kick cuts through the bass. You need a fast attack and fast recovery on the compressor and probably 6+ dB of compression.
Don't forget to properly compress the kick.
If you are using a DI and mic'd bass signals, mix the two signals into a bass group and compress that. Some like a dirtier mic'd input to add a bit of grit to the bass audio.
I hope I have explained well enough.
Happy to explain further if needed.
I'm a guitar player so I play bass mostly with a pick. But I do at times play with my fingers for a softer sound. I use a pedal that's called Fat Bass which allows me to add a bit of drive to the sound and dial in some tone. I also place a dampener (piece of cloth) under the strings, just in front of the bridge, to keep the strings from vibrating excessively and to get more of a thump sound. I go from the pedal into a compressor set with a threshold of -8 db, a fast attack, medium release and a bit of make up gain. Then on to the recorder. As far as post eq, I roll off everything above 4khz and if I need more presence, in order to stand out from the kick, I add a couple of dbs at 700hz. That usually does it.
I have three basses: Gibson EBO with round wound strings, a Vox violin with flat wounds, and a Squire Fender Jazz with rounds. I use the same basic process on all of them but there is some tweaking required depending on which bass I use.
After reading Flash Harry's answer:
Q: How do you record the bass?
Me: Badly
My main bass is a proper Fender Jazz bass, I tried a lot of stuff but I always end with direct input. It sounds awesome by itself. I play with my fingers, round wound strings (not so new, I need to change them - they have become too dull). I usually have the tone in the middle and both pickups volume to the max, just because yes. ( I may change tones and volumes depending on the type of song. I do it by ear).
After recording the bass, and in a premix, I usually add compressor (if my memory doesn't fail, I used to use the Mastering effects of the MBR because it was a 3 band compressor). I reckon multiband compressor is important to compress differently bass and treble, but most times I am too lazy.
I only EQ after recording the other instruments. Usually the magic spot is around 100 - 200 Hz: Lower than that ends up a bit muddy. I used to (in 2010!!!) put +10 dB in the 30Hz, but I stopped that when I nearly cracked the woofer of my car :-) Good old days.
I have a short scale bass with electric pickups that I don't record with it because although the bass is really nice to play, I find the sound a bit dull and not so rich as the fender.
I also have a short scale acoustic bass and had before 2 ukulele basses. In common they all had piezo pickups and... very short scale. They tended to be a nightmare to record, since these basses, oddly have poorer high harmonics and the lows are so strong that they tend to distort. My recordings ended up with a huge cut in the low in the bass, and then somehow trying to make up in EQ. Additionally the sound of the frets is too present. I am considering changing the acoustic bass strings for flatwounds but I need to rob a bank first, because bass strings are so expensive, especially in odd sizes. Playing acoustic bass with a pick helps a lot.
I guess there is not a single way to record the bass. I am still learning, but I am very pleased that having a good bass really helps.
All sounds good to me.
I freely confess I don't know what I'm doing on bass, either playing it or mixing it.
I EQ to taste, usually go direct into my audio interface's high-Z input, and record dry Bass, and apply insert FX to taste. I absolutely love VST amp sims and don't find you need to use a "Bass amp" VST to get a good bass amp sound. In fact, the one time I was in studio with a real band and a real bassist was recording his awesome stuff, he went direct into protools and used a vst guitar amp and the track came out with one of the coolest bass tones I've ever heard.
I like to add a lot of distortion on rock and weird out there tracks, and I feel bass absolutely needs a vintage simulated "tube" compressor, to sound good to me. I will fiddle around a lot to get a color that I like.
A sense of air, reverb, early reflection and sometimes a delay simulating a secondary reflection series, usually are done with my favorite reverb plugins and delay plugins.
I'm actually learning how to make my own reverbs using the modular effect tools I own including bitwig, Reactor (by Native Instruments) and a few others.
I don't think i have anything of value to add, but i'll give it a shot anyway :D
I don't have any set rules on how to record - mix bass. I usually start everything from scratch anyway. I don't have any go to plugins for guitar either. I just use what comes to mind at that time. No set of rules for EQ'ing either. And i guess it shows :D
For bass the EQ + Compression are usually needed. The same applies to a somekind of "tube" / "ampsim" -thingie. I don't have any bass gear other than two bass guitars, and i haven't really tried recording bass thru Simplifier either. I just run it direct and do "something" to it after it's recorded.
If one has the patience and wants to have more control over the bass sound i think DOUBLING (not playing two times, but copying) the bassline works wonders most of the time. The second can have distortion (more high end sound) and the main sound can be the DI, more bass -like sounding track. Totally depends on the genre of course. Blended to taste.
I like playing the bass, but i don't rehearse it and i always record it without thinking about it. Getting a better performance would be the FIRST thing to recording bass.
I have this BIG problem that i don't necessarily even know what a GOOD bass sound is supposed to sound. The sound that sounds GOOD on its own and in a "i'm just playing" situtation is often quite different than the one that suits the song perfectly. Sometimes the good bass sound can sound horrible on its own (or something that only bass players can appreciate).
I've been thinking of getting a somekind of dedicated bass-di, but it's still a work in progress. For some reason i seem to get more guitar pedals... I got a new one just a day ago :D
I just DI straight into the MBR. Always. And always on the clean bass patch, with everything turned up to the max.
It's not sophisticated or technical, but it works (for me at least). Personally I don't think bass has the nuances that require amps and effects etc like a guitar. Then again, I'm not a bass player - just a guitarist who loves playing bass.
Quote from: Greeny on March 04, 2022, 04:41:39 AMPersonally I don't think bass has the nuances that require amps and effects etc like a guitar.
Even though your approach is the same as mine, I'm obligated to be offended.
Quote from: Ted on March 02, 2022, 10:40:11 AMI almost always plug directly into the Micro BR and use the BASS CLN patch.
great thread here. It's really easy to record bass and it's really hard to record bass. Same thing for eq and mixing it. As much experience as I have gained the last year in recording and mixing the bass I still go from "I love that bass sound" to "I hate that bass sound" in a heartbeat....
Picking up the bass (so I could stay in a band) back in 1987 was the best thing I ever did musically beside buying a guitar in 1980. I decided I needed to play with my fingers so that is what I made myself do. Now I use the pick too sometimes if I want a more aggressive sound or a more high end sound. However, I can do things speed wise finger picking I cannot do with a pick play. The pick does create some problems recording though if turn the pickups up too much as the pick noise can get in the recording too much.
I generally DI sometimes direct to the board other times through the ME-25 boss effects or my Behringer bass distortion pedal. They all have things I like and don't like.
I think Zoltan nailed the most important aspect of bass to me...that is you can't sound like a great bass player if you can't play bass like one! Practice bass alot more if you want to be a better player. It's fun and you can build entire songs from bass.
here is a good example
https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=32028.msg381802#msg381802
https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=30749.msg364919#msg364919
Having said the above you can play very simple bass lines and sound great and that makes you a great bass player if you can do that (jmo).
Playing bass makes me a better and more creative guitarist and vice versa.
That leads to better recordings.
The answers are here... you have to get the kick drum and the bass guitar (and the electric pickups) off each other freq wise. Humbuker pickups have a lot of low freq buzz. So if you record guitar and don't cut the stuff off the guitar below 125 hz IT IS GOING TO MAKE THE BASS SOUND NEGLIBLE. It is the most important thing I learned on here and else where in making bass come out of hiding.
Then what Flash Harry said about getting the bass and kick off each other or you won't hear the kick well...
I experiment alot and it doesn't always work very well but when it does :-* :) :) :) :)
I recorded this just now as an example of differences. This is my Shecter bass. I think it is very aggressive and I love the growly sound of the active EQ with the pickups that the bass has. I bought this on line without ever playing it and I love it. It really works well for all music with variances in the pickup volumes etc. Also the way you pick or strike the strings. Bass really is very overlooked but so important. I never paid attention growing up. The biggest reason was that in almost every place I heard music the system was not capable of reproducing bass tones. So it didn't matter how great Paul McCartney was I never got to hear it. The old car radio's sucked for bass, the transistor radios are like listening on cell phone speakers, etc, etc.... it was almost scary when I first started hearing good systems with bass...and a whole new world that I am still a novice and exploring. Bass can literally bring down a building in the right circumstances. It can hurt you too...(seriously, bass drum and bass guitar can cause heart arrythmias when subjected to high SPL and off beats that are too far out of beat with your heart, I know because it happens to me sometimes when I am playing or at a concert if I sit too near the subs).
This was picked played through the ME-25 boss with a bit of distortion on it (it's a guitar processor but I like it for bass too) and output direct to the Zoom L-20 (which sounds super clean and doesn't need alot of tweeking, in fact on here there is none for bass or drums).
I should add that I recorded the bass first without any click track and I find that my ability to hold a good tempo with the bass is much better than with guitar. I also know if it's decent when I go to play drums over it or not if I sync well. Bass I generally do but guitar I do not...cannot really explain that though... But I like building songs off bass....
That's a cool bass tone. As I said in my first response, I love heavy midrange bass tones – Entwistle, Wetton, Burnel. I'm reminded of a band called Battered Suitcases, a punkish three-piece band in Arizona where the songs are built around really catch bass hooks (my Facebook Friend Sharon Lee on bass). The bass is always very dominant. You could pull off Rush covers with that tone.
But that tone might not fly in a mix where the songs aren't built to highlight the bass, or even songs where there are more midrange sounds in the mix.
One of the hard lessons guitarists have to learn (and probably bassists too) is that the fantastic tone you craft when you are playing all alone might sound like shit in the mix.
I use the Kemper as there are some bass amp profiles, and record to a stereo track.
I tend to use a pick as I can be more accurate about hitting the beat, where as using fingers I tend to miss the beat every now and then, and ever so slightly. The bass is quite physical and so you can get tired.
Bass is all about being in the zone/groove. They talk a lot about being in the pocket! In the pocket of whom or what, I'm not so sure about.
I watched a youtube on a great recorded bass sound, and the comment was to use ducking, to get the other instruments out of the way, but that would require a DAW. Never tried it myself.
B
Quote from: bruno on March 10, 2022, 09:29:22 AMI watched a youtube on a great recorded bass sound, and the comment was to use ducking, to get the other instruments out of the way
I've never done anything with side compression or ducking. Could be a fun experiment...one that will certainly cause me to use profanity multiple times.
Blooby
Quote from: Blooby on March 10, 2022, 03:55:18 PMQuote from: bruno on March 10, 2022, 09:29:22 AMI watched a youtube on a great recorded bass sound, and the comment was to use ducking, to get the other instruments out of the way
I've never done anything with side compression or ducking. Could be a fun experiment...one that will certainly cause me to use profanity multiple times.
Especially when it comes to "ducking". Oh, the naughty rhymes...
Quote from: Ted on March 06, 2022, 05:46:09 AMOne of the hard lessons guitarists have to learn (and probably bassists too) is that the fantastic tone you craft when you are playing all alone might sound like shit in the mix.
This is a very good point. Although I have a minimalist approach to bass in terms of fx, I do play with the tone and volume knobs (oo err) on my Ibanez to find the right spot for the mix. It's never what you expect, and very dependent on the other instruments being played and how they've been mixed / panned / eq'd. It's kind of alchemy really.
only thing i ever do is make sure the bass is panned in the middle. lol.
I am going to use this thread as a tutorial/reference page at some point when I decide to not be so lazy and spend a bit more time getting a better bass sound. Only thing I would add would be maybe if you have a particularly cool bass line you want to feature or want to shine in a song, might be worth reigning in the drum part a little, changing where the bass drum falls, simplify it so the bass guitar really stands on its own, at least in places. Typical advice from a non techie I guess, but can lead to interesting results. Not suitable where you just want to play what you want to play of course.
Mike
I think something like this:
https://www.thomann.de/fi/behringer_vtone_bass_bdi21_analog_modeling_preamp.htm
Would be money well spent when searching for DI bass tones. I've yet to pull the trigger on this (or some slightly pricier) one. There are several similar cheap pedals and i'm sure one of those would be able to give instant happiness (tm).
Edit: This is supposedly also really good for the price: https://www.thomann.de/fi/harley_benton_custom_line_bass_di_expander.htm
Ampeg alternative:
https://www.thomann.de/fi/ampeg_classic_analog_bass_preamp.htm
Quote from: Mike_S on March 11, 2022, 06:08:51 AMI am going to use this thread as a tutorial/reference page at some point when I decide to not be so lazy and spend a bit more time getting a better bass sound.
Me too. Like for when my Micro BR inevitably dies, and I can't use BASS CLN anymore.
I have been playing Bass for two years now. After getting a second hand Aria Pro II Bass and and Fender Rumble 100, I realised that I needed to record my practice sessions to analyze them (plus compare to previous sessions to hopefully see an improvement)
The Boss Micro BR has done this and more. When I am travelling (Grey Nomad Caravanner) I practice without an amp. I plug the guitar into the MBR, The output goes into the microphone input on my laptop to mix with a backing track, and I listen through the headphone output from the Laptop.
The Aria is passive, but using the tone and vol of both pickups, I can get the sounds I want.
The MBR also is my tuner, and when practicing with the band I record using it. I wish I could record in stero though.
Quote from: Wombat1954 on March 13, 2022, 04:23:55 PMI wish I could record in stereo though.
You can record in stereo on the Micro BR with a plug-in stereo mic, or with a Y-adapter (dual mono to stereo). I have done this in the past when recording my guitar through a stereo chorus. See page 41 of the manual. There's probably some tips on this site for recording in stereo too.
Happy First Post. Welcome to Songcrafters.org
I typically have to use an outboard compressor if I'm slapping. Other than that, I do the actual recording just like I do with guitar. I don't want to notch out any EQ frequencies on anything until I'm mixing, because if you record anything scooped out, you can never "unscoop" it.
And mixing isn't just about the bass or the guitar, it's about how everything interacts. So, probably the guitar tone I use in any given track sounds horrible on its own. Maybe it's really focused on one band of EQ. But once you add in bass and drums and maybe vocals or even keyboard, it has to all sound good to me in concert.
QuoteI put the kick into the control input of a compressor and the bass into the signal input, you can do this by making the bass track a double stereo track, putting the bass in tracks 1 & 2, the kick into 3 & 4. Add a compressor into the effects chain of the track and put the kick into the control input and the bass into the signal input. Adjust the threshold until the kick is compressing the signal, then increase the compression ratio until the kick cuts through the bass. You need a fast attack and fast recovery on the compressor and probably 6+ dB of compression.
Don't forget to properly compress the kick.
Very interesting, Mike and thanks!
I'm gonna have to play with this....
Quote from: hooper on May 09, 2022, 12:41:22 PMQuoteI put the kick into the control input of a compressor and the bass into the signal input, you can do this by making the bass track a double stereo track, putting the bass in tracks 1 & 2, the kick into 3 & 4. Add a compressor into the effects chain of the track and put the kick into the control input and the bass into the signal input. Adjust the threshold until the kick is compressing the signal, then increase the compression ratio until the kick cuts through the bass. You need a fast attack and fast recovery on the compressor and probably 6+ dB of compression.
Don't forget to properly compress the kick.
My life is done. I have introduced The Production Master to a new technique.
Very interesting, Mike and thanks!
I'm gonna have to play with this....
QuoteMy life is done. I have introduced The Production Master to a new technique.
Aw man Mike... Love the way your bass growls on some of those JK tracks!
I just heard this great bass recording using one bass on the left channel and a different one on the right...
here is link if you want to hear it....
https://www.bandlab.com/fabass2020/the-fourth-edge-of-the-sun-04706abd?revId=58f0861b-74d6-ec11-997e-28187831db02