hey what's going on guys Pete here with
mix better now calm and learning to mix
calm and today we're going to be
continuing in part two of mixing bass
from scratch now back in part one we
kind of focused on the bass di track all
the processing on there as well as
checking out the parallel compression
parallel EQ and parallel distortion
buses so in part two here we're going to
be checking out the bass amp track as
well as the bass bus alright so in case
you guys missed part one you can click
on the link in the description box and
check that out also if you have yet to
download this multitrack session this
has lights are low from Matt McHale ken
you can click on the link in the
description box and when you sign up on
my email list I send you my free audio
swag bag which is full of all kinds of
goodies like this multitrack session
we've got another one in there got a
bunch of drum samples my personal mix
templates that I use in a variety of
different DW so there's a lot of cool
stuff in there
we're working inside a studio once a day
just continuing mixing this track and
we're gonna be focusing like I said on
the bass amp and on the bass bus but
first let's just go ahead and take a
listen to where we're at in the mixing
drums from scratch series this is what
our drums sort of sound like at the
moment
okay now I'm gonna bring in the bass di
[Music]
okay so that's where we are currently at
so let's take a look at this bass amp so
what I've done is I've essentially just
duplicated the DI as I was talking about
in part one
you know 99% of the time you're gonna
get a bass di track in a session whether
it's from a client or whether it's
something you know that you record or
you know whatever it's it's
predominantly one of the easiest ways to
get a decent sounding bass into your
session so I always like to sort of get
a little bit of that bass amp tone and
feel in my session so in this case we
got no bass amp track so we're gonna
make our own so by duplicating it we can
sort of Forge a track that sounds like
you know your bass was going through a
whole bass amp break so let's click on
over here to the bass amp track now I'm
running both of these to this bass bus
okay as well as the this parallel P bass
which stands for parallel bass track and
then this dirt which is our parallel
distortion right it's all coming and
hitting our bass boss that way we have
everything on one fader so once we dial
in you know how much of the blend we
want between the DI and the amp and the
parallel processing you know we've got
one fader to control all four so on the
amp track here the first thing that I
have which is on just about all of my
other tracks is the slate VCC it's the
same setting we're going into this Brit
for ke channel which is their new SSL
again this is across every single track
in this session the only thing that we
have mixed thus far is the drums and now
we're working on the bass so all the
guitars all the keys all the scents and
vocals are you know they're all raw
they're not mixed so after the VCC I'm
gonna go ahead and put on a bass amp sim
so let me just move this over a little
bit here and look you don't have to use
any of the same things that I'm using
I'm just showing you what I like to do
you know we all have our preferences and
what we think good tone is but some of
my favorite bass amp Sims are
the the ampeg series from you ad so here
I have the SVT VR pulled open you know
look it's a specific flavor it's a
certain type of bass head you know they
also have you know you could go with a
be 15 or like a more modern solid-state
hybrid you know like the SVT 3 so what
this is just to show you that we have
plenty of different options so what I've
decided to do here is I'm running it
into a 1 by 15 cabinet with a specific
microphone type so we have the option
here to pick our cabinet sizes as you
can see 8 by 10 1 by 15 we can go with a
4 by 10 and then we have a variety of
different options if you will so you
know 2 dynamic 57s I'm sure you can
figure out that's that's an 8 by 10 with
2 57s on it you know ribbon mics blue
this would indicate I would imagine you
know a the blue speakers I could always
be wrong you know we've got the the
dynamic 7 which I'm sure is the the
shirt sm 7 so you know what's nice is we
can toggle through and get a variety of
different tones now with this bass amp
sim it's about as simple as it gets so
its emulating an SVT head and we got a
volume knob and then a tone stack treble
mid range and bass so much like a tube
amp what I like about this is it reacts
where the harder you hit it right the
more signal we put into it it sounds
like the tubes break up check it out
[Music]
now if i bypass this and you listen to
just what the deai sounds like it's very
thin and anemic sounding
now I realized that there's a volume
difference there but I'm doing that on
purpose okay I want to push quite a bit
of level in here and I'll show you it'll
make sense with the rest of the plugins
that we have up here so I'm just pushing
a little bit of trouble in mids because
I really want to get some of that pick
attack and some of that grind to come
out of the base you know for example if
I was to change the 1 by 15 speaker and
we went over to something like an 8 by
10 it's going to completely change the
complexion of this track
[Music]
so you know I'm just going through a
couple different random settings there
but you know I've settled on this one by
15 with the 563 and you know it's giving
me the tone that I want if we wanted to
use another head we could pull in
something like RB 15 here we can pop
this guy on and it's going to give us a
whole different flavor
[Music]
now the one constant between them all is
it sounds like a you know like a bass
amp that's being pushed with a bass
guitar and that's really being miked up
so that's a desirable thing and that's
exactly what I'm going for here because
I want to take that you know all that
size and that and that breakup and a
little bit of that grit that we get and
and the whole goal here is to blend it
back in with the DI and the parallel
processing to give us one overall very
cool sounding bass tone so we're gonna
stick with the with the SVT here because
it sounds good it's doing what I needed
to do and it's very very simple to use
so after my you know my amp head or my
bass sim I like to do just a little bit
of EQ so here you can pull in whatever
EQ you like and the important thing is
is what I'm doing here so I'm just
rolling off and tightening up some of
the bottom here and I'm doing the same
thing on the top now by filtering out
some of the bottom here for me it
tightens it up because we're stimulating
quite a bit of of low-end by driving
that bass amp pretty hard we get the
harmonics you know sort of floating
around so I'm just kind of you know
gently taking off the sub lows that
we're really not going to be able to
hear so I'm high passing the 27 Hertz
with a 24 DB per octave slope and on the
top-end Here I am doing the opposite
where I'm low passing to around 14 K 15
ki something like that just because I
you know I don't want to have any
unnecessary fizz or finger noise or
anything like that so it just sort of
covers me on both ends and then I'm
taking out around 300 Hertz here just a
little cut something that sounded a
little bit nasally to me you know I'll
show you what that sounds like
[Music]
now it's not major okay it's just a
little you know a little bit of
fine-tuning but nonetheless I feel like
it makes a difference now after our EQ
right here I like to hit it with a
little bit of compression but this time
we're gonna be doing something different
than we did on the DI the DI now when
the DI we used some pretty classic
analog compressors to give us our tone
here I like to use a little bit of
multiband compression because I want to
compress the low-end differently then
I'm gonna compress the mid-range now for
me this is very strategic because I I
sort of want to push down the transience
of the low-end you know to sort of
smooth them out a little bit but I want
the mid-range to to really poke through
because we're getting a lot of cool
things like pick attack in you know
getting our sort of the nose of the bass
to poke out a little bit so check out
what this looks like
[Music]
so we're never really doing more than
three DB of compression on any of the
bands but but these two bands down
towards the bottom are working the
hardest you know and then going up
towards the top this guy is you know
it's sort of not doing a whole lot it's
just it's just taming a little bit of
that and we don't need anything up top
here because there's really not much
frequency information up there so for me
this is exactly what I need to just
smooth it out in all the right places
now the next thing that we're gonna do
after the compressor here is sometimes
not all the time but sometimes I like to
add what I would call a color box so I
happen to have the culture vulture
pulled open here okay some other plugins
that I really like to use in this
situation would be something like the
the black box analog design hg2
or the soundToys Decapitator and sort of
what my mindset is here is I like to
think of myself as as if I'm the bass
player you know and I'm playing with my
band and we're in the studio or in the
live room and we're tracking is that a
lot of bass players like to use boost
paddles as I'd like to use overdrive
pedals of some sort just to sort of
elevate their you know their overall
bass tone so the way that I'm treating
the culture vulture here is as if it is
a you know like a bass pedal so I'm
thinking of this whole chain sort of
like you know a bass player would be
plugging into the amp and then going
through you know your pedal board in a
certain way so what this is going to do
is it's going to input in part a little
bit even more harmonics for us in this
case I am using the first pentode
setting here for the distortion type and
I'm just adding a little bit of Drive
okay so we'll pull it in and out and
we'll let you hear what it sounds like
this is very subtle but for me it just
kind of adds a little bit of flavor
[Music]
all right so for me that's just giving
us a little bit of fur and rounding off
the edges now one thing to keep in mind
is it's always important to keep that
bottom end sort of under control and in
check so I'm gonna go ahead and throw
another round of filtering in just
because I want to make sure that we're
not getting any of that rumbly sub
buildup because on the amp track it's
not quite as necessary you know to get
those those roaring subs I mean we can
get a lot of the low-end from the base
the eye and the parallel processing so
you know I'm just gonna throw another
round of filtering on here going to 30
Hertz with a 12 DB per octave slope so
it's even more gentle but the reason
that I have this here after the the
culture vulture is because once we
stimulate more harmonic content you're
gonna get a little bit more excitement
in the low end so we're just keeping it
all in check we're doing multiple small
moves which are gonna add up to sort of
you know one big bass tone in the end
now one of the most important things
when when blending a duplicated track
you know with its with the one that
you've basically duplicated it from is
that you have to watch out for for phase
issues okay now in this particular
instance I believe we're alright but
what happens is if we look at our
waveform and we zoom in quite a bit you
can see that the that the movement of
the waveform is is sort of rising and
falling at the same time as it should be
to be in phase so for example if if
visually this was out of phase one would
be going up and the other waveform would
be going down sort of at the same time
cancelling out a whole bunch of your low
end frequencies but because you're
duplicating it and this is something
that we have to listen for I always make
sure that I have a phase flip on here
because you know we've got a lot of
plugins on here so if I go ahead and
take out the B 15 well we'll leave it in
just because this sort of you know is my
point is that on the mix tool here I
have a phase invert phase button on okay
so when this is on the phase is going to
be flipped and when it's off its going
to be
normal now I will always check this and
I'll always flip the phase because one
sound is always going to sound better
sometimes on a duplicated track when you
add plugins to it you know it's it's it
can be latency in some of the plugins
and whatnot that might you know give you
a little bit of wonkiness on the phase
so this is just something that I like to
always check so we'll turn on the bass
di track we'll do it in conjunction
blend them and then I like to turn this
on whichever one sounds better I will
leave it on
[Music]
okay so you know I'm gonna leave it as
is I don't want to flip the phase on it
but as you can hear we kind of lose a
little bit of that low-end when you flip
the phase sometimes depending on the
plugins you use you flip the phase and
then all of a sudden BAM you get all
your low-end back and you're like I
can't believe you know that was even
happening so you know just be cognizant
that that could be an issue okay so now
we have our bass amp track pretty much
all dialed in our bass di track is all
dialed in the parallel tracks are
sitting good now we're sending all of
this over here to our bass boss okay so
I have a couple things up nothing major
I have two different compressors and
then I have another EQ so what I like to
do on the bass bus is I like to just
glue both tracks together with a little
bit of compression so I'll typically you
know I'll reach for you know an analogue
style compressor maybe like this
Fairchild or if I want something on the
transparent side of things I can go for
you know something like the fabfilter or
the Sonics compressor because it's going
to generally give us a much more clean
type of compression than something like
the Fairchild will so if we come over
here to the fabfilter flip this guy on
now again the bass di the bass amp the
parallel compression and the parallel
distortion are all coming into the bass
boss right I want them all on one fader
like I said so we're gonna glue
everything here just gentle gentle
compression two to one ratio I have it
on the clean setting because I want a
clean compressor if we use this I have
an attack time around you know eight
milliseconds nine milliseconds something
like that nothing too fast nothing's you
slow and the release is right around 200
it's at 193 right now so I only want to
do about one to three DB of compression
at the most so let's see where we're at
[Music]
so as you can see from what it is
physically compressing you know we're
just getting a lot more of a smooth
performance from both tracks here now if
hypothetically we wanted to go with
something that's got a little bit more
color to it I would grab something like
the Fairchild here what's nice is the
harder we push this input gain the more
we're going to hit the model tubes at
transformers inside of it so again I'm
just going to go for a little bit of
compression here
[Music]
so I really like the way that this
sounds for this particular song so I'm
gonna leave the fair child on and then I
do have another EQ set up right here
just in the event that once we bring the
band back in if we hear a little bit too
much low-end we could always filter that
out or if I hear another frequency from
all these stages coming to one bus you
know we can handle it so we'll leave
that off right now and sort of the proof
in the pudding is is sort of blending
the DI with the amp okay so you can
basically choose to have one be the
dominant sound or the dominant tone in
this particular song you know it's a
rock tune I'm gonna stick with the bass
amp here so what I'll do is I'll pull
the DI all the way down and I'll go
ahead and just listen to the bass amp on
its own and then I'm going to push this
fader up a little bit we're gonna tuck
it underneath underneath excuse me and
you know we'll see if we want more
parallel compression we push this up if
we want more Distortion all we got to do
is push this up and then once we set all
these we're only gonna have to move one
fader
[Music]
now we're going to change the tone
dramatically if I if I sort of switch
these if we leave this around unity and
then we fold the amp underneath it
you're gonna get a little bit of a
different sound
[Music]
so really it just depends on what you
like and it depends on how it sounds in
the context with everything else in so
what we're gonna do is we'll bring the
drums in we'll bring the percussion in
and then we'll bring the acoustic
guitars the electric guitar is in now
keep in mind none of this is mixed I'm
just using this as a gauge to see how
our bass is holding up with everything
else in I'm gonna bring in this one
synth track because it sort of is
predominant throughout the whole song
and we'll listen to where it's out I'm
going to move some faders around and see
how the tone of the basses
[Music]
all right so I think it sounds pretty
cool in contacts with everything the
only thing that I feel like is happening
there is when you bring the guitars in I
mean there's what two four six eight
there's like ten guitar tracks and it's
just getting a little bit lost so
something that I might explore as an
option is since we have our Hugh here I
did wind up putting the filter on I feel
like it just tightened up the bottom
there was a lot of sort of low-end wolf
happening but I might want to explore
boosting one or two DB of something in
the mid-range that's going to bring out
a little bit of presence and a little
bit of cut as you can see I pushed up
the the distortion quite a bit I pushed
up the the compression quite a bit now
just remember after the compression
we're doing quite a bit of EQ so we are
getting some some 3k and some 5k in
there but I just think I'm gonna see if
we can't find a frequency that's gonna
make this cut just a little bit more
right here
[Music]
okay so for me a little bit of 3k seems
to be just letting it poke its nose out
a little bit there and it's sitting well
so what's cool about this now is that as
we kind of move forward and keep mixing
this song you know we go to the acoustic
guitars and the electrics and the keys
we have a really good foundation for a
bass tone that sounds nice and big
it sounds realistic it doesn't sound you
know wimpy or thin or anything like that
the drums are holding up really well so
I'm pretty stoked with how the bass
sounds here I hope you guys like it now
look there's there's always you know a
dozen different ways to skin a cat and
it's no difference in mixing you know do
whatever you like but this is just kind
of what I do and what I find helps me
you know in situations like this so I
hope you guys can take some of it on
board and apply it to your own practices
all right guys so that's it for me as
always I just want to say thank you so
much for watching I appreciate your time
if you guys enjoyed this video please
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just want to say thanks again for
watching I hope you all have an awesome
day and I will catch you next time
[Music]