Hello, and welcome to another episode of Inside the Recording Studio. I am Jody Whitesides, and with me as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom. How are you today, Chris? I'm doing all right. I'm a little bit burned out. I've been busy, thankfully enough, the last couple of weeks here, but I'm good. I'm a little disappointed because you were a little bit pitchy on that intro there. It was pretty low for you to control, I think. So,
yeah, that's the correct answer. Yeah. Podcast intro doesn't matter, right? I was, you know what? I don't care. That's right. Why did you even bring it up? Now I got to edit that out. All right. No you don't, no you don't, it's all good. Yeah, no that's very apropos because that's what we're talking about today, right? Bass of some sort, not bass vocals, but just bass. Yeah, not... yeah, not pitchy singers because that you are definitely not. Not pitchy singers, a pitchy singer,
Yeah, indeed. Low end bass EQ frequencies to pay attention to, right? most of the time anyway. Say that 10 times fast. Yeah, I can barely say it once so I'm just gonna stick to that. Well, the obvious thing here is ding, ding, ding. All right. What are we kicking off with here? Take a drink, take a drink. It's very, very content-dependent. Now, what we're about to talk about today, Obviously.
that the frequency ranges here will be very dependent on what type of bass track you're dealing with, obviously. Like if you, yeah, if you got a, let's say [silence] that you got like a classic rock track when you got eighth notes pounding away in the low end at versus a more melodic part that's played higher up, that you're dealing with a different set of rules, essentially, or parts of the spectrum that you're gonna need to work with.
So I would say, you know, think about under pressure Damn right. from John Deacon, right? Mm-hmm. Now, you mean vanilla ice. Obviously, right? (laughs) [Laughter] Yes. Yeah, so if you're dealing with a part like that, or if you're dealing like a modern metal track, you're dealing with that differently, presumably, Sure. and not just from a sonic standpoint, but very differently from the EQ standpoint, or at least I would, so yeah.
Let's jump right into this sonic juiciness. What are you starting with? I'm thinking that I might go with a little bit [Silence] of a low cut, not very high here, because we need to be careful. So I might not even go any higher than like 30 type Yeah, I don't do a lot of high pass filtering on the base. of a thing, because there's so much stuff that still lives down there. and then we wonder why there's no weight in our tracks. What about you?
This is also, like for bass, it's one of those things that's only when needed, really, for me. Yeah. And it also is dependent upon what console I'm using at the time or the EQ for that matter. Right. some will start at 30 some will be 31 it's usually right around that 30 ish mark for their high pass filtering kind of thing. But that's assuming, of course, that we're dealing with console-style plug-in, right? Uh-huh.
But if you're just dealing with a regular type of EQ, it can behoove you to probably Right. Well, but the way I'm thinking about this is if I've got a direct input on a bass, and get away with just a little bit of that super, super low end, like below 30, because it can just be some noise in there. And we have to be careful also because we're dealing with space where the kick also lives, right? But we'll discuss that a little bit later on, I guess. Yeah. Right. We're talking electric bass today.
Comparatively to a mic bass. Very true. The mic is where you might have more issues with a low end rumble or something going on where you might need to high pass filter it. Generally with a DI bass, you don't need to. she got really noisy fingers.
Yeah, yeah noisy finger noise at like 40 cycles right that that would be pretty crazy, but yeah, you're right It's usually with that but also let's say that you're you're running that DI But you you've printed it through an amsem perhaps right so one of those you might Go bossy man. Mike that damn thing up. Of course yeah, but you know them, but then we get all the flexibility and stuff as well I've done it. Right. from all the AMPs that we could use.
That's true, we were trying to come up And another reason for being careful around high pass filtering at this point, because the sub areas are talking zero to 80 ish in that range. When you're down there that low, what you might be messing with is your general intestinal rattling that you might want in your track. (laughs) with good descriptions for this. And yeah, this is very much the sort of intestinal like, It's gonna cause me to have a movement. oh, I feel something that what is that?
That's not right. Sure. Yeah, didn't the, I think the MythBusters did that and they just said, no, it's absolutely a myth that it doesn't work that way. So, but anyway, it's still a good description, damn it. (sighs) Yeah. So that's where that lives. And it's like, ooh, let's get some weight behind it, right? Mm-hmm. But if we move up just a little bit in the range here, That's when we're really getting into the fundamentals of pitch, right, for the bass lines.
So this is something that we need to consider. >> Thank you. I know you and I have spoken about it before and I believe we talked about it on the podcast as well, where we might sit with a mix and we go, okay, well, I need more bass. So you end up reaching for like an EQ, right? But it's like, well, maybe you just need to push up a little bit because we can make things, Sure.
Well, and the big range to really be careful with down here, and we're moving up a little or I think anyway, we can make things sound a little bit more unnatural if we start boosting too much in this range, right? Yeah. bit beyond the sub range here and getting into the low end is especially in the 90 to about 110 range. And in that range, you need to be kind of careful because that's where it's a little mushy between the base and the kick.
And this isn't the same kind of mush as the mud that we'll talk about a little bit later, Yeah. but this is kind of like just a gooey area of bass and kick. And what you don't want to be doing is doing a whole lot of boosting here. And the only time that I could figure you're doing that is if you've got a really crappy, low end original situation where it's almost non-existent and then you have to try and EQ the living, but Jesus out of it to get something back in there.
That area between 90 to about 110 is just it's not a good spot to be doing a lot of boosting [no audio] Right And also one thing that we need to keep in mind when we're doing this is if we think about the frequency versus pitch, just as reference, if you're playing an open E string on a bass, that is just about 82 cycles at 82 Hz where that fundamental lives. Mm-hmm Hmm So if we keep that in mind, Sure that that's the sort of like the frequency range where there is tonal quality happening.
And of course, even lower if we're detuning or if we're using like a five string bass or something, we go down lower than that, obviously. We don't wanna be too aggressive with cutting here, but the area that you're mentioning, where we can potentially come into the first harmonic of the fundamental, we can perhaps get a little bit messy. Yes, it can like you said, if we're trying to boost stuff right there.
Mm-hmm If we keep moving up here more, if we keep going into that sort of first harmonic range, that E that I mentioned right now, we're around 164 Hertz. What do you tend to do in this range? Where do you, what do you stand? Do you tend to do some cutting? Do you tend to leave it alone? What do you do? Obviously it's whatever it needs, right?
It is whatever it needs. However, I will tend to leave it alone for the most part unless some particular note in this range is jumping out drastically and I need to maybe use a dynamic EQ that's narrowed in on the particular note that's jumping out. [ Pause ] However, that being said, in this area of about 120 ish or so, this is where it gets up above your intestinal movements. And it starts getting into the gut sensation of like, I'm really feeling this base at this [laughs] Yeah. point.
So I'm going to pay attention to that if I really want the base to feel like it's almost We're moving into the solar plexus chest area here. Yeah. like a punch. so much a intestinal thing, but more of like the gut and the above the gut and the chesty kind of thing in a way. The solar plexus area, yes. So again, something obviously to keep, to be aware of because we're dealing with the weight of the bass here, right? Now we can carry through.
Yeah. Now, depending on the part that the bass is doing, of course, something that I think we've all noticed is like during a performance, depending on whatever is going on else without the instrumentations and stuff, Yeah. certain notes can really leap out at us at certain frequency ranges.
ranges let's say that we go up from well we're moving up from the A to the G and up to A, B flat, whatever right there might be a note that is just sticking out there and then I think it can be a [no audio] cool tool to either just with volume automation but perhaps like you mentioned with the dynamic EQ or something like split EQ or something that I can possibly do a good job kind of taming those. Right.
Well, and the other thing too, on the general overall sense of the bass sound, the electric Yeah. bass sound, the 180 ish, 250 ish range can kind of be considered the meat of this particular instrument, which is different from the meat of like the guitar and the vocals. This can get in the way.
And if it's not in the way, great. If it is in the way, obviously you want to cut it. If you feel [silence] like you need a little bit more vibe in that area, then you want to use a really wide cue and maybe only boost it no more than one or two dB. Anything beyond that it's getting tad drastic Yeah. [silence] for that area.
Again, and again, all of this is so dependent on the performance because now that the EQ things that we're talking about, Mhmm, we're talking about we're assuming that we're actually playing in that range, which, in fairness, for most pop music and rock music you are, right, it's very rare that you would might just have keyboard and guitar taking up all that ( bye bye) low end and then the bass is doing something much higher in a higher
register. It's not to say that it doesn't happen. But generally, we need to think about arrangement and things. And what is the most important part here? Do we need to kind of cut some of that out to make the bass sit better in order for us to perhaps have it at the level of the track where it's prominent enough where we hear it and feel it, but it's not just sucking all the energy out of the mix, right? Valww man The base should never suck. No. Should always be a big kick in my gut.
It's almost like it's a foundation for a lot of stuff. Anyway, almost, almost like it is. Yeah. Now getting a little bit above that area that I was just speaking about where you're getting Yeah. in closer to like 275, 330-ish range. This now becomes the mud area and it's not just the mud of the bass but it could also be the mud of the kick drum too which we've spoken
about in previous episodes. Here's where you need to start thinking about well where am [ Pause ] I competing between this bass object and this kick object and which one really kind of gets [ Silence ] the prominence. And for the bass this can be problematic in here even though you've you've got fundamental notes that can be happening here, it can be very problematic when it's in conjunction with other instruments that are down in this area. Wise choices can be cutting, but with very narrow cue.
So your cue range is gonna be extremely high and then you're gonna cut to taste, so to speak. Yeah, if yeah for me if At least that's what I do, I don't know about you.
(light humming and We're talking about that relationship between Kick and bass in this range For me the kick is gonna lose Because I will generally have that much lower and To me in this range if we're getting up to like the 300 like you mentioned like 300 or possibly even higher So it's not before for me that the kick there, I'm just, there's nothing good in the kick for me here.
music) So yeah, what I'm saying is my method would probably be, unless I really have to, I would leave this range alone when it comes to the bass and then take out the kick. But there's got to be good in the base, man. Okay. [BLANK_AUDIO] Now if we're fighting with different instruments, that might be a different point. For me, it's the way that, as we're gonna go into later here, Sure, and not all of your baselines are gonna have mud in this area.
but the way the bass is recorded obviously, is imperative for any of these moves to kind of make sure that it's a good capture as possible. Yeah, it's a problematic area, I think, I'm just saying that's the general area to watch out for, is that's where the mud sure. for a lot of things. Well, I think we've taken care of just about everything where the fundamentals on the low And with that, we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And we're back.
Where are we moving on to now, Chris? ends and the gut punches and the solar plexuses and all those things. (laughs) Well, I guess I have to think about So how can we add clarity to our baseline if it needs it? If it's just not, let's see, everything here is sounding pretty good, but we're not getting the presence, I guess, and the clarity of our baseline. So where are you looking for this? What area are you looking for this, Jim?
whether you're talking clarity of the overall sound or the articulation clarity of the bass itself on an electric bass. That's a good question. Okay, for the articulation and for accents, thinking articulation wise. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna be looking somewhere in the range of 18 to 2400, Mm-hmm. (silence) is the general area. Mm-hmm. [ Silence ]
Now that can vary a little bit depending upon the bass and the person picking with their fingers or a pick and what kind of pick and what kind of strings and all that kind of garbage. So it could go down a little bit lower. maybe even possibly as low as 1600, and maybe as high as 2500, but it's in the general range of 18 to 24-ish. And in that range, you probably take a fairly narrow cue and a slight bump if you're trying to get a little bit more articulation out of your bass notes right there.
Yeah. But you have to be relatively careful with this, Yeah because this is also where a whole lot of your vocal clarity lives as well. And even though they're in two entirely different ranges, so to speak, you don't want your bass trampling all over your vocal. That's how I would look at it. And it can happen. ( So be very careful if you're trying to get ( 2nd 2nd your articulation on your bass at the same time, 3rd 4th you're trying to get some clarity out of your vocal as well. 4th 5th
Yeah, I would echo all of that for the clarity sake of the bass. This is also one thing that What about you? [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Mm-hmm. are, you know, you mentioned vocals and how much is going to be competing in that range, Yeah. right? Where we have to make that judgment calls like, well, what is the most important >> Yeah. Yep. part of the song. Let's say if we're listening to that bass just along with the drums for example,
just the rhythm section, we're like oh that clarity sounds awesome right. I can hear every note, every articulation, every little slide, every pick, it sounds amazing right. But it could very well [ Silence ] trample upon the vocal like if we're not careful. So once the vocals and everything else comes in, some of that clarity might have to be sacrificed or at least tamed somewhat. And again, I think it's one of those cases where listening in solo mode is not a good idea.
We have to hear the whole thing. But yeah, that's where the clarity lives. And one trick that I do, a fair bit, and I know you do as well, but if I'm doing more of a rock track, instead of doing [ Pause ] an EQ boost here, it might be good to use a parallel sort of distorted bass track here. They can add some of that bite without having some drastic EQ, so you can kind of get a little bit of that into the track. Now that I will generally do, as I said, on a parallel and then low cut,
relatively high on that parallel to kind of do that. So that can add some of that as well, but >> Uh-huh. Sure. [ Pause ] that clarity can be dangerous or at least tricky in a bass track because it is so content dependent, Sure. right? What kind of track are we doing? Is it that aggressive rock track where we kind of want that Sure. [ Pause ]
to poke out there or is it more of a soulful kind of sting kind of a track, right? Where we just want a nice warm bass and in that case maybe we get really aggressive here and do a lot of cutting. I don't know
Questors we have to ask yourself, but but absolutely for that that clarity of articulation. I will look in that range as well So let's say that you're looking at just like you said like 1800 to 2400 Well, and to riff upon your distortion thing, you're saying in parallel, I have been in Yeah Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. the room with a formerly famous bass player who is no longer on this earth. And he's famous for having played with a guitar player by the name of Inge-Che Malmstein.
He always played distortion on his bass. It was literally part of his sound. It was not in parallel. It was on the sound itself. It wasn't like he tracked one and then duplicated it [ and added distortion to another. And I just think in my mind of how he would even explain silence ] this, he'd be like, without distortion, you are playing like a pussy or something of that nature. (laughs) But in that genre, if you're dealing with hard rock or metal, that's the sound. the hard rock. Yeah.
It is. Yes. And I will say this. It's kind of like, yeah, it's, you know, it's just as much as the aggression of like a distorted a distorted guitar. Like that's the sound when I'm describing that as a parallel would be to a track where it's not necessarily that you could also and I've been guilty of this as well. It's really easy to overcook that also. Yeah. Yeah. I have used parallel distortion on a bass in non-rock tracks, but it gets put in there very, very lightly.
So it's almost not noticeable. But if you are intently listening in some way, shape or form, Yeah. Yeah, there's you know, we're going off where I'm going off on the tangent here a little bit off of this subject, but you probably can figure it out. It does give a nice definition to the bass part that's happening. You just have to be careful of not over, as you say, not over cooking it. Sure. Yeah, it wouldn't be much.
logics Pedal board does a great job of this actually when you're doing it because you can blend it and I've been shocked about how little you actually need to get in there when if you're thinking about percentages of sort of wet dry with the distortion for the base I mean, I'd be surprised if I would go over like 20% wet when it comes to that. So, it's, yeah.
What is the craziest base manipulation that you have done in terms of EQ to get Ooh, I would have to think about that, something right in the mix beyond the fader moves? but there was a time where I had, I believe I still have it, but I have a Sansam, Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. like the box, the Sansam, the yellow and black one, right? And there was a time where I just cranked that sucker and DI'd the That hasn't changed.
bass through that. And I didn't even have it like a clean track as I know this is it. But this is also during the time when I was really, really into like a lot of industrial stuff, right? So that was par for the course. But it's changed a fair bit, but it still holds a place in my heart, right? But that Sure. [ Pause ]
technique it was one of those things where initially you're kind of thinking about well this is wrong right you don't distort a bass but you do and it really really worked so that that's carried over for me so a lot of times where as opposed to reaching for an EQ to kind of do some some articulation I might use that trick as well but as far as like any really extreme stuff I don't know I I remember there's an album I worked on for an artist where we did three bass tracks.
Yeah, I think that's a good question. There was one straight DI, there was one amped, and then there was one sort of like DI out from the head of the amp as well, which was sort of like going through the amp section. And all in the name, let's capture as many options as possible. I think in the end, Right. [ Pause ] if at all, but I think maybe we used two of them.
And I think that it was the generally the amped cab that ended up losing out because it could get so wooly and the articulation just got lost. And that because it was like, "Wah!" You know? And it's like, "Oh, maybe we overdid that a little bit." But at least then you have the DI and stuff so you can do that. Sure. But I'm not sure if that's very extreme of anything. Yes. But what about you? but have you done anything like sacrilegious EQ wise to base? Okay, confess my son. Yes, I have.
I have taken a base track. Oh wow. I've duplicated it on one pass of the track. I would take a high pass filter and really high pass it out. Right. so that I'm getting mostly just the upper end, like the 2K range and above, to get the articulation out of it. All right. On the other version of the same track, I would do a low pass filter and probably low pass it as low as like 250. So you're cutting out like a whole lot of the mids.
It's almost like using the Eventide plugin Fission, but doing it with two tracks and just two EQs. Uh-huh. All the meat in the middle had to go. and literally just going for the low end girth and the high end clarity and erasing everything in the middle. All the meat in the middle had to go. Yeah. Huh. What? Yeah, I was going to say what?
And what's interesting about it is the rest of the track supported that and it worked 'cause you got the feeling of what the bass was doing 'cause you still have got the articulation of the actual playing and then you've got the low end g of the bottom And then the rest of the mids and the meat and everything else is taken up by the rest of the instrumentation in the track. Now granted, it's a very dense track, but it worked.
Sans and lots of guitars and everything else, ungodly amount of instrumentation that it takes place to be able to carry that giant hole. Yeah. Why if it works, it works, right? When we're talking about, you know, there's a lot of stuff, so that worked. It's very abnormal, but it worked. yeah, well, those are the kinds of like the times when you said that you sang through a (laughs) Sticked your mouth right on it.
Paizo microphone, right? So if it calls for it, it, you know, experimentation is key here, right? Right, not something I would do on every track for sure. and it might not be something that you do on every track, but... Right, yeah, no, I'm just gonna create a giant hole here for myself. (laughs) Yeah, exactly. Well, as Nigel Tufnell said, you know, it's a small line between stupid and clever. Gives you the impression that the bass is there, but it's not. [ Chuckling ]
What about high-end, though? Do you deal with high-end, really, on the bass here? or... Yeah. All right. It's rare that the bass is going to get anything beyond the clarity area and possible distortion. Unless the track is really calling for the bass to sound like it's sitting in some kind of room And you need to hear the error of the room. I might EQ the error of Some weird reason of putting a reverb on a bass which doesn't happen often, but it can happen
It's not something that's common for me. What about you? I tend to get rid of it if I can. I mean if you have a dense enough track and Mm-hmm Okay. this is something I've noticed like Chris Lordology do a lot of times because he's certainly not afraid of extreme EQ moves and he's a fan of this and I've tried it before where he's just like yeah high shelf on the bass yeah crank it type of thing, right? Just to have a certain sound in a dense rock mix or
>> Right. Yeah. whatever. And it can work sometimes but to me I get mixed results with that and I think I find that scooping things out here or just leaving them alone is probably better for me. But it's not a whole lot... it's kind of like what we Thank you.
talked about whether it's electric guitars and stuff. Once you get above like AK or nowhere probably 6k right is there anything really worth there but just like fizziness and unless you're doing it they say you're doing like a finger style jazz track right where you want that instrument to really breathe and it's a trio or whatever you might keep that in there yeah no I'm not a big fan of high But that's not bass.
end on bass. But that's just me. I could be wrong. Yeah. So, you know, now I think, but all in all, when we're talking about EQing bass, I think I generally do less EQing on the bass, I think, overall than on a lot of other stuff. Let's say certainly when it comes to drums, right? Because, Get off it. No, it's not, but I'm just saying, so that my sort of philosophy as a whole when it comes to EQing bass is generally more subtle, I would say. Maybe.
I certainly take into consideration the parts that we're dealing with here, but as always, like if we're having to do too much EQ moves or too drastic EQ moves here, it's probably maybe time for a re-record maybe? That's, yeah. My high and low pass filter example is, it wouldn't have taken a rerecord, but it's one Sure, but that's also clearly more towards the experimental scale and just making sure that it works as opposed to the norm, right?
of those super extreme examples that is very rare to have ever happen. That's why I wanted to bring it up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sometimes you do that and it's like, but let's say that that move hadn't worked for you. Then it would have been time for retooling. Then you probably, for a re-record, yeah, exactly. But paying attention to the part, the way it is, what it is, what kind of track it is, and use it judiciously or not. But just make it work. There you go, yeah. That's true.
Words were never spoken. Make it work. All right. And with that, we're going to move on to our Friday finds Chris. I'm fairly certain that I have mentioned this piece of software before, but yes, but it really, really came, I don't want to say to my rescue this week, but as I said, I had a relatively busy couple of weeks here recording guitars for certain clients. What have you got for us today? Shame on you. [silence]
It was one of those things where I used it on this track and I could just get the results I wanted really really quickly and it sounded really really good. There was a fair bit of breadth to the sound. Mm-hmm It wasn't just like one thing, it was I needed to do this, I needed to do that, and I needed Great you haven't mentioned what it is to do another thing sound wise. And it just came through man. It was like okay yeah so oh I should probably do that shouldn't I? Yes
Neural DSP is sold on a 100 plug-in. I got so excited I forgot to mention it All right then You yeah no that that really you know it's just a DI guitar going in and yeah it pulled a few knobs that thing smoked it's great I know I mentioned too many guitar amp sims on this podcast. But that's one, maybe it's because I have a Solano. I really like Solano stuff. Again, that's my Friday fine for this week. And you, sir, I believe you're gonna go in a different direction than I am.
Very different. I'm going with the orchestral tools habitat Yeah. Ooh. Yes, I I'm unfamiliar. Have been unfamiliar with this as well until I came across it and I was like, holy cow [ Pause ] I think I need something like this especially with an upcoming film that I'm supposed to be working with the idea of the orchestral tools habitat is that you can link synths and acoustic orchestral instruments in very different ways.
It's like a great resource for those who are really into pads and creative textures. Okay, I'll have to check that out. It is the culmination of a partnership as well. And it's technically just called Habitat, but it's a partnership between orchestral tools and polymath. And I've never heard of either of these companies, but it seems like a really cool situation that they're throwing out into the world that you can do some pretty wild stuff with these scents that they've created Awesome.
along with acoustic orchestral samples to go with it. That's my pick for this week. Yes. Awesome. [ Pause ] While we have your attention, we ask that you go to Inside the Recording Studio and sign up for our mailing list. Doing so will get you weekly reminders about the Tuesday tips when they come out, and we'll make sure that you don't miss any future episodes of the podcast. [ Pause ] Send us an email at goldstar@insidetherecordingstudio.com (no audio) with the word base.
(Applause) And you'll get something cool back in your inbox [ Pause ] if you have a topic or a suggestion for Chris and I to explain in a future episode, contact us at the contact page and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode. In addition to this and all of that that I've just mentioned, if you like stuff and getting it for free, You might want to check out another page on our website called the giveaway
page because we do run giveaways from time to time. And with that, Thanks for listening, people. I'll say see you next week. shake your A, M , Talk to you later, Jody. E. (