Okay, I'd like too spend some time and talk
to you about how I approach my bass guitars. I usually have two bass guitar channels. One
for low end, and one for mid range and top range. The reason I do this is because I would
like to control my low end in a room, so that I can not let it get out of hand. Make sure
that theres low end when the bass player plays a bit mid or high. This helps me, what I call
cradle an atmosphere. So you'll find that low end is inviting for people. It encourages
people to worship. It also helps you to balance what sounds loud but may not be loud with,
what actually is loud. If you don't have enough low end in your mix, a quieter mix could sound
quite loud if the mid range is piercing. So What I do is separate it into two channels,
which allows me a lot more control. So we're going too approach our bass amp channel at
the minute which will be my mid and my top end so you can get your articulation in your
notes. So I' m going to show you that. Im going to start by Eq'ing it, then I'm going to move
into some compression techniques for it. Hopefully this is helpful. Pretty nice, bit noisy. Little
bit of some grunge going on there. Get a little bit of gain going on this. It might pop and
click as it loops Get rid of this low end, like I said before, I'm not going to be using this for low end, and you can see that, you can see these lower fundamentals and the lower
octave's that I'm just not going to be using. What I typically like to do is give myself
some, and I say like cause this something I do. Cause I want to hear these notes real
clear in my mixes. Cool, get that mid range kind of harmonic information going, and I'll
probably compress it a little bit. Get some control over whats going on, some little definition
in the articulations for the bass player. If my bass player is too clicky, if he's hitting too
hard, I will use a faster attack, if he assort, I will use a slower attack to get some thump
back there. It all depends on what I'm dealing with. Let's go over to our compressor, get
our threshold ready to go, get our attack ready to go, We'll use about 7 so we can aggressive
7:1 ratio going. Little too long for me, Lets get rid of the hold. Six to eight, bass doesn't
usually have a microphone on it so you can get aggressive with the compressor. Match
our gain. Lets see this should go, when I take this compressor out of line this should
go nice and flat. Just kind of sits there. Im going to put it back in and it should get
fuller. Carry a lot more. Its a good bass player so lets give him some attack. So thats
in. this is out. thats in. Nice and full, keeps that RMS there, Keeps him present in
the mix. Okay lets go over to our DI line, which is what I use for my low end. So my
low end. Im going to get rid of all my top end. Use a high cut. Kind of get that nice
and low. Im going to use one of my filters to take some muddiness out.
this, So you can hear Thats kind of what I'm going to take out there. We are going to lose some levels
right away cause we are dealing with a much more reduced frequency spectrum here. So I'm
going to get some gain back on this. Lets get it back too unity. Okay, there we go.
So thats just that. Now lets get a compressor going cause like I said before I wanna control
this. I don't want this going anywhere and I want it there when it shouldnt be. So, I'm
going to go over here, I'm going to use a limiting style compressor. Very aggressive
ratio. Very fast attack. Get rid of my hold, and I'm going to shorten my release up. So
this is just like a brick wall limiter. I'll use the hold here to kind of get rid of the
thump, and ill gain back this low end. It's going to have a little bit of thump in there.
This compressor particularly will create any artifacts that you might be hearing, and thats
a result of very fast attack and a very fast release, and whats happening is your getting
the alias caused by the difference in quick changes in level. Which is okay, we can deal
with that cause its not going to be a feature in the mix. Its just gonna sit at the bottom.
So add our bass amp back in, mute the low end. Bring it back in. Something you should
always do when your doing this style of mixing with the bass is also check your phase. Okay
hear that? thats out of phase. Thats in phase. Out of phase. Thats in phase and you can hear
two different things happening. You can hear change in the low end and change in the mid
range. What your looking for is low end is too stay solid. So I'm going to go out of
phase. Typically thats is what winds up happening. So I'm going to go out of
phase. Typically thats is what winds up happening. Lets bring our mix back together. Put our
bass in it. So heres our tops and mids on the bass, our amp. Might be a little bit too
much so what'll I do is we'll bring our gain, make up gain on our compressor. back a couple
dB, put our low end back in. Maybe take a couple dB off that. Cool, and that is how
I deal with bass guitars.
