Do audio engineers/recorders/mixers hate bass guitarists? ;) (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Ulmer]

Actually, I was refering to references with good bottom end, not just basses.... interesting sounding material though.

 

[ElevSkyMovie]

Regarding King's X and they're Sam Taylor produced early albums, Sam talks about what he did to get the bass sound here .

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Carlo,
I have what’s probably a controversial view (to a bass player anyway) on all that. This isn’t the place to get into it, but if you’re interested look for my post on this thread from the MARSH Forum at ProSoundWeb.com.

Regarding good recordings, this might not quite qualify as rock these days, but Toy Matinee from the early 90s is one of the best rock recordings I’ve run across. Well-defined bass, great dynamics for a rock recording.

I also picked up Toto’s Past to Present greatest hits CD a couple of years ago, and if this CD is any indication, it appears that they have consistently turned out first-class recordings. Excellent engineering. The bass and kick carry the bottom end together, yet don’t interfere with each other, even when they give the kick extra boost at 30-40Hz. Bass is always distinct. On some songs they have the kick drum carrying the lowest frequencies and still manage to pull it off. The bass is above it, yet remains clear and distinct, never lost in the mix.

Sorry for the dated references – as you can see, it’s been a long time since I bought any rock albums! I just got tired of them all sounding so bad.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[MickeS]

I'm not a professional musician, but I agree that the early King's X stuff is some of the best produced rock I've ever heard. They managed to make the song son "Out of the silent planet" sound both airy and light yet at the same time they have a great bottom end and heaviness to them.

I also love Rick Rubin's productions, especially The Cult's "Electric", Danzig's "II" and "How the Gods kill" and Slayer's "South of Heaven". The drums and the base on those albums manage to create a great foundation for the guitar, while not being relegated to "background noise" in favor of the guitar work. It doesn't have the "thickness" of most other recordings. IMO Rick Rubin is one of the best producers ever when it comes to creating a sound that has the right "live" feel to it, especially with respect to the bass and drum sound. Just listen to "777" and "Devil's Plaything" off of Danzig "II", there's proof that at least one engineer didn't hate bass guitarists.

/Mike

 

[Charlie C]

What suprised me the most so far on this thread:

Bass players can type ! ha ha j/k

man the response on this thread is great. so many opinions.
I used to run sound for a bands practice sessions. they just wanted to be able to hear each other so they can be in tune/sync.
doing sound checks every practice, we started with the drums, almost no amplifying needed there. then the bass guitar would be balanced with the kick. then the guitars/keys would be mixed in and balanced. then finally the vocals. vocals were hard because the singer needed to hear herself so she could sing in tune and not really need the other instruments coming from the monitors.
I can definately see why musicians, espescially bassists prefer to have more bass on CD's. What I was trying to explain to one band member, listen to a Sting CD. he used to be just a bass player so im sure hes trying to max the bass but still keep things in balance. on stage or at practice, from a musicians POV, they hear more bass cause the vocals are the main sound from the monitors. then they 'feel' the bass because it does shake the shit out of everything. but out in the crowd, its much more balanced. it still shakes the ground but thats cause they turn it up so dang much nowadays in venues anyway.

 

[Brian L]

I don't have a run down of his actual rig (too lazy to Google at the moment) but I think Geddy Lee is running/ran a pre-amp only rig on the last and current tour.

I know he did an advert for a bass pre-amp (damned if I can recall the vendor), but in any event, when I saw them on the VT tour, he had no amps visible on stage; just several racks worth of goodies stage left.

As for bass/kick drum, I remember tooling around in the car with a female friend once (she was also a big music fan), and I specifically remember listening to Kings X ST release, the cut Black Flag. I was going on and on about how great the bass/drums sounded, and that it really was all because the kick and bass were in perfect sync. She looked at me like I just found the recipe for world peace or something.

And to further that point, IIRC, aren't there "gates" that can be triggerred by a mic feed? I seem to recall reading that a cool way to add impact to a bass signal is to gate it with a signal triggerred by a mic sitting in front of a kick drum. Cheating, methinks, but it seems as though it would be affective in theory.

Ah yes...the Cult always sounded right to my ears. Another band with killer bass/kick was Extreme. They have sort of fallen off of my radar, but all of their cee-dee's are reference as far as SQ is concerned.

BGL

 

[David_Bell]

I figured. I didn't mean to just make a list of gimmicky two-basses instrumentation, but those are recent recordings that came to mind that made an effort to capture the full range of a *bass guitar* (as opposed to a synth or some undefined rumble in the low end). Tortoise's newest album, on the other hand, actually has some overcooked synth bass in spots.

As far as basses fitting in with more traditional instrumentation, I thought Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was mixed very well by Jim O'Rourke. Engineer/producer Bob Weston does great work (Sebadoh, Polvo...) but he's a bass player too so he's obviously on our team. Unwound's "Leaves Turn Inside You" has some impressively recorded bass...

I still stand by "Live at Leeds" for its equal standing treatment of Entwistle's bass. And just to undermine all of the above indie-rock snobbery...I always kinda liked the bass tone on Queensryche's "Mindcrime" and "Empire." The most piano-like bass (in a good way?) I've heard. It was unusual but he found a way to poke through the mix in his particular setting. And lots of locked bass/kick drum action too.

--db

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Another bassist here...

Like Vince said, the kick and bass are always going to be fighting for the same space.

I'm an amateur home recording guy (Cakewalk Sonar), and most of the reading I've done suggests that in order for bass to sound prominent on any system (not just high end systems that reproduce well under 60Hz), the harmonic frequencies of the bass are what need to be accented. I don't have the numbers memorized yet, but a low E on bass in standard tuning is around 41Hz. I play 5 and 6 string bass, so my lowest note is actually B (30Hz). Most bass amps don't even reproduce this low without some sort of level loss. So in the case of E, it's fundamental harmonics would be around 80hz (1 octave) and 160 Hz (2 octave), and so forth. By isolating and boosting these frequencies, I believe you can make the bass stand out more without stomping all over the kick drum. Someone please correct me if I am wrong because I don't have a whole lot of experience with this yet.

The same goes for EQ'ing your amp while playing with a band. I've seen so many guitarists and bassists that do the whole "mid-scoop" on their sound so playing by themselves, it sounds cool. But put them in a live mix and they disappear. Plus a lot of bassists don't like to push their mids because your sound becomes less forgiving in terms of flubs and whatnot. Once I started highlighting my mids more, I started getting a lot more positive comments about my bass sound at gigs. BTW, I'm using all active pickups in my four basses, 2 of which have high end EMG, and two of which have the stock pickups (no point replacing the stocks on a MM Stringray-that's part of what makes 'em sound like a Stingray!).

I think a good bass sound in a mixed recording has little to do with the bassist and a lot to do with the engineer and EQ'ing. 99% of my listening is done in the car. Most people do the bulk of their listening either in the car or on headphones through personal audio. In these cases, I'd rather have the kick making the punch, and have the bass resonate more.

A good example is Porcupine Tree's In Absentia (which is talked about a lot on this forum). This mix sounds awesome on every system, car stereo and portable CD player I play it on. In every case, I can hear the bass without even trying to. Yet the kick is still clear, defined and meaty. I'm reasonbly sure if you were to look at the EQ on the mix, the bass would be boosted almost exactly where the kick is cut, and vice versa.

Also, guitarists like to usurp the bass' space in the sonic spectrum as well. Perfect example-Dream Theater. The last record is all guitar and drums-no room for the bass. A lot metal guitarists want their heavy tones to boom with low end when they palm mute. That's what the bass is for. In a good mix, most heavy guitars would probably sound thin by themselves, but great in the mix. In the last serious original project I was in, my guitarist and I EQ'd our amps to be complimentary to each other, and the end result was a lot more definition in live settings.

Well there's my 2 cents and a s**tload more. Who knows-maybe I'm talking out of my a**, but this is the way I see it.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

On the bass tone on QR's Empire, that's another case where a great mix helped the bass shine even more. I believe Eddie Jackson was actually using two amps at the time. He would split his bass signal, and one line would go to a clean amp, and the other would go to some crappy blown out amp that was literally mic'ed in an isolation box. They then blended the sounds together. That makes sense, as you will rarely get a nice meaty tone out of bass if you are overdriving it.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I just got done reading this whole thing. Ouch! ...and I have some thoughts.

Carlo, if some CD's sound good, while others don't, have you thought about making a good/bad list? It might be interesting to see if certain studios cut the bass out, while others didn't.

The acoustic/room size and the distince required for a low note to reproduce correctly were an insight I had not considered, but if Carlo has some good ones, then it has nothing to do with his room size or his equipment - but just the way the recording was made, good or bad.

Yes, I have some CD's with rotten bass too, and given a choice, I'd take the low notes over the high notes. Again, a bad recording.

I have thought too that a casual player might play CD's in a DVD player, and it would come out in 2-channel stereo, through 3" speaker sets. It's really hard to hear bass through one of those. A shortcut for a studio, yes, and a bad one, but maybe some studios are taking shortcuts for the casual players.

Glenn

 

[Philip Hamm]

I play bass too, I have worked in semi-pro local club bands and have recorded professionally (24 track 2" Studer - aaahhh, nice) and in people's "Home studios".

There's no right and wrong just opinions, and we all know what opinions are like.

It all comes down to the player. Most importnat is technique. Less important but still critical is tone. Lots of players go for that scooped "Hifi" Eq on their basses. That sounds great woodshedding, but like total ass in a band situation. Instant lost tone.

The reason King's X sounds so great is that they are a trio. Very little tonal overlap. Also Doug Pinnick is an absolute MONSTER player.

When recording it's tough to get a good sound out of a bass. It's best if you have a "standard" instrument that an engineer is familiar with, such as a Fender Jazz of Precisions bass. I have a Fender USA Jazz bass that sounds friggin' unbelievable. Plug it into any board and it records perfect every time. My old Peavey Dyna-Bass was like that too, but it's a two single coil simple Jazz set-up also. Pull out your high end Fodera and all bets are off.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Yes and no. What sounds great in one room can suck in another, depending on the resonant frequencies of each. I know that I spend a great deal of time listening to my mixes outside my main room to hear what happens on different gear. It is very eye opening to hear how the same mix translates into a variety of systems, both good and bad. There are always compromises to be made to ensure the material souns good on everything.

I would also point out that what appears as great bass may not always be accurately rendering the fundamentals, but the harmonics. Most speaker systems will not accurately deliver extreme bottom end, and even if they do, room acoustics can foul it up. Often, what we perceive as bottom end is really in the low mids, which is another area that can be difficult to deal with in a mix/mastering situation. What sounds rich and full on a full range system can sound wimpy and thin if all the meat is from the extreme low end, since smaller systems can't even begin to replicate it.

I would also agree that the player's technique is critical to a great bass sound. I also find that I compress the bass quite heavily, which still allows all the tonal variances of dynamic playing to come through, but without creating inconsistent levels which can mess up the mastering process. If there is any area that I find challenging in the recording/mixing process, it is getting the bass guitar right, which is compounded by my preference to use a wide variety of instruments in my material, so I'm not just sticking with one solution across the entire record.

 

[Rick_Brown]

The band Cake has monster bass sound on every album - but the guitar is usually quite lightweight so it may be leaving lots of room in the mix for the bass?

 

[Charlie C]

the band Cake does not have a guitar player. the bass is the leaad instrument. thats why the bass is so prevelant.

 

[Brian L]

Well, I'll be dipped! I guess I need to read the liner notes.

Not to derail the thread, but if "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" has no guitar, what the hell am I hearing during the pre-chorus (the part that rips off Sweet Jane).

Sure sounds like a guitar to me, but if you say its not, its sure a damn good imitation!

BGL

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Jeff, you're the man!

I'd still like to find out what some of the bad and good CD's are, so I can try them out on my system in my room (if I have them!)

I wonder too if this may be an old vrs. new thing. I was going to say old artists (where the master would be put on a CD that was done with good bass against a newly recorded master, where the engineer might not be all that qualified to master it correctly - in opposition to the early recorded CD's vrs. the CD's that are being recorded today.

Does anybody have a 4-sided coin that I can toss?

Glenn

 

[Philip Hamm]

There's plenty of guitar on Cake records. Bass and guitar don't compete for bandwith ususally, they exist in separate sonic spaces.

 

[Charlie C]

'Bass and guitar don't compete for bandwith ususally'

ok you ask Cake who is the lead....

 

[Philip Hamm]

meaning??? The bass guitar and guitar operate in different sonic spaces. They don't compete for bandwidth in the same frequency, they operate at different levels.

 

[Charlie C]

'The bass guitar and guitar operate in different sonic spaces. They don't compete for bandwidth in the same frequency, they operate at different levels.'

that doesnt explain why the bass track is so prominent within cake songs. cake is based around their bass player and not the guitarist. but that is the band's opinion "There's no right and wrong just opinions, and we all know what opinions are like"

they may not compete for 'bandwidth' but without the strong bass track, cake wouldnt be cake.