Mastering question

[chagzuki]

try doubling the bass track, setting all parameters on both tracks the same. . .
pan right and left, and add a center track. 3 tracks in all for bass. if bass is importanrt to you, you may want to adopt this technique. many engineers do this for "safety". it's a good practice to follow.

Are you talking about mixing in 5.1 or whatever surround format?

[chagzuki]

wtf ??

Copy the bass track 3 times and pan them differently? what difference will that make, except to make it louder?

Yes. Unless we're talking about different takes on an accoustic bass.

[chagzuki]

I read a technique a few years ago that I've tried but found doesn't really suit my music. You simply take a mono bass and split into left and right channels. On each channel you put a compressor, and configure them slightly differently, just enough so that you get some amount of stereoism whilst keeping the sense of a singular bass sound.

[IIRs]

Ok, that makes sense (I might try it actually ) but hairless specified identical settings for the copies..

[chagzuki]

Which is rather similar to applying mid/side compression over a mix to add a bit of movement. Which I like.

[Todd24]

Double tracking the bass seems like the best way to get mud. I could see the use in using a stero plug to shift one side out of time a bit. That would solve the problem of the center going away on the surround prossesor. I think.

What I did was just move the bass slightly over to one side. The biggest improvment to my mix was from removing everything below the audible range out of the guitar track.

Will post changes today.

[IIRs]

I mid / side processing! But if you copy the same track 3 times withoout changing any settings other than pan, it will just get louder and possibly end up panned off-centre slightly..

[xander]

I think it's really all about EQ. You can have a major good bass presence if you separate the freqs a bit...

[IIRs]

I could see the use in using a stero plug to shift one side out of time a bit.

You need to check mono compatibilty very carefully if you do this: the delayed version of the bass will phase badly with the undelayed version when monoed.. you may wish to split the bass into low and high bands, and only apply the stereo effect to the high band.

[IIRs]

I think it's really all about EQ. You can have a major good bass presence if you separate the freqs a bit...

Its a pretty picture, but it doesn't help you seperate the kick drum from the bass guitar

(That diagram might imply that boosting 31Hz will make the low bass notes cut through better.. BAD IDEA!!)

For a rock mix, the kick drum usually needs some low-mid cut. Try -6dB at 250Hz as a starting point, but its different for every drum (and sometimes even with different drummers playing the same kit). The "weight" of the kick is down aroung 50-60Hz, and the "slam" can start around 1KHz and extend right up to the high treble.

The bass guitar "weight" lives about 80-90Hz, but there is often a lot of energy in the region just above this (100-150Hz) which can conflict with heavy guitars, and often needs cutting. The most important region to make a bass guitar cut through a mix is the low-mid to mid range (500Hz up to about 1KHz): without this the bass will be boomy and the pitch will be difficult to distinguish..

for example: I mixed a live band last saturday night (rock & pop covers to a chav crowd ) who's bassist offered me a balanced DI out from his amp.. I often decline these, but it looked like a good amp, and the bands usually know what they're doing at that gig, so I plugged it in without question. Unfortunately it suffered from the same problem I often get in these circimstances: the DI out was set much too warm sounding, and in the echoey converted church venue it just turned into an indistinct boomy mush.. you could hardly tell what note he was playing! I ended up dialling in lots of boost at around 900Hz, with a fairly hefty low shelving cut, while (luckily) the desk EQ was flexible enough to notch out 90Hzish on the kick with the low-mid band. It sounded great by track 3!

[xander]

It's just a handy guide and a good starting point for mixing/mastering -- which I certainly use. My mixes/masters have had a few compliments (click link below or check my current contest entry for example) So I'm not blowing smoke.

For the track in question (the OP's), he should do a remix and start with at least a general freq spread and work from there. This is a good place to learn about EQing.

Of course, there's a lot more to it but it's not as scary as some might make it out to be. The charts a good place to start, and it's professional industry standard.

[IIRs]

.. but it only tells you what the fundamental frequencies of each note in the instruments range are: most of the important timbral information lies in the harmonic content.

Or are you telling me that a piccolo produces no sound above 4KHz? We could record symphony orchestras with an 8KHz samplerate and no-one would mind, if that were true!

[xander]

Just to add that for the kick/bass problem, you certainly can have them in the same general freq space by using a peak limiter on a send, mix the bass guitar to the send and let the kick control the peak limiter on that send. Sounds awesome and very tight...

[IIRs]

Thats a form of upward compression, and you're changing the subject!



<edit> in fact its a variation on the side-chain compression concept, but using "parallel" upward compression instead of the more conventional downward variety.

<edit2> and if you're doing this in Tracktion it is probably better to group the bass & drums and run them through a parallel compression rack. That way when you have your sound right you can adjust the level as usual, without having to balance aux returns at the same time as the channels.

[xander]

.. but it only tells you what the fundamental frequencies of each note in the instruments range are: most of the important timbral information lies in the harmonic content.

Or are you telling me that a piccolo produces no sound above 4KHz? We could record symphony orchestras with an 8KHz samplerate and no-one would mind, if that were true!

Not at all -- They're merely non-absolute bell curves, you then adjust amplitude accordingly (per taste per instrument). As I said, it's just a suggested starting point for someone who is, after all, asking about a rather basic problem mixing instruments.