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Thread: Article: Recording: High, Low, and In-Between

  1. #1

    Default Article: Recording: High, Low, and In-Between

    Ok people since I bought my 24 Track recorder I been trying to learn some things about what's the best way to record the bass etc. Actually I'm relearning these things
    because I had a studio with all the trimmings a good while ago where I recorded a few people and groups so I'm in a period of refreshing the brain you might say, ( and learning. )
    I thought I would put a tip that I learned for those who may be able to use this now are in the future. So as I learn some things that might be helpful to some in recording
    Bass, Drums, Etc I'll put them here.

    Here's one in a question and answer format. This one kind of goes along with our Riffs
    video thread.


    Question: How can I make sure that my Drums and Bass are
    always punchy, powerful, and clear? My beats and low end
    usually start out banging, but as I add more things to my
    song, somehow it ends up muddy and doesn't have the same
    impact when I'm finished.


    Answer: The first thing you need to do is ask yourself if
    this a Kick song or a Bass song? This is important because it
    will help you determine which should be the main focus.
    Here are some guidelines. Is the bass melodic, singable,
    hummable, and memorable. Is it a memorable line when it's
    soloed all by itself, if so, feature it as the main low end
    instrument because that is what everybody will lock onto
    and remember.

    Think back for a minute. Whenever you listen to a hit song
    that has a memorable and melodic baseline, you
    automatically have to sing along with it in your mind and
    the drums are just supporting it. How many times have you
    hummed a bassline to someone when you are describing a
    song?

    If the bass is mainly a rhythmic, pulsing, thumping,
    enhancement type of sound that is mainly following the
    rhythm and drive of the kick drum, it should play a
    supporting role for the pulse of the beat. The drums are
    definitely what's driving it. The drums are the propulsion
    and the bass is simply the low-end support. Decide on the
    balance BEFORE adding any EQ or compression.

    Many times there are songs that have "The Fattest Bass In
    The World" in addition to "The Fattest Kick In The World" -
    recorded all on the same song.

    You need to have contrast in the bass frequencies to keep
    it from getting muddy. It has to be one or the other, not
    both.

    You need one instrument to handle the low lows, and the
    other instrument to handle the upper lows, so that each one
    is out of the other one's way - that way you won't end up
    with a muddy sounding low-end because each instrument is
    playing separate, but supporting roles without getting in
    the other ones way and not competing to fill out the
    low-end.

    Hope this one may be helpful now are in the future.

    Line6bassman
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

  2. #2

    Default

    Great info! Thanks for posting!

    ...and good luck with your recorder!



    - low life -

  3. #3

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    Excellent recording concept there. And it applies to so much more than just bass and kick. It applies to any instruments that share similar frequency ranges. Too many instruments in the same places (sonically) and we get mud in those particular frequencies.

    One of my favorite examples is the guitar that, soloed, sounds so lush and fabulous, covering the entire range of its frequencies. Slip it into the mix, however, and it sounds like dog doo. So what you so correctly outline above can be applied to all instruments. Find what is the most important range for that voice and try to minimize other voices stepping in the same range.

  4. #4

    Default

    Great stuff, Line6bassman!

    For those who want more information about getting clarity and/or separation between the drums and the bass guitar, here's a link I found providing a primer on what frequencies to boost/cut for each when you find that you need/want to do some EQ'ing. It also has freqs for other instruments and vocals. Looks interesting.

    http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kgeisler/EQ/primer.htm
    Last edited by Bassix; 07-09-2011 at 09:05 AM.

  5. #5

    Default

    Thanks, that looks like it could be helpful in my conquest to conquer the 24 track recorder.

    I'm doing a mini mixing and recording course right now and as I come across some helpful hints and tips on recording such as recording bass and all other instruments and vocals etc I'll keep putting them up for future reference to those of us who now
    and in the future plan on doing recordings for demo's etc.

    I have a couple of more of them that you may find very interesting are helpful coming by later today or tommorow.

    Line6bassman
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

  6. #6

    Default

    Question 2: When it's time to mix my song, is there a
    certain order that I should do things? Should I always
    start out working on a certain instrument first or does it
    really matter?

    Answer: You should listen to everything
    all together at first to get a quick idea of the big picture.
    Then you should see what each part is doing before
    doing anything else.

    Just push it all up and use your instinct for the balance.
    Do it very quickly. Just push up all the drums and
    percussion, etc. Push 'em up real quick then push up the
    bass then push up all your keyboards, vocals, guitars,
    samples, effects, and everything.
    The key is to do this very quickly because your instinct
    plays in big role in achieving a good balance and I feel
    that you can trust your instincts a lot. You've been
    listening to music all your life so you know more than you
    think you know.

    Your ears are fine-tuned from a lifetime of listening. Your
    spirit is fine-tuned to make decisions that your mind might
    mentally over-analyze.

    It's funny but if you listen, the song will tell you what
    it wants. It will tell you if a certain instrument's too
    loud, you know, maybe the bass is too loud, or the drums
    aren't loud enough and the kick drum is getting lost.
    Maybe the snare drum is killing you or it needs to be
    brighter.

    Doing this in the very beginning will help you answer all
    these questions so that you can decide which direction to
    go.

    It forces you to make a fast decision which is usually very
    close to being the right decision. That way you get in the
    ball park quickly don't spend hours second-guessing every
    single thing that you do.


    Here's a little something on mic's.


    Did you know that an "average" mic can sound
    much better with a quality preamp

    Also, Did you know that the headphone mix is
    the single biggest factor to a great

    performance?.

    Now, you will get MUCH better results by paying
    a little more attention to this..

    THIS PART IS CRUCIAL: You already know this:

    Most people don't even bother to try different mics.

    Changing the microphone can make a huge difference
    in whether you need to use EQ or not..

    Choosing the wrong mic can lock you in forever
    to a bad sound even if the performance was good..

    Badly recorded sound is much harder to mix in the
    final record..

    Take some extra time on the front end to get it right.?

    Learn the different characteristics of different
    microphone models..

    This is what you need to learn.

    Once you learn that an "average" mic can sound
    much better with a quality preamp, you will want to
    learn how to assess the different type of vocal qualities
    and ranges they enhance...

    There are very important details you have to learn
    in order to get the most out of your preamp. If you
    don't know all the details, you'll just be making
    the same mistakes as all the other average engineers.



    Line6bassman
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

  7. #7

    Default Here's A Cool One To Remember.

    Is there a secret technique that I can use to
    guarantee that my music will hook people and keep them
    interested?


    Answer: Don't have too much going on at one time. This is
    the single biggest mistake that I see time and time again.
    The human brain and ear can ingest a ton of information at
    one time, BUT it can only PROCESS and comprehend 2 or 3
    things occurring at the SAME TIME.

    That means that your mind's ear can follow about 2 hooks
    going on in each section of your song along with the main
    groove.

    Usually this is a vocal hook and some type of instrumental
    hook. Almost everything else is part of the rhythmic
    foundation and should be subservient to the strongest and
    most memorable parts. These parts are usually "hummable".

    The trick is to identify, highlight, and strengthen the
    "hookiest" parts and either lower, mute, or delete anything
    that might be fighting for the attention of your hooks.
    This is a dynamic process and it does NOT mean that you set
    it and forget it. Use automation to move things up and down
    at the appropriate times. This concept applies to
    songwriting, mixing, and even when creating backgroung
    vocal parts or music sweetening. Try not to have your parts
    step on each other unless it's to strengthen. Keep your
    hooks clear.

    Think about you current favorite song right now. There is
    probably some type of melody or rap that you'll sing and
    some type of instrumental hook that you'll hum that
    identifies the song. For instance, this might be a strong
    bass line or guitar lick or even a signature drumbeat. If
    you try to sing it out loud, you can only sing and vocalize
    1 of the 2 hooks of the song and you'll imagine the other
    one in your head. Just try it and see. You will alternate
    between the strongest hooks that you can vocalize. Those
    are the hooks that GOT YOU. This is the key to keeping
    YOUR SONGS irresistible. Do the same.

    Have you ever watched the "Ellen" talk show? She has a
    funny contest segment where the show's guest must listen
    to someone hum a hit song and then they have to guess it.
    Even if the person isn't very good at humming, many times
    you can usually guess the song if it has a strong and
    identifiable hook.

    Also remember, "Melody is King".
    The King will NEVER leave the building.
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

  8. #8

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by line6bassman View Post
    Also, Did you know that the headphone mix is
    the single biggest factor to a great performance?
    Are you talking about the mix in the headphones of a person playing the part being recorded or using headphones for a final mix?

  9. #9

    Default A little more on recording bass. Part 1 of 2

    Recording Bass Guitar

    Tips & Tricks

    Published in SOS March 1999

    Technique : Recording / Mixing


    Although most modern synths come with good bass guitar patches, there's still nothing quite like the real thing played well -- provided you know how to record it. Paul White examines a few alternative approaches.

    There used to be a common joke among musicians aimed at bass guitar players, which ran "What's the similarity between playing a really good bass line and wetting yourself? You get a nice warm feeling, but no-one really notices!". These days, however, bass plays a prominent role in many musical genres. Dub reggae wouldn't get far without bass, and nor would many rhythm-heavy styles such as those found in Latin and South American music. But even outside these styles, bass can be crucial to the sound and 'feel' of a track. A well-played and well-recorded bass is vital to any rhythm section, and it's worth making the effort to achieve the right sound.

    A good bass guitar sound starts with a reasonable-quality instrument played well. Given that starting point, you then have to decide whether to mike up a bass guitar amp or to adopt one of the possible DI methods -- or you could combine both, as do many professional engineers.

    The simplest recording method is to DI the bass, but unless the instrument has active pickups (if it needs a battery, it probably has), you can't just plug it into a mixer input and expect good results as there will be an impedance mismatch. The right way to do it is to use a DI box with an input impedance of at least 500k(omega) and preferably higher than 1M(omega). Virtually all active DI boxes that feature an instrument input fulfil this requirement, and a number of passive transformer-based models are also suitable.

    With the right instrument and good playing technique, this simple approach can produce good results, but in my experience, the sound tends to lose power when the other instruments are added to the mix unless the arrangement is very sparse. What's more, the tone you get isn't the same as if you used an amp, as guitar/bass amps don't have a flat frequency response. The EQ on most simple consoles isn't able to emulate a guitar amplifier very accurately, so an outboard processor is a better bet. Placing a good quality graphic or parametric equaliser after the DI box (usually via the mixer channel insert point) can improve things greatly. Most musicians know that adding an 80Hz boost will fatten up the low bass, but if you listen to the bass sound on records, you'll probably find there's also quite a lot going on in the mid and lower mid ranges -- most domestic hi-fi speakers can't reproduce deep bass anyway. The key is to experiment with the EQ in the 120 to 350Hz region as this is where the real character of the sound is defined. Though bass guitars do generate high-frequency harmonics, most of these would naturally be lost when the instrument was played through an amp and speaker cabinet as guitar speakers have a fairly limited frequency response. You can leave them in if you like the result, but often you'll find that finger and string noise becomes irritating and that you can roll off quite a lot of high end without significantly affecting the main body of the sound. This usually makes the bass sound tighter and cleaner.

    Another useful technique involves combining the equaliser with a speaker simulator such as my personal favourite, the all-passive Palmer Junction Box. Speaker simulators are designed to duplicate the high-frequency rolloff of real speakers, so you can still use your outboard EQ to shape the low and mid sounds, then allow the speaker simulator to take care of the top end. A well-designed speaker simulator will take away all the grittiness from the sound without killing the transient attack, and will often sound more natural than using EQ on its own.


    Compression

    Most engineers use a degree of compression with bass guitar, which is a good idea for a number of reasons. If the player uses a slapping or pulling technique, the note attacks can be very loud, so if you don't compress or limit, you either run the risk of overloading the recorder or you have to set the record level so low that the main body of the bass sound is too quiet. This type of playing is best dealt with using a compressor that has a separate limiter, as the traditional way of making a compressed sound retain its attack characteristics is to set the compressor attack time to several tens of milliseconds in order to allow the initial transient to get through uncompressed. The release time is generally set to around a quarter of a second, but this will vary from model to model, so always experiment. Auto-attack and release settings (where available) also produce good results on bass guitar as they can adapt to the changing dynamics of different playing styles within the same song.

    Allowing the transients to sneak past the compressor might produce a great sound, but it's those same transients that cause recorder overload problems, so having an independent limiter section following the compressor is very desirable. The limiter threshold should be set just below the overload level of the recorder so that limiting takes place only on very loud peaks.

    Even if the bass is played in a more traditional way, compression is still beneficial as it evens up the levels of different notes and, equally importantly, it increases the average energy level of the sound -- making it seem louder for the same peak level. You can still back off the compressor attack a little to accentuate the start of the note, but keep an eye on those recording levels. A useful tip if you don't have a compressor with a separate limiter section is to use a dual-channel compressor and feed channel one's output into channel two's input. Set channel one up to compress as normal, but set channel two to limit by using the highest ratio possible combined with a fast attack time and as fast a release time as you can get away with. Adjust the threshold of channel two so that gain reduction only occurs when the level is within a few dBs of hitting the overload region on the recorder's meters. Of course those still using analogue tape can afford to be that bit more casual about levels -- indeed, a little tape saturation can do wonders for a bass sound. Which leads nicely into...


    Distortion

    Some of the best bass guitar sounds come from valve amplifiers, and as all guitarists and bass players know, valve amps distort rather musically when you drive them hard. A number of modern studio processors either include valve stages or offer 'tube emulation' with varying degrees of success. You can even get valve DI boxes, such as the Ridge Farm Gas Cooker, and using any one of these can help beef up a bass sound without making it sound obviously distorted. Of course, if you want the Stranglers' bass sound, a suitably-set overdrive pedal might well do the trick. Where you place the valve device or valve emulator in the signal chain is really down to where it sounds best, but if you want to be purist about it, it should come before the speaker simulator if you use one. That's because in a real amp, any distortion created within the amplifier circuitry is filtered by the limited high end response of the speakers, and if there's a lot of distortion, it is important to remove the high end to prevent grittiness.

    End of Part 1 cont on Part 2

    Line6bassman
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

  10. #10

    Default Cont Part 2

    If you like an easy life, some preamps designed specifically for recording guitar also work well with bass. Last month I reviewed (and subsequently bought) the Line 6 Pod physical modelling digital guitar preamp, and initially wondered why they didn't make a bass version. However, after a little experimentation, I found that by using a Fender Bassman amp model combined with a 4 x 12 speaker cab and no effects other than compression and a little amp drive, I could get a very convincing miked bass amp sound. One practical advantage of a digital product of this kind is that you can be quite certain of the maximum output level as you can never get louder than 'all bits on'. If you deliberately overload the input by plugging in a hot synth so the clip LED comes on, whatever comes out is your maximum level! You can safely set your record levels with reference to this level. Then all you need do is plug in your guitar, make sure the input clip LED isn't coming on, and you can play in the knowledge that your recorder will never clip, no matter how you adjust the preamp drive or tone controls.


    Miking The Bass

    Of course, there are those purists who say they'd rather eat their own ear wax than DI a bass! Miking a good bass amp isn't a problem providing you're working in an environment where you can play the thing loud enough, and of course you need a decent mic. Though you could use a general-purpose dynamic vocal mic to capture the bass guitar, you'll find that most of these have a deliberate low-frequency rolloff to compensate for the proximity effect when used up close. Because of this, unless these are placed right up against the speaker grille, you could find the bottom end tends to lose power. A better bet is to use either a non-vocal dynamic mic that has a reasonably flat low-end response or to try one of the dedicated bass/kick drum mics, placing it around six to 12 inches in front of the best-sounding speaker in the cab. If you look at the frequency plot of a kick drum mic, you'll find the frequency response looks like the back leg of a donkey that's just been hit by a truck, but the results are often flattering and powerful, which is far more important than any misplaced notions about accuracy! If you're using a valve amp, you may find you don't need to add further compression, or at least not much, but if the amp is solid-state and doesn't have a compressor of its own, then it's probably a good idea to at least try adding compression to see what can be achieved. The safest approach here is to leave the compression until you mix unless the levels are so erratic that clipping might be a problem.

    Tonal changes can be made by moving the microphone -- the brightest sound is found by pointing the mic at the centre of the speaker, while moving it to one side will produce a warmer, less in-your-face result. It's also worth varying the distance to see what result that has. Try adjusting the mic position for the best results before adding any EQ at all, and if you can save the EQ until you mix, you'll keep your options open. After all, what may sound great in isolation may not sound so right when the rest of the mix is up and running.


    Best Of Both Worlds

    If you really want to go to town on the bass sound, try combining a miked amp with one of the DI techniques described earlier. Often you can get away with a smaller amp than if you rely on the amp sound alone, as the DI will provide all the bottom end you need. This combined approach is taken by many professionals. The relative phase of the miked and DI'd sound has a profound effect on the final result, so you may need to phase-reverse one of the sources to get the best result. Also, experiment with the EQ of the individual sources as well as their balance, as the EQ controls may not have the same effect as they do when the sources are heard in isolation. Similarly, changing the mic-to-speaker distance will also affect the phase of the combined sounds, so this can be useful in fine-tuning the result.

    As you can see, there are several ways of recording the bass guitar, but if you like to keep your options open until the final mix, there's nothing wrong with DI'ing the bass flat via a DI box, perhaps in combination with a limiter to catch any excessive peaks, then applying one of the techniques outlined here at the mixing stage. Or if you have enough spare tracks, you can record the processed and the clean version of the sound on different tracks. I'd certainly try to do this if I was miking the amp -- all that's needed is a DI box between the instrument and the amp (most have an audio thru connector) with the DI out connected to a spare recorder input. Computer users also have several options open to them when it comes to treating sounds after the event: in addition to the usual compression and EQ, there are now numerous software amp simulators that can produce very convincing results. The beauty of the home studio is that you don't have the same time pressures as a commercial facility, so you can afford to experiment and see what method works best for you.

    Line6bassman
    GO LOW!!!STAY HIGH!!!ON BASS THAT IS!!!

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