Getting that big fat Bass sound...

[eggman]

Hey guys,

I have noticed that most my compositions lack a good fat bass sound, no matter what bass sample I use, they always sound thin. I can hear them play, but I can\'t \"feel\" their presence.

Any tips or tricks to blow up my bass sound?

Thanks!

[thesoundsmith]

Several thoughts:

Fitst, check your system. Are you boosting the crap out of the bass region? This can work against you. Try to mix in a flat, evenly balanced environment that is either large enough to support development of powerful bass or has absortion/conditioning to let the true sound come out.

Go to Worra\'s place, download some of his bass samples.

Use a plugin like Waves MaxBass to fatten it up.

Try adding EQ an octave higher than you think you should (even two octaves) on the bass channel. Sometimes the bass freqs are too low to punch.

Lots of other reasons for this, but that should get you started.

Dasher

[thesoundsmith]

Also, just got the new Electronic usician magazine. Big article on this very issue!

Dasher

[Runyon]

Put a limiter on it and boost the gain. Old school. It\'s as simple as that. Don\'t over-do it, but that\'s how bass guitar has been recorded for a few decades.

Urie 1176\'s, my personal choice. There are software equivalents that can do the job. The Waves packages are solid and nice.

[SCARBEE]

Hi eggman:

If you are looking for electric basses try:

www.scarbee.com (\"http://www.scarbee.com\")

I don\'t believe they need too much bass boost.
You can hear the clean soloed tracks - no processing.

regards

Thomas Hansen Skarbye

[tomhartman]

Originally posted by eggman:
Hey guys,

I have noticed that most my compositions lack a good fat bass sound, no matter what bass sample I use, they always sound thin. I can hear them play, but I can\'t \"feel\" their presence.

Any tips or tricks to blow up my bass sound?

Thanks!<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Get a bass player;)

Though I\'ve played guitar and bass all my life, for years I was lazy and would use samples for bass parts. And this was when I was using the \"big\" studio.to cut the basic tracks and mix...no holds barred studio with everything. And things sounded fine.

Then finally, about a year ago, I got off my rear end and hauled out the Fender Precision, and I have to tell you it makes everything sound like a toy in comparison. Tired or not, pressed for time or not, I\'ll never use a bass sample again, unless it\'s a dance piece with a synth bass or something. My advice is for the sake of the sound of your final mixes, temp the bass parts with samples, but have someone come over and pay them a nominal amount to do real bass on your tracks. It\'s not a small difference, it\'s immense. No offense meant to sample developers everywhere;)

If they are synth bass parts and you are still having trouble, try compression, and try a high pass filter. A lot of lows in bass parts just muddy things up, and eliminating some of the real low stuff cleans things up and focuses the lines so they jump out at you.

You will also have to make sure you are listening on good monitors, and if not, you\'ll have to learn how to compensate for the shortcomings of the monitors you do have (which one has to do anyway on any monitors in a given room.) Make test CDs and play them in the car, on boomboxes, and anywhere else you can. Don\'t just rely on what you hear in your studio.

Hope some of this may help!

[KicknGuitar]

I used the Dan Dean Alembics on my heavey bass stuff, and just was tweakin and \"dropped in\" the Guild Ashbody, and for phat, well it shook everything in the house. And I have recorded live tracks with Music Man and Fender, and have had to work a lot to get anything that phat. Just my experience.

[tomhartman]

Originally posted by KicknGuitar:
I used the Dan Dean Alembics on my heavey bass stuff, and just was tweakin and \"dropped in\" the Guild Ashbody, and for phat, well it shook everything in the house. And I have recorded live tracks with Music Man and Fender, and have had to work a lot to get anything that phat. Just my experience.<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Alembics are a different animal, to be sure, but I would say that if you are having a problem getting a fat bass sound out of a Fender....which is probably the most recorded bass instrument in history...then the problem is elsewhere;)

[cunningham]

Adding a bit of distortion will help the bass set better in the mix. It adds some upper harmonics, which helps give definition.

[pendragon]

So,

What about the Maxxbass plugin from Waves Native Gold?, or otherwise the limiter in LAP.. reduce output and increase gain to the max (like said)

Time for a thanks Eggman, you have got many worthy replies, so humbly say Thanks Friends to the group ! images/icons/wink.gif

PDG

[Chadwick]

Make sure you\'re not eqing in too much \'sub\' bass. That can suck up a lot of power in a mix without adding much in terms of punch. You need good monitors to be able to hear that. Perhaps listen to your mixes at a studio you know has accurate response. Then you\'ll hear if your bottom end is being bogarted by subby bass.

Try compression to get the bass to hang in at a consistent energy level.

Try using different eq. I have a friend with a desk that simply has crap eq - it\'s really hard to pull up a chest thumping bass on. We always go outboard in that case.

[cunningham]

If you have VST capability, I\'d use PSP audio\'s MixSaturator or VintageWarmer (three band compressor in multiband mode) to add punch via a bit of distortion. (The PSP plugins are known for high quality and reasonable prices!) BTW, PSP has a MixBass that works similarly to the Waves product, but I\'d stay away from boosting the extreme lows if you\'re trying to get clarity.

If you do least boost EQ in a low frequency try boosting a little at repetitive higher octaves to maintain clarity. Also, be sure to avoid having other instruments (e.g., kick drum, piano lower octaves) compete with the bass frequencies. You may need to roll off certain frequencies for those instruments.

[eggman]

Thank you all very much, I just noticed I had received 13 replies images/icons/smile.gif

Though it will take me a while to understand everything written here images/icons/smile.gif I appreciate your help very much, thanks again!