Ableton Forum

Just wondering what peoples methods are for getting the bass sounding really nice and punchy without too much muggy-ness to it though ableton?

I am using a mates Yamaha 4-string bass through a behringer ultra-DI box, then though my alesis firewire 12 into Live. Then what I usually do is get the EQ Eight and grab the '4' and drag it to about 200Hz so the cutoff is about 300Hz or so, and then just whack it though the 'generic compressor' preset to give it a punchy boost.
This probably isn't the best way of doing things, and I am quite happy results but it would be nice to know how other people get that nice round 'dubby' bass sound - if done right I think its better than any synth bass...

Someone said to me the other day that compressing bass guitar was difficult because the compression goes out of phase with the bass easily or something like that I can't quite remember.

Cheers, I look forward to reading some new methods!

steep lowcut filtering... one band is not steep enough

3phase wrote:steep lowcut filtering... one band is not steep enough

Sorry dude if you could explain that would be nice, this is what my bass sounds like at the moment, quite fat but I think a little muggy:

http://soundcloud.com/skinshape/hip-hop-instrumental

dillweed4 wrote:

3phase wrote:steep lowcut filtering... one band is not steep enough

Sorry dude if you could explain that would be nice, this is what my bass sounds like at the moment, quite fat but I think a little muggy:

http://soundcloud.com/skinshape/hip-hop-instrumental

cant listen to it wright now but the trick to get a bass tight is to cut uneccesaary lows and boost slightly wher it matters.. in essence what your speaker cabinet is doing on a real bass amp..

of cause there are other tricks but thats the most basic one and especially necessary in the digital domain that can go down to
0 hz... no speaker cabinet in the world is going down to 0 hz.. you have a good one when its ding a proppr 30HZ..20 HZ in the max..


and thats the area where you aplly your lowcut..

use eq 8 in low cut mode... but use more than one band in parrallel..i usually get good resukts with 4 to 8 bands low cut in parralel... but you need at least 2 to get comprehensiv results..

beside that good preamps help a lot...

Thats a good start for me cheers, will try that net time I on Live!

i was just thinking to post one of my live devices.. but you cant do attachments here :-/

3phase wrote:i was just thinking to post one of my live devices.. but you cant do attachments here :-/

Something they should be able to do, as well as a soundcloud linky thing like they have on dubstep forum

so,

see this one..

an extreme hi/low cut that shows how you can change the sonic charkter by slighty differnt band settings..

the scale parametr is doing nothing in ths setup.. and the eckmiller swith turns it from a plain parralel 4 band Hi/low cut to an 8 band eckmiller emulation...

http://www.3phase.de/sounds/[email protected]

3phase wrote:so,

see this one..

an extreme hi/low cut that shows how you can change the sonic charkter by slighty differnt band settings..

the scale parametr is doing nothing in ths setup.. and the eckmiller swith turns it from a plain parralel 4 band Hi/low cut to an 8 band eckmiller emulation...

http://www.3phase.de/sounds/[email protected]

What am I meant to do with this file?

Can you explain what "Scale" does in EQ8? The Help isn't very, um, helpful ("Scales the amount of gain change applied to all active filters"). To me, at least.

And thanks for the rack - looks useful. This is supposed to be a very nice freebie plug for hi and lo passing....

http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/plugin ... answeep_v2

You can't use one preset EQ setting the whole time, unless you are using the same bass sound and playing the same key and notes !! Things will change depending on the value of the notes, whether you're using pick or fingers, what volume and tone setting and pickup you used, whether you miked a cab or Di-ed etc.

Cutting lo-end with a steep high pass filter around 40-80 Hz (or a shelving filter if high passing is killing the low end) is often a good place to start, but maybe not so much if you are making dub music which retains a lot of sub sound typically. Sidechaining the bass from the kick, or sorting your arrangement so the kick and bass don't hit at the same time, etc are other techniques.

Other techniques include high passing/shelving cuts anything not in the rhythm section to make space for the bass and kick drum (the instruments might sound thin and weedy soloed, but put everything in the mix and 'it just works'), another technique is to cut somewhere from 300-500Hz (you need to sweep the bands to find the best frequency as again, this is changeable from song to song) on the kick drum (and to a lesser extent, the drum group) quite sharply (talking -6dB or more, even notch, with a narrow Q and then boost the bass just ahead or behind this by a few dB and the bass also needs a presence in the lo-mids between 600-800 Hz typically, so you can either cut this in other instruments *best option* a bit, or boost (cutting the other instruments is better) - if you want to accentuate the bass strings sound then the area around 2 - 2.5 Khz is usually the prime area for this (by either cutting other instruments there, or boosting etc).

These are all things which have worked in some situations for people quite well over time, but are not guaranteed results on your material, so you will need to experiment.

Of course the first thing to consider is the sound from the bass itself. Is it in tune, action set right, fresh (ish) strings, no humming or buzzing from the volume/tone pots or pickups etc, and reasonable playing technique.

leedsquietman wrote:Cutting lo-end with a steep high pass filter around 40-80 Hz (or a shelving filter if high passing is killing the low end) is often a good place to start, but maybe not so much if you are making dub music which retains a lot of sub sound typically.

So for dub bass you wouldn't cut the lo-end?

You MIGHT but a lot of those dub/roots reggae records often have a lot of sub in the 30-40 Hz range and adapt their mixes around this.

You might also use a shallower rolloff curve, say 6 or 12 dB/octave instead of 24 or 48 dB/octave if you do cut.

Some of those records have higher pitched kicks, so the kick is peaking more around 80-100 Hz, instead of 50-60 Hz, leaving a bit of extra space underneath the kick for lo-end bass. Also, dub records tend to play fewer notes but with more sustain and often don't play synced with the kick, which helps to keep the kick drum and bass seperated too.

Note the use of the word 'some' before someone sues me

As you know, these are guidelines not rules, every case is different but I just wanted to make some awareness that bass can have different qualities in different genres.

Excellent bass guitar sound/recording article in computer music this month btw, quite surprised how much really useful technique/studio chops stuff they have in that mag recently.