Recording bass guitar

[Michael J. Anthony]

Hello again!

I recorded my pal's bass guitar the other day by connecting the line
out of his amp to my mixer. It sounds okay but in the mix it's pretty
muddy, so can anybody give me some advice on EQing a bass guitar? I
was thinking that maybe if I filter out some of the low, it might
sound tighter. Where should I roll it off?

Michael J. Anthony
www.michaeljanthony.com

[Sean]

Anything below 60hz is probably just mudding it up. Somewhere in the 80
to 100 range is where you'll get your ballsy thud. Search around in
there for it.

For a good discussion of "girth," "definition," "attack," and how to
avoid mud in the mix, take a look at:

http://benvesco.com/tonemonster/mixing/2008/mix-recipe-bass/

[Rick Paul]

The resource Sean referenced looks pretty good to me on quick scan. My
quick thoughts on the subject are as follows:

1) Figure out where the kick drum sits and carve a little out of that
territory in the bass. Similarly, find the main range where the bass sits
and carve a little out of that territory in the kick drum EQ.

2) Reduce in the warmth/mud area, somewhere in the 200 Hz to 250 Hz range
(sweep around a bit to see what sounds best).

3) Roll off the high end. Where depends on the type of bass sound -- e.g.
you might want more high-end on a slap bass than on a non-picked rock-type
bass -- but probably at least from about 8 kHz, maybe a fair bit lower.

4) If you're still not getting what you like, find somewhere to enhance
between the warmth/mud reduction and the high-end roll off. You have to
experiment here based on the mix and the sound you're going for, but the
idea is to highlight specific overtones that help imply the fundamentals,
which may not come through on small speakers. Note: I'd avoid the vocal
presence range on this (around 3 kHz) as you don't want to get the bass (or
much of anything else) stepping on the vocal's ability to cut through the
mix.

Rick
--
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Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
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"Sean" <se...@fakemail.con> wrote in message
news:9qQHm.51333$PH1.37918@edtnps82...

[Michael J. Anthony]

Thank you, gentlemen. I tried pretty much all of that, and it made a
big difference. I got some attack from the bass and I can actually
hear individual notes in the quiet parts of the arrangement.
Unfortunately the bass player was insistent on turning his treble down
to nil, so I had very little high frequency to work with. Adding too
much high end EQ pushed up the noise, so I had to be careful. But I
rolled off that low end and left a little space for the kick, and it
worked a treat.

Michael
www.michaeljanthony.com

[Michael J. Anthony]

Oh and one other thing: the bass preamp picked up a helluva lot of
signal from the monitors. I can clearly hear my rhythm guitar in the
bass track.

MIchael

[Sean]

Ouch. Well, the way to learn recording is to do it. I bet next time
you'll supervise the bass player's knob twisting,eh? Folks don't realize
that bass amps have a treble knob for a reason.