Bass Guitar Mixing

[connelly73]

I was reading in an american mag. (Recording) about mixing in bass guiatar. It talks about brining the bass in last. I just wanted some opinions on this.

Also how do others record the bass? I record my acoustic guitar through two mono channels one left one right and delay them slightly. I tried this with the bass and it didn't sound great. Now I record the bass through one stereo channel. Its OK but would like some ideas please. I usually record it direct into my DI input of a Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic200 set at Bass.

[paul999]

Bass is tough to get sitting well if you don't have good monitors and a sub. I mic bass 99% of the time. I get bass in there as quick as possible. I sometimes will work on a mix without kick and bass after I have all the basic sounds. I'll start getting the levels appropriate and then bring in the kick and bass.

[brandondrury]

I'm a bass DI kind of guy most of the time although I frequently reamp.

I don't have any rules as to when I bring the bass in. My mixing style requires me to constantly check everything and this means pulling the level all the way down and then way too loud quite often. It's my method for keeping my ears fresh.

Brandon

[bozmillar]

One thing that I've done is rewire my bass so that it has 2 outputs, one for each pickup. that way I can record both of them separately and decide which one sounds best in the mix. Maybe that's because I'm just retarded at bass and don't know what kind of sound I'm looking for when I track it though.

[connelly73]

Thanks guys it was quite a good article and I might try and copy down some of the best points. Brandon it does mention mostly DI the bass but occasionally mixing it with an amped bass. It also touches on something else you picked up on by turning the mix up on small computer speakers to the point of distortion then start engaging high pass filters and/or eqs to roll off the bottom end on all tracks that don't need it except bass and drums until the mix stops distorting to clean up your mix.

I’ll give some of it a try on my next mix and report back.

Cheers Guys

[brandondrury]

Brandon it does mention mostly DI the bass but occasionally mixing it with an amped bass.

Lately, I've been happier than ever with one clean DI track and one duplicated DI track with a guitar emulator on it. Some people feel this is "unorganic" or whatever, but I've had better luck with it than I have with blending the real amp. I need a bass amp that gets really nasty for this trick. The freebie Gsuite Boss DS-1 works very well for me. There are a billion tonal possibilities just by playing with the faders.

[willjrockstar]

Im not a bass player but ive had some luck lately plugging into guitar processors.Digitec GSP 21 legend worked really good for the lick at the time.

Lots of people rock out through guitar equiptment and i have heard excellent results this way.

[venuestudio]

Originally Posted by bozmillar

One thing that I've done is rewire my bass so that it has 2 outputs, one for each pickup. that way I can record both of them separately and decide which one sounds best in the mix.

Boz, that is a great idea! I am going to have to borrow that if you don't mind. I could see that working nicely on guitar too!! I would bet each tracked separate then panned left right with one delayed would be a nice double tracking scheme. Sort of reminds me of the two outputs on a Chapman Stick.

[connelly73]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Lately, I've been happier than ever with one clean DI track and one duplicated DI track with a guitar emulator on it. Some people feel this is "unorganic" or whatever, but I've had better luck with it than I have with blending the real amp. I need a bass amp that gets really nasty for this trick. The freebie Gsuite Boss DS-1 works very well for me. There are a billion tonal possibilities just by playing with the faders.

Cheers Brandon I will try this as I always struggle to find a bass sound I like. Do you pan each bass track the original and the duplicate one left and one right and delay one a little to give a stereo effect or do you have both sitting centre and just mix the clean with the effected signal. Sorry if this sounds basic but I am new to this as you may hear in my songs.

Thx

[cheatingatmath]

i've recently been tracking bass (fingers/pick..i haven't tracked slap yet..i think that's a whole different game) DI through my UA LA-610, slightly trimming the peaks. i've been using Ampeg SVX, usually flipping through presets until i find something fitting..then tweaking to suit the song. i hate to use the term "usually", but i find myself adding a tape sim for balls.

bass will usually come in mixing after the drums for me. i solo the kick, the bass, and guitars and make a mental priority list of musical expression. i track a lot of fast punk and hardcore, so the kick often ends up with some super low punch (often excited with RBass), but a lot of attack for clarity (plus, kids will often look at you with sad puppy dog eyes if you don't scoop the shit out of the mids on their kick these days. 20 years after the fact, kids are starting to listen to Lars) provided we're not dealing with any sub drop-d guitars, this tends to leave the bass guitar plenty of room. i'll honestly listen to junior and decide if he's a bass player, or just a guy playing bass. if its the former, i'll make sure he's bright and punchy. if it's the latter, i'll probably distort it a bit to mask the fact that junior's playing nothing but rooted 8th notes..and poorly. brutal but true.

but like i said..i primarily record punk/hardcore/metal. the styles sometimes paint you in a corner. if John Bonham played 4 minutes of 32nds on his kick drum, Led Zeppelin 3 would have been 3 hours longer so we could wait for the ringing to stop.
so is life.