Bass

[chip]

I seem to be having some difficulties recording bass.

I have the guitars, vocals, acoustic guitar pretty much nailed. The guitars  ( electric ) are recorded mic-d up from my valve amp and cab, they sound great. The vocals are done using a condenser as is the acoustic. A the moment the bass is going straight in using cosm effects that I have tweaked and some I haven't
When I come round to mixing and mastering the bass is the only instrument that seems lacking, it's either to loud,to bassy or I can't hear it, it just does not sit right. Maybe the best thing would be to use the valve amp and cab, this may work as the volumes involved in recording are not high.

So. May I ask . What do you do about the bass when using your BR's to record, mix and master? For reference I use a P bass and employ a compressor ( recently) before the the signal gets to the BR. Cheers.

[Flash Harry]

These are the starting points I use...

To get rid of mud and boom, 6dB or more cut at around 150 - 200 Hz, low shelf at between 50 and 75Hz - you want to be well down, 12dB or more and I like to roll off gently at around 1KHz which helps to hide the fret buzz and the string clack.

Compression between 2:1 and 4:1 with a hard limit just below 0dB

[chip]

These are the starting points I use...

To get rid of mud and boom, 6dB or more cut at around 150 - 200 Hz, low shelf at between 50 and 75Hz - you want to be well down, 12dB or more and I like to roll off gently at around 1KHz which helps to hide the fret buzz and the string clack.

Compression between 2:1 and 4:1 with a hard limit just below 0dB

Not to sure about all that Flash but, I have been messing about with cut, shelves and stuff and I seem to be getting somewhere, also when mastering I have gone into edit mode and started fiddling about there too. It seems I am now losing the boom a bit and it sounds more like a bass should.

[Blooby]

Flash knows as he gets the most consistently good bass tones I've heard on this site. 

The high-pass filter is your friend.

Blooby

[AndyR]

Fret buzz and clack, eh, Flash?

And there was I thinking you didn't know how to generate any of this on your bass playing!

But yeah, I'm pretty much with Flash's suggestions. Although I'm not sure I go as far as 12dB on the low shelf - probably too scared to take that much bottom off of it!! I shall try it in future

[Flash Harry]

I'm well skilled at fret buzz and clack.

[Greeny (No longer active)]

Can't beat a bit of clack and buzz - reminds us that a human is playing it.

I record all my bass straight into the MBR using the BassClean or BassCrunch patch, and never mess with any of the pre-set parameters. I just roll off the volume on the bass itself sometimes - whatever I need to make it more or less prominent. Never had any issues doing it like that. I'm a simple kind of Luddite though.

[AndyR]

Well, I was using the Flash Harry suggestion over the weekend - omigoodness! It works VERY well.

The bass amp tone is coming out of a Line6 machine (I think I'm using some Ampeg model) Nice big thumping rock bass sound, quite clean(ish) but lots woomf and oink. Then I'm putting on the Flash suggestions in the effects on the BR1600 as I record.

Monitoring the resulting bass sound solo, it sounds YUKK! No meat to it... everything I'd set up in the patch on the Line6 machine (for playing along to stuff) is gone!

But then listening to the part as part of the mix - WOW! It sounds like the bass I was aiming for. And it sits in the mix a lot lower than I usually need.

And this is stunning - it looks like it's the first bass part I've ever done that didn't require oodles of compression and EQ in the mix in an attempt to get a decent sound for the song...

If only I could play the ruddy part!!

I've got another few days rehearsing it, an hour here or there of an evening - and I have to sort out some of the drums before committing to a final version... but I have very high hopes for this now... many thanks Flash!

[Ted]

This thread is a keeper!

On the MBR, I record directly using the BassCLN patch. Then I bounce using Mixdown.

This second step, I have only done once, but I liked the results so I'm sure I'll be doing it again.

Next time I record bass, I will also try some of the tips in this thread.

[AndyR]

Yep, it's worked for me twice now. On the first one, Dancing Girl (https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=22833.0), I just used the bass track as recorded when it came to mixing, no further futzing was needed at all.

On the second one, Are You Done? (https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=22959.0) I put a little extra EQ on the bass during the mix - a little boost at 400Hz so I could turn the bass down from where I was tempted to put it (it was masking some of the, er, "subtleties" of the drum part when it was as loud as I wanted!), but I didn't need any further compression.

They're both using my fretted Fender Jazz - not sure whether the other basses will go so well, but I have high hopes for when I use them.