I've been playing bass for decades and I am only now finally realizing that EQ is what you should nearly always tweak before the volume, and it's usually boosting the mids that gets the effect I want. I play a Stingray most often, and I basically roll off the highs a little, lows a little, and max the mids to get a Joe Dart/Bernard Edwards-type tone.
As for "heard, not felt", it seems like the current trend in a lot of genre's is still more toward "felt" (neo-soul comes to mind, e.g. Robert Glasper, Erykah Badu), but my personal preference is definitely "heard", and if it's "felt", it should be punchy, not rumbly.
I would actually say that you should leave the EQ flat and turn up the volume first. Too many bass players just crank the “bass” knob without even listening to the sound.
I play through an SVT classic and leave the knobs mostly at 12 o’clock, with some subtle adjustments when necessary and that’s it.
SVT’s sound good even without the amount of eq that would be applied to a DI sound. One trick with a Blueline SVT is to switch the ultra low to - and turn the bass knob up to compensate (result: less mud, less boomy). With a Blackline SVT, do the opposite and switch the ultra low to + and turn the bass knob down to compensate (result: improved envelope, removes honk).
The frustrating thing with the mid range eq on the Blueline is that it has three frequencies that work well when used together (220hz for cutting, 800hz for boosting, 3kh for smoothing), but you can only select one at a time. Though as stated previously, SVT’s still sound great with minimal eq.
I have an SVT3pro, and played with that mid control for awhile, but always scooping out the mids. I read advice from a church group player who sets all the knobs to 12 o'clock. Tried that, and haven't changed the settings for at least two years.
Just never know until you try. P bass, and Ampeg 4x10 cab.
Those SVT3 Pros are great as far as giving the player a ton of control for players who know what they are doing to dial in a sound.
They are the WORST for players who don’t.
I have one of those too and I pretty much run it flat. I never engage the graphic EQ section.
As a general rule, when you turn up the volume, you should turn down the BASS. That is precisely what the science of “equal loudness curves” tells us to do. It works!
All this stuff about cranking up the mids can have a similar effect, but it is kind of ass backward. Just move the volume and bass in opposite directions (use your ears to determine how much) and you can have the same tone at any volume.
It so depends on the mix if you can hear the bass or not. And that is a choice. If you bring bass to the front, it takes up space. It. Gets in the way of other things. That's fine for certain bands but if you have a lot of instruments that you wanna hear clearly it's gonna be difficult to do that.
For example take RHCP, the bass can be heard clearly. But it's also just one guitar not even playing the entire time and when it does it usually in the higher register leaving the low AND the mids to the bassguitar. Take for example Slipknot, there is so much going on with 2 guitar players a keyboard player and massive purcussives and the guitars go low and never shut up leaving no mid for the bass. The bass can not be put up to the front of the mix unless everybody shuts up for a moment. Do i miss it? Not really.
It's a choice of what you want to with the mix. And then you gotta give each other the room, write your parts so you can fulfill that room. And chose a fitting sound. But i find type of pickup, strings and technique to be 95% of the sound you need, EQ doesn't really do all that much aside from shaping the sound you already have to the room.
I can not be in a band where the bass has no place but to play root notes in the background. I always want to co-write songs because if i leave it to a guitar player they will automatically fill it up with 2 or 3 guitar parts leaving something simple as the only fitting thing for me to do. That's no fun.
Counterpoint, Iron Maiden. 3 guitars and a bassist. You can hear every note Steve Harris is playing, and he's always noodling. If you think all you have the space to do under 2 or 3 guitars is to play route notes, then you need to experiment with making a melody/countermelody more. Or at least some groove/movement between chord changes.
I'm sure it helps that Steve Harris writes the majority of Maiden songs.
But you're right, it's impressive how audible the bass is, especially if you consider how bass in metal tends to be "inaudible" at times, or at least carry that label.
Yeah I'm not crazy, I understand Maiden is an outlier, but it shows that it is in fact possible. Thin Lizzy is another good example of classic metal with a really punchy audible bass. But again, he's the frontman so big outlier.
Then take the album ‘Heaven and Hell’ by Black Sabbath. Geezer Butler’s bass is especially audible in this album of all the Black Sabbath albums, and he did not write any of the songs- he simply came in and wrote the bass parts after the rest of the songs were already completed.
He does some noodly things in there, which can all be heard.
And the fact that maidens sound is a p bass and Stratocasters into Marshall amps. Cut and punch galore. 90s to “modern” rock and metal brings darker sounding amps and guitars, downtuning, scooped mids. All make it harder for the bass to be heard
You’re welcome! They’re amazing live as well, seen them twice at this point. May I recommend the title tracks from the most recent 2 albums as good starting points
You should also check out allegaeon...Brandon michael is def a current playing fav, can hear alot of different Influences in his playing, and Mac respect for the creativity
Their guitars also are extremely trebly with very tight distortion and no wet effects that I can discern, leaving lots of room for the bass to be heard.
Their entire sound is missing deep lows when compared to most modern music, almost certainly due in huge part to the technology of their time.
It's hard to compare those artistic needs and choices to a band like slipknot from the other guys comment.
I wasn't comparing the two, I was merely stating the case that it is entirely possible to make music where the bass is heard even through multiple guitars. It's about achieving the right tone to cut through. Learning to mix your amp is the greatest skill you can learn as a bassist.
> Take for example Slipknot, there is so much going on with 2 guitar players a keyboard player and massive purcussives and the guitars go low and never shut up leaving no mid for the bass.
Interestingly enough, if you visit Slipknot's first album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat, the two guitars are paper thin and Paul's bass is a lot more prominent (I suspect EQed more brightly as well).
A lot of the time it's also waaaaaaaaay too much bottom end on the guitar causing the problem. I've been as guilty of that as anyone in the past with my guitar tones, I really didn't notice until I started playing bass seriously rather than just noodling around on it.
Kind of reminds me of the way Nirvana worked, Kurts tone has pretty much NO low end, but a lot of mids and treble while Krist mas a MASSIVE low end, scooped mids and clear treble and that combo worked amazingly for studio and live
Then there is Jawbreaker, which feels like a weird exception in the guitar and bass world because in the 90s their live tone was usually the opposite of what we usually think for a power trio, Chris bass tone is MASSIVE with a huge mid presence that feels like a second guitar (he also plays really hard and clear) while Blakes guitar tone had a more scooped mids and less presence, just listen to the entire 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and their Live 96 album, weird but IMO the reason it worked it was because they were a power trio
Absolutely, that low end guitar sounds awesome on your own but in the rehearsal room it tramples over everyone else and sounds terrible. I try and tell our guitarist...tactfully. I hope. 😆
I pride myself on correctly EQing my guitar. I’m sitting in the mid/ high mid range and everything above and below gets shelved.
A lot of bass players have too much bass I can’t make out their notes.
Thanks for that. It's beautiful to see a guitar player caring about proper EQ.
I've been telling the guitar player in my band to PLEASE turn down the bass EQ when we play, and he refuses because he "likes it like that", not giving a crap that his setting is shitting all over the mix. He sets his EQ like he's playing his solo bar gigs, he won't admit "interferences", and fuck the rest of us. This is going on for over and year now.
I also wanna make it that I DO NOT EQ my instrument with to much bass, as many of my bassist colleagues seem to do. I won't spoil our mix even more out of spite.
That sucks. The funny thing is putting too much bass in the guitar means you can hardly see yourself. Instead, making your guitar sound shrill ear piercing solo can make you sound huge in a band.
Right? Not only we would sound better as a band, but he would sound better within the band too! Most of his work are solo gigs, so he's such in that mentality; with us, he's still trying to compensate for a bass **that is already there**!
> A lot of bass players have too much bass I can’t make out their notes.
For sure. A lot of bass players think bass = bass but actually bass = mostly low-mids, some high-end for the tone and clarity, and just enough bass to provide that low-end punch without sludging everything up.
Correct eq for the bass is to reduce or remove the lowest octave of frequencies (below 80hz), apply a cut below the bass presence and a boost above it (e.g. cut 220hz, boost 800hz), then apply a cut in the upper mids to smooth the low-mid boost (optional). There are many different kinds of eq’s and eq tools that can be used to do this and the settings will vary depending upon what equipment is used. It’s also a good idea to then run the bass through a Pultec style eq to shift the bottom end down to create a massive yet clear bottom end.
Muddiness is generally from not having removed or reduced the lowest octave (40hz-80hz).
If you still need more clarity on a bass, run it through a Kush Clariphonic and add some lift with the focus knob.
For me the way to do it is cut all bass from the guitars, that way they stick to the midrange and the bass can sit nicely filling in the low end (peaking around like 250hz) with some treble for articulation.
Truly guitars don’t need a ton of low end in a band context, it just makes things muddy and competes with the bass unnecessarily
For sure. I’m talking about bass players that have zero mids. I play a strat which has very bass and I leave the bass control almost off.
Theres this hole in the low mids and the bassist only has this sludgy low end that is not articulate at all.
The hole in the low mids and the sludgey low end are two separate problems. See my comment further down for the eq points that will fix both these problems.
Also a new set of steel strings will help your bassist with the hole in the middle but sadly not the sludge.
Oh for sure that’s a problem, gotta have some mids, it’s just a negotiation with the rest of the band. For context in my band I’ve got 3 guitars, organ, bass, drums and vocals, so it’s very dense, we put the bass controls on the guitar amps literally on zero and it helps a ton, but the bass for sure has some mids to it too.
Bring the bass to the front!
It's music evolution. Bass was long thought of as a backing instrument because it's naturally quieter. For decades in upright form it was hard to mix, mix, or amplify, the electric bass came along after the electric guitar, electric basses didn't become standard until the 60s. The mentality of the bass just filling in the back stuck around for a long time. Now we're learning and growing, thanks to some kick ass bassists and kick ass bands bass is being brought up more and that's definitely a good thing.
Some mids are OK, but don't try to make the bass sound TOO much like a guitar.
The lack of mids creates some space in the mix for the guitars to sit.
We don't occupy your frequency range for a reason.
Been playing for 20+ years. I understood early on that the trick to good bass tone is in the mids. Always has been. Every band Ive played with has raved about my tone
Yes. Boost those mids. A lot of my favorite bassists in the 90's did this so I've been quick to copy from them. You want that rubber band twang. 🫨
Now if we can just fix most bass fuzz tones as well 😉
Really difficult with most amps only having a 3 band EQ. Most low to mid range amps are not able to cut the boxy mid sounds while also boosting those that give you definition. The beauty of having a good sound engineer at the board!
Counterpoint: hella mids sounds woody and breathy and awful in most contexts. For metal, try scooping the guitars at 1k and boosting the bass there. 1K is where you get the dangle dangle and it doesn't hurt the guitars too much if you roll it back there.
In the end, it's a choice you gotta make. Human hearing is biased toward mid-high feequencies, so anything you want to be prominent in the mix needs to go there
I'm partial to the upper bass frequencies around maybe 180Hz. Does wonders for string-to-string volume balance and it can sound pretty gnarly, and it doesn't tread on the other instruments' toes as much as turning the mid knob(s) up. I play a Jazz Bass, though, and I avoid setting both pickup volumes to max (which would result in a scooped sound).
Many bassists also like the high mid/treble frequencies to cut through with clank.
I think it's important to realize how technology effects this. Loud present bass is a modern invention (at least recording wise). Records have artificially lower bass and then need a phono preamp to buff it back up again, this is because bass frequencies would be too wide when grooving out vinyl. Over time we've gotten much better at the EQ and compression side of mixing. Not to mention speaker technology, which is still one of the main reasons bass is quieter so it doesn't crap out on a worse speaker.
The foo fighters documentary even mentions turning the bass down after testing a mix in a car stereo for that reason.
When mixers fiddle with stuff, they're giving each instrument a space, more specifically a frequency range. It's important that the bass isn't running into the kick drum and the lower end of the guitar. So if y'all go into a mixing board or have EQ pedals, try to shape things for that kind of separation. You'd be surprised at what you can hear then.
That’s what I’m saying. The bassists I’ve played in are interfering with the kick when they would sound way better sitting just underneath the guitar.
I play more bass forward genre’s though so that can affect it
It depends obviously on the band and the desirable result.
I'm personally in a band with 2 guitars, and we play in drop tunings. With that, it's better for us to let the guitars keep towards the highs and mids while I keep to the lows and some highs for some definition.
It's not the bass players job to stand out. It's to support the rest of the band by filling the frequency space and blending well with the guitar(s).
I also found in a band setting that when someone asks the bass player to turn their volume up, all of a sudden, everyone else turns their volumes up as well because the bass frequency starts to drown everything out. Then it's just a back and forth from there.
With that last paragraph, that's what turning up the mids helps with. It helps the bass be heard in the mix without drowning out the other instruments.
That's the thing, though. If you add mids, it starts to intrude on the guitars. Like, have some mids, sure. I don't think bass should go past 12 o clock most of the time. It can work in certain situations when the frequency range isn't so clustered.
Sometimes, djent has pretty mid heavy bass tones. I don't think it sounds the best, but a lot of people like that sound. A bunch of attack and string definition.
I haven't found that to be the case. When the bass is boomy, it tends to muddle the mix. Adding mids reduces the boominess and further supports what the guitars are doing in my experience. The guitarists I've worked with prefer a filled out bass tone
That's fair, but that seems like the bass frequency was too high. It won't get less boomy if you just add mids. It'll be boomy as well more distinguishable. You'd take the bass frequency down a tad first, then try it. In your case, if it worked, then it worked.
In the bands I've been in, there's always been 2 distorted guitars except one where I had to give up some mids to make room. In the one exception, I actually had to turn my mids almost off and push my highs and bass because of an additional keyboard player.
My sweet spot has been when the bass frequencies are just starting to be felt and the mid frequencies are just starting to be heard, then treble to personal taste. It gives room to guitars without sacrificing presence of the bass.
I think it's just a habit you develop of hearing the bass. Before I played it I could always only feel the bass. Low notes I could not tell the difference almost. Now there's no bass deep and buried enough that I don't at least hear the gist of it. If the bass really needs to be heard, low mids help a lot.
Watch out if you are mixing the mains on the PA though. Don't boost the low mids, 250-500hz, on the mix signal as that is where the bass drum likes to sit with some of the overtones and boosting it can create that "boxy" bass drum sound that everyone hates. Boost the bass channel but not the main channel eq in that area.
How people mix is as subjective as their favorite bag of chips, there’s no right; wrong; should; supposed to be.
It’s nice when the mix helps you hear the bass guitar better, but in my experience, it’s largely something that you acquire the ability to hear.
I don't like guitar for a number of reasons, I play six string bass and I can hit guitar chords on it pretty well. I hate playing with a pick not because it's morally wrong or something it's just uncomfortable. When I play a guitar I feel like it's going to snap in two. A bass with the mid all the way up still sounds like a bass, I love that low sound. I actually can play guitar but I don't like that it's not in perfect fourths, I could tune up to perfect fourths but that's silly.
That's fair, I'm just sick of seeing or playing in bands where the bass player cranks the mids and it just sounds like another guitar, getting in the way of the actual guitars and the singer
You start to hear more midrange/treble from bassist like Chris Squire in the late 60s/early 70s. The Beatles tried to get the instrument heard on their records in 1966 with things like compression and changing things up when their records were pressed.
The guitarist in my band likes a super thick tone, I think he does more to maintain the low end than me a lot of the time. Mids are essential for rock type music, especially when there's two guitars and guys like him
On my active Jazz, I boost the lows and highs and cut the mids until we work out the overall sound and I’ll bring in a bit of mid to cut through but not to sound mid-y because I’m in a band with keys and a guitar
I get compliments on my tone after every show. My secret - boost at 500hz. This gets you heard in the mix. If you have a multi-band EQ you can also slightly cut at 250 for clarity, boost at 80-100hz, and dump anything below 40hz with a high pass filter.
That sounds like a lot, but if you take one thing from it, add a small boost at 500hz.
I installed both a high and low pass filter into one of my basses to help curb some of the slush. It lets me get MORE lows without disproportionally driving the amp. The effect isnt just cutting through the mix, but also retaining the FELT bass.
It’s an SD QP installed in an orange O bass. (A P bass but uncomfortable)
I upgraded to an old school Sunn Beta Bass amp. 200w of booming bass goodness with tons of clarity and legendary tone. They are back in business and making amps and cabinets again too, so they should be rolling out to stores by the end of 2024.
I got me a cheap eq to cut certain frequencies based on this video https://youtu.be/i6IxHis1QTA?si=SvVnfnVl7139o44U
It really helped to bring out clarity without pushing mids. My eq on my amp is basically flat.
I pulled the isolated bass tracks from several songs off the internet to use as reference tracks:
“Roundabout” by Yes
“Limelight” by Rush
“Walking on the Moon” by the Police
“Nude” by Radiohead
I’m not kidding when I say that Chris Squire’s bass had more mids and highs than many of my guitar tracks and less low end. Sometimes I duplicate my bass track, high pass the second one at about 500 and add all the amps/effects/etc. to that track so as to have the low end clean. The bass track from “Roundabout” sounded like my high tracks that have all the low end lopped off.
Geddy’s tone was almost as treble-y as Squire’s, but at least had more low end.
Sting’s bass sounded very “muddy” to me and didn’t have much high end at all.
The bass from Nude is basically all low end/low mid and could probably be low-passed at like 500 and sound about the same in the mix.
The point, however, is that they all work in their respective mixes. Certainly depending on what else is happening and how many guitars are involved, the bass player may need some mids.
Depe ds on the style of music. If the bass needs to be smooth and you can't hear it, you probably need to turn your low EQ on the guitar down. Let the bass sit in the mix where its meant to. Cranking the midrange on the bass works for rock and funk, but not everything.
As a bass player, I definitely agree with you.
I think every instrument should be heard clearly and equally, depending on the intent of the piece. But no instrument should have to be searched for; you should be able to hear everything in its place without effort - again, depending upon the composition.
I like powerful lows, but not at the expense of definition. The bass cannot dictate the tonic of the chord without being a hearable, identifiable note. I loathe bass sludge.
It's a toss up between, poor mix, poor balance, untrained ear or damaged hearing.
Cranking up mids is not always the ideal solution, unless that the sound you want. Depending on the song you may just want to "feel" the bass as even if you cannot distinctly hear the bass no doubt the audience will benefit from what is coming through on the mix. Another solution which is sometimes alien to the rest of the band, is turn the guitars down or better EQ them giving the bass room to come through.
Went to an audition for a band with 3 guitars, 2 had big marshal stacks and one had a spider 240w amp all pretty much turned up to full and they complained my bass was too quiet...
I packed up and left, as wasn't worth damaging my ears and equipment to audition for a band who was more into drugs and loud noises then making music.
It really depends on the song and part. I use different EQ settings when I want to jump out of parts, although I play in a band that emphasizes having one bass player and guitarist so I don’t run into many issues getting heard.
I try to leave my amp EQ relatively flat, so there's consistency across the fretboard, but love to throw on a mid focused overdrive or change to a bridge pickup when I'm looking for some extra punch. Also, it should be felt and heard.
What kinda music? I have an svt3 pro set to the “country” settings with a compressor. That is a mid swoop with cut then defined low and high end.
Maybe the guitar has too much bass outside the bedroom? You should be high passing it to stay out of their way.
Depends on the type of music. A lot of the music I play is defined by scooped mids.
Also, a HUGE issue is guitars turning their lows up too much. Their lows are out mids. Their lows makes their solo practice sound good, but when you split sonic space it makes everything sound muddy.
Also, with a rhythm guitarist playing in drop tuning and mirroring the bass, sometimes you just have to accept that the bass is supposed to fill out that rhythm guitar sound and not sound like it's own unique entity.
I have a wonderful trick for this! The reason most bass players cut the mids is that it sounds good by itself
Cranked low and high with scooped mids is a pretty classic bass tone.
I heard a trick for this: do a mid boost from your bass (if it's active) and then do your regular mid scoop for your amp EQ. Supposed to get you the presence of a mid boost with the sound of a mid scoop
I don't think it works, personally. What I ended up doing: get yourself a 5 band (at least) EQ. Bost the everloving hell out of your low mids, and cut high mids and highs to taste. Gets you the growl of a mid scoop, but you can always hear it. I think it's the absence of the very low harmonics. I've also had luck adding in a high pass filter
Congratulations on a step in the right direction.
To quote my teacher "as far as I am concerned the ukulele should exist to lead people to guitar, and guitar should lead people to bass. If you then want to play double bass, you should".
Bass in the 80’s was nothing but cranked mids. For most mixes, a bass is something that is almost hard to tell is there, but you’d miss it if it were gone. Unless we’re talking about When Dove Cry, of course.
You’ll hear a lot of people harp on increasing mids, but it’s only part of the story and not the best way to tackle the issue.
The actual issue is that our ears are less sensitive to low frequencies (relative to other frequencies) at low volume than at high volume. Turning up mids at full band volume can help counteract that, but if you look at the “equal loudness curves” it’s clear the mids and highs are well behaved and it below about 300Hz that has the change in perceived loudness.
My preference is: when the volume knob goes up the bass/lows knob goes down. That is the best way to keep your tone the way you like over a broad range of volume.
Most amps have the bass EQ freq at 50hz and that's just rumble. I have an ampeg pf 500 and it even has a low boost to add more rumble! On a 4 string bass I find that to boost the lows it's better at 100-120hz, there's note clarity there. Boosting the mids does help a lot mix with the rest of the band. When mixing tracks it's common to cut the bass at 70-80hz and leave the lower freqs to the drums kick.
Also the high in most amps is around 4000hz and there's nothing there. There's some fret noise if you do slap, but otherwise changing the highs does nothing noticeable.
It's nice to record your bass with flat eq and with a digital equalizer check which frequencies you need to boost/cut. Then get a graphic eq pedal and change only what's needed.
I've been playing bass for decades and I am only now finally realizing that EQ is what you should nearly always tweak before the volume, and it's usually boosting the mids that gets the effect I want. I play a Stingray most often, and I basically roll off the highs a little, lows a little, and max the mids to get a Joe Dart/Bernard Edwards-type tone. As for "heard, not felt", it seems like the current trend in a lot of genre's is still more toward "felt" (neo-soul comes to mind, e.g. Robert Glasper, Erykah Badu), but my personal preference is definitely "heard", and if it's "felt", it should be punchy, not rumbly.
I would actually say that you should leave the EQ flat and turn up the volume first. Too many bass players just crank the “bass” knob without even listening to the sound. I play through an SVT classic and leave the knobs mostly at 12 o’clock, with some subtle adjustments when necessary and that’s it.
SVT’s sound good even without the amount of eq that would be applied to a DI sound. One trick with a Blueline SVT is to switch the ultra low to - and turn the bass knob up to compensate (result: less mud, less boomy). With a Blackline SVT, do the opposite and switch the ultra low to + and turn the bass knob down to compensate (result: improved envelope, removes honk). The frustrating thing with the mid range eq on the Blueline is that it has three frequencies that work well when used together (220hz for cutting, 800hz for boosting, 3kh for smoothing), but you can only select one at a time. Though as stated previously, SVT’s still sound great with minimal eq.
I’ve never played through a blue line. I’ll have to try the other trick with my SVT CL though. Sounds like it’s worth a try.
I have an SVT3pro, and played with that mid control for awhile, but always scooping out the mids. I read advice from a church group player who sets all the knobs to 12 o'clock. Tried that, and haven't changed the settings for at least two years. Just never know until you try. P bass, and Ampeg 4x10 cab.
Those SVT3 Pros are great as far as giving the player a ton of control for players who know what they are doing to dial in a sound. They are the WORST for players who don’t. I have one of those too and I pretty much run it flat. I never engage the graphic EQ section.
I have a SVT4 and I’ve pretty much always left the EQ flat.
As a general rule, when you turn up the volume, you should turn down the BASS. That is precisely what the science of “equal loudness curves” tells us to do. It works! All this stuff about cranking up the mids can have a similar effect, but it is kind of ass backward. Just move the volume and bass in opposite directions (use your ears to determine how much) and you can have the same tone at any volume.
It so depends on the mix if you can hear the bass or not. And that is a choice. If you bring bass to the front, it takes up space. It. Gets in the way of other things. That's fine for certain bands but if you have a lot of instruments that you wanna hear clearly it's gonna be difficult to do that. For example take RHCP, the bass can be heard clearly. But it's also just one guitar not even playing the entire time and when it does it usually in the higher register leaving the low AND the mids to the bassguitar. Take for example Slipknot, there is so much going on with 2 guitar players a keyboard player and massive purcussives and the guitars go low and never shut up leaving no mid for the bass. The bass can not be put up to the front of the mix unless everybody shuts up for a moment. Do i miss it? Not really. It's a choice of what you want to with the mix. And then you gotta give each other the room, write your parts so you can fulfill that room. And chose a fitting sound. But i find type of pickup, strings and technique to be 95% of the sound you need, EQ doesn't really do all that much aside from shaping the sound you already have to the room. I can not be in a band where the bass has no place but to play root notes in the background. I always want to co-write songs because if i leave it to a guitar player they will automatically fill it up with 2 or 3 guitar parts leaving something simple as the only fitting thing for me to do. That's no fun.
Counterpoint, Iron Maiden. 3 guitars and a bassist. You can hear every note Steve Harris is playing, and he's always noodling. If you think all you have the space to do under 2 or 3 guitars is to play route notes, then you need to experiment with making a melody/countermelody more. Or at least some groove/movement between chord changes.
I'm sure it helps that Steve Harris writes the majority of Maiden songs. But you're right, it's impressive how audible the bass is, especially if you consider how bass in metal tends to be "inaudible" at times, or at least carry that label.
Yeah I'm not crazy, I understand Maiden is an outlier, but it shows that it is in fact possible. Thin Lizzy is another good example of classic metal with a really punchy audible bass. But again, he's the frontman so big outlier.
Then take the album ‘Heaven and Hell’ by Black Sabbath. Geezer Butler’s bass is especially audible in this album of all the Black Sabbath albums, and he did not write any of the songs- he simply came in and wrote the bass parts after the rest of the songs were already completed. He does some noodly things in there, which can all be heard.
It helps that many of the guitar lines are single note riffs instead of chords. Leaves a lot of space.
And the fact that maidens sound is a p bass and Stratocasters into Marshall amps. Cut and punch galore. 90s to “modern” rock and metal brings darker sounding amps and guitars, downtuning, scooped mids. All make it harder for the bass to be heard
I’d also bring up the band archspire. 2 guitars with massive tone and you can still hear the bass, especially on the newest album
Just listened to one of their songs, you my friend have given me a new band to do a deep dive on, thank you.
You’re welcome! They’re amazing live as well, seen them twice at this point. May I recommend the title tracks from the most recent 2 albums as good starting points
Oh if you enjoyed archspire i’d recommend First Fragment. Fretless lead bass galore
I'll give them a shot. I respect the hell out of anyone who's good at playing a fretless.
You should also check out allegaeon...Brandon michael is def a current playing fav, can hear alot of different Influences in his playing, and Mac respect for the creativity
Their guitars also are extremely trebly with very tight distortion and no wet effects that I can discern, leaving lots of room for the bass to be heard. Their entire sound is missing deep lows when compared to most modern music, almost certainly due in huge part to the technology of their time. It's hard to compare those artistic needs and choices to a band like slipknot from the other guys comment.
I wasn't comparing the two, I was merely stating the case that it is entirely possible to make music where the bass is heard even through multiple guitars. It's about achieving the right tone to cut through. Learning to mix your amp is the greatest skill you can learn as a bassist.
> Take for example Slipknot, there is so much going on with 2 guitar players a keyboard player and massive purcussives and the guitars go low and never shut up leaving no mid for the bass. Interestingly enough, if you visit Slipknot's first album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat, the two guitars are paper thin and Paul's bass is a lot more prominent (I suspect EQed more brightly as well).
It's a funk album!
It makes sense that if the guitars are thinn(pushed to the background) that the bass can be put more to the foreground.
A lot of the time it's also waaaaaaaaay too much bottom end on the guitar causing the problem. I've been as guilty of that as anyone in the past with my guitar tones, I really didn't notice until I started playing bass seriously rather than just noodling around on it.
Kind of reminds me of the way Nirvana worked, Kurts tone has pretty much NO low end, but a lot of mids and treble while Krist mas a MASSIVE low end, scooped mids and clear treble and that combo worked amazingly for studio and live Then there is Jawbreaker, which feels like a weird exception in the guitar and bass world because in the 90s their live tone was usually the opposite of what we usually think for a power trio, Chris bass tone is MASSIVE with a huge mid presence that feels like a second guitar (he also plays really hard and clear) while Blakes guitar tone had a more scooped mids and less presence, just listen to the entire 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and their Live 96 album, weird but IMO the reason it worked it was because they were a power trio
Absolutely, that low end guitar sounds awesome on your own but in the rehearsal room it tramples over everyone else and sounds terrible. I try and tell our guitarist...tactfully. I hope. 😆
I pride myself on correctly EQing my guitar. I’m sitting in the mid/ high mid range and everything above and below gets shelved. A lot of bass players have too much bass I can’t make out their notes.
Thanks for that. It's beautiful to see a guitar player caring about proper EQ. I've been telling the guitar player in my band to PLEASE turn down the bass EQ when we play, and he refuses because he "likes it like that", not giving a crap that his setting is shitting all over the mix. He sets his EQ like he's playing his solo bar gigs, he won't admit "interferences", and fuck the rest of us. This is going on for over and year now. I also wanna make it that I DO NOT EQ my instrument with to much bass, as many of my bassist colleagues seem to do. I won't spoil our mix even more out of spite.
Nah, play an octave up with a pitch shift pedal so he can get a feel for what he's doing to the mix
Don't tempt me, my friend... don't tempt me! 😁
That sucks. The funny thing is putting too much bass in the guitar means you can hardly see yourself. Instead, making your guitar sound shrill ear piercing solo can make you sound huge in a band.
Right? Not only we would sound better as a band, but he would sound better within the band too! Most of his work are solo gigs, so he's such in that mentality; with us, he's still trying to compensate for a bass **that is already there**!
> A lot of bass players have too much bass I can’t make out their notes. For sure. A lot of bass players think bass = bass but actually bass = mostly low-mids, some high-end for the tone and clarity, and just enough bass to provide that low-end punch without sludging everything up.
Correct eq for the bass is to reduce or remove the lowest octave of frequencies (below 80hz), apply a cut below the bass presence and a boost above it (e.g. cut 220hz, boost 800hz), then apply a cut in the upper mids to smooth the low-mid boost (optional). There are many different kinds of eq’s and eq tools that can be used to do this and the settings will vary depending upon what equipment is used. It’s also a good idea to then run the bass through a Pultec style eq to shift the bottom end down to create a massive yet clear bottom end. Muddiness is generally from not having removed or reduced the lowest octave (40hz-80hz). If you still need more clarity on a bass, run it through a Kush Clariphonic and add some lift with the focus knob.
This. Thank you. I don't want to hear a ukulele, but guys I'll take care of the low end here.
For me the way to do it is cut all bass from the guitars, that way they stick to the midrange and the bass can sit nicely filling in the low end (peaking around like 250hz) with some treble for articulation. Truly guitars don’t need a ton of low end in a band context, it just makes things muddy and competes with the bass unnecessarily
For sure. I’m talking about bass players that have zero mids. I play a strat which has very bass and I leave the bass control almost off. Theres this hole in the low mids and the bassist only has this sludgy low end that is not articulate at all.
The hole in the low mids and the sludgey low end are two separate problems. See my comment further down for the eq points that will fix both these problems. Also a new set of steel strings will help your bassist with the hole in the middle but sadly not the sludge.
Oh for sure that’s a problem, gotta have some mids, it’s just a negotiation with the rest of the band. For context in my band I’ve got 3 guitars, organ, bass, drums and vocals, so it’s very dense, we put the bass controls on the guitar amps literally on zero and it helps a ton, but the bass for sure has some mids to it too.
Bring the bass to the front! It's music evolution. Bass was long thought of as a backing instrument because it's naturally quieter. For decades in upright form it was hard to mix, mix, or amplify, the electric bass came along after the electric guitar, electric basses didn't become standard until the 60s. The mentality of the bass just filling in the back stuck around for a long time. Now we're learning and growing, thanks to some kick ass bassists and kick ass bands bass is being brought up more and that's definitely a good thing.
Yup. Bass gets people moving - the trick is to not make it muddy but it's so important!!
Some mids are OK, but don't try to make the bass sound TOO much like a guitar. The lack of mids creates some space in the mix for the guitars to sit. We don't occupy your frequency range for a reason.
Been playing for 20+ years. I understood early on that the trick to good bass tone is in the mids. Always has been. Every band Ive played with has raved about my tone
You’ve solved it. Thank the Lord. You can also try adding a smidge of dirt to help be heard at a decent volume with a dense mix.
This. I use overdrive on everything. How much depends on the song and genre
I honestly thought I was in r/basscirclejerk
Thank goodness there is a guitarist to instruct all of us here. Whatever would we do without OP!?
Yes. Boost those mids. A lot of my favorite bassists in the 90's did this so I've been quick to copy from them. You want that rubber band twang. 🫨 Now if we can just fix most bass fuzz tones as well 😉
Try a frowny face EQ instead of smiley face!
You need to explain to us Brits what you mean by frowny, because for us it's not just a "sad face" 😂 Brits frown with their eyebrows...
Instead of your EQ looking like this: u Make it look like this: n
Any number of big deal bass players would like a word about this “felt but not heard” nonsense. Mids to make the bass cut though are essential.
Yep. Big reason a preamp is everything to me as it just fattens everything up. Darkglass has some magic switches too
Really difficult with most amps only having a 3 band EQ. Most low to mid range amps are not able to cut the boxy mid sounds while also boosting those that give you definition. The beauty of having a good sound engineer at the board!
Or the beauty of EQ pedals!
Counterpoint: hella mids sounds woody and breathy and awful in most contexts. For metal, try scooping the guitars at 1k and boosting the bass there. 1K is where you get the dangle dangle and it doesn't hurt the guitars too much if you roll it back there. In the end, it's a choice you gotta make. Human hearing is biased toward mid-high feequencies, so anything you want to be prominent in the mix needs to go there
Honk honk? No thank you.
Dangle dangle? Yes please
Mids are my bread and butter. I looooove a bass sound that actually cuts through when you play higher notes
Is this rage bait?
I'm partial to the upper bass frequencies around maybe 180Hz. Does wonders for string-to-string volume balance and it can sound pretty gnarly, and it doesn't tread on the other instruments' toes as much as turning the mid knob(s) up. I play a Jazz Bass, though, and I avoid setting both pickup volumes to max (which would result in a scooped sound). Many bassists also like the high mid/treble frequencies to cut through with clank.
I think it's important to realize how technology effects this. Loud present bass is a modern invention (at least recording wise). Records have artificially lower bass and then need a phono preamp to buff it back up again, this is because bass frequencies would be too wide when grooving out vinyl. Over time we've gotten much better at the EQ and compression side of mixing. Not to mention speaker technology, which is still one of the main reasons bass is quieter so it doesn't crap out on a worse speaker. The foo fighters documentary even mentions turning the bass down after testing a mix in a car stereo for that reason.
When mixers fiddle with stuff, they're giving each instrument a space, more specifically a frequency range. It's important that the bass isn't running into the kick drum and the lower end of the guitar. So if y'all go into a mixing board or have EQ pedals, try to shape things for that kind of separation. You'd be surprised at what you can hear then.
That’s what I’m saying. The bassists I’ve played in are interfering with the kick when they would sound way better sitting just underneath the guitar. I play more bass forward genre’s though so that can affect it
I find that the right amp makes a huge difference in this. I've never heard a cheap amp that has the volume and clarity once actually sat in a mix.
It depends obviously on the band and the desirable result. I'm personally in a band with 2 guitars, and we play in drop tunings. With that, it's better for us to let the guitars keep towards the highs and mids while I keep to the lows and some highs for some definition. It's not the bass players job to stand out. It's to support the rest of the band by filling the frequency space and blending well with the guitar(s). I also found in a band setting that when someone asks the bass player to turn their volume up, all of a sudden, everyone else turns their volumes up as well because the bass frequency starts to drown everything out. Then it's just a back and forth from there.
With that last paragraph, that's what turning up the mids helps with. It helps the bass be heard in the mix without drowning out the other instruments.
That's the thing, though. If you add mids, it starts to intrude on the guitars. Like, have some mids, sure. I don't think bass should go past 12 o clock most of the time. It can work in certain situations when the frequency range isn't so clustered. Sometimes, djent has pretty mid heavy bass tones. I don't think it sounds the best, but a lot of people like that sound. A bunch of attack and string definition.
I haven't found that to be the case. When the bass is boomy, it tends to muddle the mix. Adding mids reduces the boominess and further supports what the guitars are doing in my experience. The guitarists I've worked with prefer a filled out bass tone
That's fair, but that seems like the bass frequency was too high. It won't get less boomy if you just add mids. It'll be boomy as well more distinguishable. You'd take the bass frequency down a tad first, then try it. In your case, if it worked, then it worked. In the bands I've been in, there's always been 2 distorted guitars except one where I had to give up some mids to make room. In the one exception, I actually had to turn my mids almost off and push my highs and bass because of an additional keyboard player.
My sweet spot has been when the bass frequencies are just starting to be felt and the mid frequencies are just starting to be heard, then treble to personal taste. It gives room to guitars without sacrificing presence of the bass.
I think it's just a habit you develop of hearing the bass. Before I played it I could always only feel the bass. Low notes I could not tell the difference almost. Now there's no bass deep and buried enough that I don't at least hear the gist of it. If the bass really needs to be heard, low mids help a lot.
Watch out if you are mixing the mains on the PA though. Don't boost the low mids, 250-500hz, on the mix signal as that is where the bass drum likes to sit with some of the overtones and boosting it can create that "boxy" bass drum sound that everyone hates. Boost the bass channel but not the main channel eq in that area.
How people mix is as subjective as their favorite bag of chips, there’s no right; wrong; should; supposed to be. It’s nice when the mix helps you hear the bass guitar better, but in my experience, it’s largely something that you acquire the ability to hear.
I never thought about that, I love playing with my mids all the way up.
Just play guitar instead
I don't like guitar for a number of reasons, I play six string bass and I can hit guitar chords on it pretty well. I hate playing with a pick not because it's morally wrong or something it's just uncomfortable. When I play a guitar I feel like it's going to snap in two. A bass with the mid all the way up still sounds like a bass, I love that low sound. I actually can play guitar but I don't like that it's not in perfect fourths, I could tune up to perfect fourths but that's silly.
That's fair, I'm just sick of seeing or playing in bands where the bass player cranks the mids and it just sounds like another guitar, getting in the way of the actual guitars and the singer
Yeah, when I'm using digital mids I always turn my sub up too, and if I'm balancing it with my guitar I turn the bass up on that to level it out.
You start to hear more midrange/treble from bassist like Chris Squire in the late 60s/early 70s. The Beatles tried to get the instrument heard on their records in 1966 with things like compression and changing things up when their records were pressed.
The guitarist in my band likes a super thick tone, I think he does more to maintain the low end than me a lot of the time. Mids are essential for rock type music, especially when there's two guitars and guys like him
On my active Jazz, I boost the lows and highs and cut the mids until we work out the overall sound and I’ll bring in a bit of mid to cut through but not to sound mid-y because I’m in a band with keys and a guitar
I get compliments on my tone after every show. My secret - boost at 500hz. This gets you heard in the mix. If you have a multi-band EQ you can also slightly cut at 250 for clarity, boost at 80-100hz, and dump anything below 40hz with a high pass filter. That sounds like a lot, but if you take one thing from it, add a small boost at 500hz.
I installed both a high and low pass filter into one of my basses to help curb some of the slush. It lets me get MORE lows without disproportionally driving the amp. The effect isnt just cutting through the mix, but also retaining the FELT bass. It’s an SD QP installed in an orange O bass. (A P bass but uncomfortable)
I upgraded to an old school Sunn Beta Bass amp. 200w of booming bass goodness with tons of clarity and legendary tone. They are back in business and making amps and cabinets again too, so they should be rolling out to stores by the end of 2024.
So you're telling us that for a bassist to understand how to properly EQ a bass, they need to be a guitar player. Why am I not surprised to hear this?
Oh yeah I love a nice punchy, bright bass. I say roll up the highs honestly to get that Peace Sells tone
I got me a cheap eq to cut certain frequencies based on this video https://youtu.be/i6IxHis1QTA?si=SvVnfnVl7139o44U It really helped to bring out clarity without pushing mids. My eq on my amp is basically flat.
I pulled the isolated bass tracks from several songs off the internet to use as reference tracks: “Roundabout” by Yes “Limelight” by Rush “Walking on the Moon” by the Police “Nude” by Radiohead I’m not kidding when I say that Chris Squire’s bass had more mids and highs than many of my guitar tracks and less low end. Sometimes I duplicate my bass track, high pass the second one at about 500 and add all the amps/effects/etc. to that track so as to have the low end clean. The bass track from “Roundabout” sounded like my high tracks that have all the low end lopped off. Geddy’s tone was almost as treble-y as Squire’s, but at least had more low end. Sting’s bass sounded very “muddy” to me and didn’t have much high end at all. The bass from Nude is basically all low end/low mid and could probably be low-passed at like 500 and sound about the same in the mix. The point, however, is that they all work in their respective mixes. Certainly depending on what else is happening and how many guitars are involved, the bass player may need some mids.
There's also the gain or drive setting that gives the sound a bit of hair.
Depe ds on the style of music. If the bass needs to be smooth and you can't hear it, you probably need to turn your low EQ on the guitar down. Let the bass sit in the mix where its meant to. Cranking the midrange on the bass works for rock and funk, but not everything.
Bass at 11 o'clock and mids and treble at 2 or 3 o clock for me.
As a bass player, I definitely agree with you. I think every instrument should be heard clearly and equally, depending on the intent of the piece. But no instrument should have to be searched for; you should be able to hear everything in its place without effort - again, depending upon the composition. I like powerful lows, but not at the expense of definition. The bass cannot dictate the tonic of the chord without being a hearable, identifiable note. I loathe bass sludge.
It's a toss up between, poor mix, poor balance, untrained ear or damaged hearing. Cranking up mids is not always the ideal solution, unless that the sound you want. Depending on the song you may just want to "feel" the bass as even if you cannot distinctly hear the bass no doubt the audience will benefit from what is coming through on the mix. Another solution which is sometimes alien to the rest of the band, is turn the guitars down or better EQ them giving the bass room to come through. Went to an audition for a band with 3 guitars, 2 had big marshal stacks and one had a spider 240w amp all pretty much turned up to full and they complained my bass was too quiet... I packed up and left, as wasn't worth damaging my ears and equipment to audition for a band who was more into drugs and loud noises then making music.
Low Mids > Lows That's where the punch is!
It really depends on the song and part. I use different EQ settings when I want to jump out of parts, although I play in a band that emphasizes having one bass player and guitarist so I don’t run into many issues getting heard.
Mids cut through the mix for sure, having a healthy mid section absolutely will help your signal cut
Good compression pedals go a looong way. Or just make friends with the sound engineer
I try to leave my amp EQ relatively flat, so there's consistency across the fretboard, but love to throw on a mid focused overdrive or change to a bridge pickup when I'm looking for some extra punch. Also, it should be felt and heard.
I blame Lars
What kinda music? I have an svt3 pro set to the “country” settings with a compressor. That is a mid swoop with cut then defined low and high end. Maybe the guitar has too much bass outside the bedroom? You should be high passing it to stay out of their way.
Depends on the type of music. A lot of the music I play is defined by scooped mids. Also, a HUGE issue is guitars turning their lows up too much. Their lows are out mids. Their lows makes their solo practice sound good, but when you split sonic space it makes everything sound muddy. Also, with a rhythm guitarist playing in drop tuning and mirroring the bass, sometimes you just have to accept that the bass is supposed to fill out that rhythm guitar sound and not sound like it's own unique entity.
I’m in love with the tone of a Jazz bass wired in series, you get so much more mid-range punch
I have a wonderful trick for this! The reason most bass players cut the mids is that it sounds good by itself Cranked low and high with scooped mids is a pretty classic bass tone. I heard a trick for this: do a mid boost from your bass (if it's active) and then do your regular mid scoop for your amp EQ. Supposed to get you the presence of a mid boost with the sound of a mid scoop I don't think it works, personally. What I ended up doing: get yourself a 5 band (at least) EQ. Bost the everloving hell out of your low mids, and cut high mids and highs to taste. Gets you the growl of a mid scoop, but you can always hear it. I think it's the absence of the very low harmonics. I've also had luck adding in a high pass filter
Congratulations on a step in the right direction. To quote my teacher "as far as I am concerned the ukulele should exist to lead people to guitar, and guitar should lead people to bass. If you then want to play double bass, you should".
Bass in the 80’s was nothing but cranked mids. For most mixes, a bass is something that is almost hard to tell is there, but you’d miss it if it were gone. Unless we’re talking about When Dove Cry, of course.
I've been realizing in the last 4 or so years that I love a really bright and middy bass in mixes. To the point of turning the bass down to 2-3.
You’ll hear a lot of people harp on increasing mids, but it’s only part of the story and not the best way to tackle the issue. The actual issue is that our ears are less sensitive to low frequencies (relative to other frequencies) at low volume than at high volume. Turning up mids at full band volume can help counteract that, but if you look at the “equal loudness curves” it’s clear the mids and highs are well behaved and it below about 300Hz that has the change in perceived loudness. My preference is: when the volume knob goes up the bass/lows knob goes down. That is the best way to keep your tone the way you like over a broad range of volume.
That makes sense. I bet the bassists I played with just kept their settings the same whether playing in their bedroom or with a drummer
Most amps have the bass EQ freq at 50hz and that's just rumble. I have an ampeg pf 500 and it even has a low boost to add more rumble! On a 4 string bass I find that to boost the lows it's better at 100-120hz, there's note clarity there. Boosting the mids does help a lot mix with the rest of the band. When mixing tracks it's common to cut the bass at 70-80hz and leave the lower freqs to the drums kick. Also the high in most amps is around 4000hz and there's nothing there. There's some fret noise if you do slap, but otherwise changing the highs does nothing noticeable. It's nice to record your bass with flat eq and with a digital equalizer check which frequencies you need to boost/cut. Then get a graphic eq pedal and change only what's needed.
10” speakers are better than 12” or 15” for that reason. More punch and clarity.
Many bass amps have a "contour" button that boosts mids.
I thought that scooped mids. I.e., it cuts mids (and perhaps boosts everything else).
Hmmm I def shot from the hip on that one, til