I’ve got another bass guitar tip for you music people today. One struggle with mixing is getting the bass to sit just right in the mix. It’s a struggle because we need to both feel the bass (low end) and at the same time hear the bass in the upper mid range. Some times when EQ isn’t getting you all the way there, try using some saturation.
Blend A Fuzzy Copy
I’ve mentioned this concept before, but one great way to bring presence to your bass tracks is to use some major distortion or saturation on a copy of the bass line and then blend it back in with the original. This is easy to do in any DAW, so watch today’s video and get to learning!
Comments
Love this technique, and so simple!
Do You have any videos on eq-ing Bass?
Great video. I saw gilder do this one, too.
THis concept is a lot like Chris Squire’s tone. He would use two amps, one with clean bass sound for low end and the other for distortion to cut through. (of course, he leaned more on the distorted side of it but its a similar concept)
Great tip Graham! I’ve heard from most top engineers that they prefer this method over recording DI and Amp which they still do anyway… However, mixing a DI signal with miked amp usually presents many phase issues during the mixing process so, more often than not, they end up applying the technique you describe here!
If you see Groove 3′s Kenny Gioia doing this you’d probably go, what!!?@? He does this exact same thing with the bass, only that he’ll duplicate the DI track like 4-5 times! One to represent the attack, another one for sub harmonics then one for saturation and finally one for the top end. Finally he blends to taste.
Your tutorials are simply the best my friend.
Thanks again! God bless everyone!
I love the sound you got with this technique but i have a question instead of creating a bus on a separate track why didn’t you just create another track and then copy and paste the original track on to it. Does creating a bus for this one instrument offer some advantage that i may not be aware of. Love your work here looking forward to the next one.
@bhooks – No real difference there. I just prefer not to deal with another audio track. That’s all.
[...] has worked wonders for me. it's counter-intuitive but it makes the bass sound cleaner or brighter bass saturation trick Originally Posted by brandondrury You win the award for the best [...]
Graham
): Do you equalize and compress the bass BEFORE sending it to the amp sim or do you compress/ eq the sum of both? Also, in this ampsim you’re using, is the cabinet sim on? Thank you in advance!!
Thanks for the videos. REALLY helpful, BUT, I have a question (if you don’t mind answering it
Both tracks are happening at the same time. The EQ and comp are before the send and the amp sim.
I believe this just gave me the breakthrough I’ve been looking for to make my bass more audible in the low-mids! I struggle with the bass more than any instrument. EQ and compression just hasn’t done the trick. Thank you!