Managing the mid frequencies of bass

Quotec

Active Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2013
Hiyall!

I got a neuroish bass sound that I processed by bandpassing the mid frequencies and making those classical automations(sweep up and down). The problem though is that many bass sounds have a critical, most audible and most exciting part right in the mid and upper mid frequencies which I have bandpassed. The latter unfortunately influences the bass character in an unpleasant way. How could I bandpass and still retain some of bass´s mid frequencies character? Should I first boost mid frequencies and than play around with bandpass or there´s some other way? I know many folks advise to distort a lot, but which type of distortion to use and how much of it? :carlton::carlton::carlton:
 
How a bass sounds in isolation is fairly insignificant. It's how it sits in the mix that matters. It's easy(ish/er) to create a great bass sound in isolation, but not uncommon for it to vanish once you sit it within a track. If you are dealing with distorted bass tones, then those distortions often have their 'fatness' and punch around 250-450Hz, with the bit from the harmonic content in the distortion around the 1KHz mark. This is often a safe rule both digitally, and when detailing with a bass guitar and a distortion/fuzz pedal. Obviously each synth/effect/pedal/sound has it;s own content, and so those frequencies may move about a fair bit, but I would start trying to pick out though frequencies in your bass sound and see if they add some presence to the bass in the mix. Maybe use a number of filters to cut out frequencies around those points, just to leave critical frequencies in.

Shep
 
Like submix said, through psychoacoustics your ears fill in the gaps and at some point you may want to experiment on a mixdown of a tune by doing a numbers mix and cutting everything to its place, before seeing how it comes together in the end, maybe throw a quick mastering job on there to trial a finished version. sometimes cutting specific parts more cleverly can yield a phatter end result.
 
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