Get That Pro Sound -

The Ultimate Guide to Bass

First Edition
Publication date: September 2013
Published by George Robinson
Getthatprosound.com
Copyright George Robinson, All rights reserved.
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While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this
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omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Of
course, please let me know if you fnd any errors and Ill correct them!
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Contents
1. Introduction........................................................................................ 4
Bass Is The Foundation
2. Why Is Bass Diffcult To Deal With?.................................................. 5
Acoustic Treatment Solutions
3. Part 1: Getting A Bass Sound............................................................ 8
Initial Recording: Acoustic And Electric Bass
Initial Synth Bass Sound Programming In 5 Steps
4. Part 2: Refning The Sound, And Fitting It Into The Mix................ 14
Mix Order: Bass, And The Rest
Distortion For Additional Punch
Bass Attack
Bass Compression
Bass EQ
Harmonic Enhancers
Bass Panning
Bass And Effects
5. Part 3: Finishing, Testing And Mastering....................................... 21
Mastering Bass
Judgement Day
6. Conclusion......................................................................................... 23
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Introduction
Bass Is The Foundation
Having a tght, punchy low end in your tracks is a prerequisite for a professional-sounding
mix.
Partcularly today with the development of bass music, bass is taking centre stage like never
before, ofen taking on the roles of lead sound and providing the main musical hook as well
as its conventonal functon of ofering low-frequency weight and support to the other
instruments.
But regardless of whether you make electronic music, rock, pop, folk or any other style or genre,
get the low end component right and you have the perfect stable foundaton for the rest of the
producton; get it wrong or laving it unrefned and youll fnd almost everything else you try will
be something of an uphill struggle towards getng a consistent, powerful mix.
Thats where this guide comes in. Well examine the bass range all the way from recording or
programming the ideal bass sound, to ftng it into a full arrangement and grooving with the
drums, to efects, processing, mixing and mastering.
Everything youll need to craf the perfect bass, and low end in general, for any type of
producton.
Lets get into it...
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Why Is Bass Diffcult To Deal With?
Room Modes, Acoustics and Solutions
Very ofen its clear that the bass elements of a mix are coming through too muddy, boxy, or
apparently turn acoustcally invisible in the context of a full mix. Frustraton sets in, because
whats not clear is how to resolve these problems.
In principle, bass is simple: once you come to the mix there shouldnt be a huge number of dif-
ferent elements whose primary frequency ranges are in the low frequencies, so were mostly
talking here about, frst, keeping everything else out of the way frequency-wise with fltering
and EQ, and then getng bass guitars or synth basslines and kick drums working together, sup-
plying the low end groove and weight.
But while the bass component of your tracks is made up of relatvely few and simple elements,
it can be surprisingly tricky to get them working together to optmum efect, without either
over- or under-emphasizing the low frequencies. As youve no doubt discovered if youve been
making music at home, its trickier stll for small project studio producers with less-than-ideal
listening environments and speaker systems. But why is this?
The environment in which you mix or listen to your music has a huge bearing on the perceived
level of the diferent frequencies. This is why top studios spend houndreds of thousands on
acoustc treatment, or simply design the space from the ground up with optmum acoustc qual-
ity in mind (by optmum, we generally mean a room which colours the sound as litle as possi-
ble, providing a fat response across all frequencies without emphasizing or reducing partcular
ranges).
In a typical home or project studio, we have relatvely poor acoustc conditons for such trans-
parent reproducton of our music, and this problem is compounded if we use inappropriate
(not necessarily cheap) monitor speakers, or positon our monitors in the room in such a way
that their otherwise fat frequency response is compromised (i.e. too close to walls or corners,
or positoned to fre across the shortest distance to the opposite wall rather than down the
longest dimension the room ofers).
In small rooms its the bass frequencies that are most afected by poor acoustcs and short
distances between surfaces because bass frequencies. This is because with their longer wave-
lengths than higher frequencies, bass sounds are much more prone to phase cancellaton
(sometmes referred to as standing waves or room modes in the feld of acoustcs). We dont
want to get too deep into acoustcs and sound 101 here, but imagine that bass waves are liter-
ally larger rollers compared to higher frequency choppy waves and ripples: there are fewer of
them, but each one is more signifcant to the overall sound. In a small room, if the wavelength
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of a partcular frequency divides evenly into any of the distances between opposing walls or
between the foor and ceiling, the refected waves will phase cancel each other as they bounce
back and forth. What this means in efect is that sounds at exactly that frequency will disap-
pear or at least signifcantly reduce in perceived level. In some rooms you might experience
reductons/holes of up to 35dB at partcular intervals along the frequency spectrum. Clearly
this is not so great when youre trying to judge relatve levels while mixing! Even though you
wont necessarily be aware of the uneven frequency response of your room while mixing, your
mix results will show it like this: if sounds at 100Hz are being phase cancelled or otherwise
efected by the acoustcs of your room, they will appear quieter to you so youll naturally mix
those frequencies a litle higher. Everything will sound great in there, untl you play the track
outside your studio and on other listening systems, at which point the increased 100Hz compo-
nent will be painfully apparent.
Related to this problem, bass has the perceived tendency to collect in the corners of a room,
and this is most apparent in three-point corners, for example where two walls also meet the
ceiling. In a typical small project studio, all the edges and corners are that much closer to the
listening positon that would be ideal, so again these bass enhancements are made more ap-
parent.
Acoustic Treatment Solutions
Before you give up any hope of ever mixing anything in any room though, here are the primary
solutons to those acoustcs problems: bass traps, broad-band acoustc treatment, speaker se-
lecton and proper speaker placement.
Bass traps are generally positoned in corners, and consist of foam triangles (either pur-
pose-built acoustc foam or homemade versions with ceiling insulaton wool will actually work
equally well). The deeper the foam the more efectve the traps will be, both in terms of the dB
amount they reduce bass frequencies and the range of frequencies they will work down to (i.e.
the thicker the trap the deeper the frequency it will work to, the trade-of being the amount of
space very thick traps and panels will take up in a small room!).
Broad-band acoustic treatment would typically consist of as many ridged foam pan-
els as you can ft onto the exposed walls and other large fat surfaces. Not specifcally designed
to deal with bass like the traps, some general taming of the mid and high frequencies is stll ob-
viously desirable, and will indirectly efect how you mix the relatve balance of bass with these
other ranges.
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Appropriate speakers for your studio are essentally the best monitors you can aford
that are designed to provide the correct power for the size of room you are working in. Theres
litle point getng huge Genelecs with a separate sub-bass unit to put under the desk if youre
working in a cloakroom. Youll be sitng so close to them the majority of the tme that the ad-
ditonal power will be wasted; it would be far beter to opt for nearfeld monitors, callibrated
for the purpose of accurate frequency response at close quarters and comfortable levels for
extended use.
Also, if you are going to use headphones to mix (not recommended, but in some situatons its
unavoidable), dont use them exclusively without also testng your mixes on other systems.
More on this later.
Proper speaker placement is simple to do and can completely change the sound
youre getng from them. Usually there are suggestons from the manufacturers in the manual
that it would be wise to follow, but typically theyll tell you things like:
Keep monitors a minimum distance from walls and avoid corners wherever possible
Place monitors along the shortest wall so that theyre fring down the longest dimension in
the room (this minimizes the efect of refectons of the back wall to the listening positon)
Positon monitors upright (not on their sides) and with the tweeters at the same height as
your ears when seated at the listening positon
Isolate them from stands and desks with foam pads (the Auralex ones are favourites) to
minimize vibratons and keep the low frequency response as tght as possible.
Its also worth mentoning here that with an amazing monitoring system and listening environ-
ment in place, its easy to forget that your music is likely to be listened to by other people on
crappy phone speakers, in cars, on radio (hopefully) and ringy MP3-streamed from Youtube to
tnny laptops and headphones. None of these will give you the kind of deep bass response you
get in your studio in some of these cases they just cant reproduce any real bass at all! - so
well be looking at the various tricks and ways to make your bass sound amazing on any system
throughout the guide.
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Part 1: Getting A Bass Sound
Bass Fit For Purpose
As we just mentoned, not everyone has a relatvely pristne listening environment in which your
bass sounds will be reproduced faithfully.
If youre making club music or anything that is specifcally designed to be played over a large
soundsystem, the rules are slightly diferent about what you can get away with when creatng
huge sub-bass sounds, because a club system will be able to accurately depict very low frequen-
cies. However, when playing music very loud and over large systems, the apparent freuqency
response will change, so youd stll be wise to test your club mixes as much as possible on real
soundsystems before locking your project studio-produced mix.
For everything else that needs to sound good over a wide range of diferent playback systems,
or for club music that you stll want to sound good elsewhere, youll want to focus on enhancing
the perceived level of certain bass frequencies and allow psychoacoustcs to help our ears and
brains fll in the sense of power.
First of all, consider that even decent home hi-fs dont reproduce frequencies lower than 40Hz,
and most domestc listening systems wont do much below 80Hz. So begin your journey towards
a good bass by making sure the bass sound is providing plenty of energy somewhere in the 70-
100Hz range. This will ensure the fundamental bass frequency wont be lost on the vast major-
ity of playback systems.
(Where exactly the bass hits most will partly depend on where the kick drum sits as well, as you
want the two working together. More on that below.)
Take Care From The Start: Take Time To Experiment, Trial And Error
Try to avoid the garbage in, garbage out syndrome by making sure you start with the very best,
or at least most musically appropriate bass sound. Whether its a sample, a real bass guitar or
a synth bass patch, do as much as you can at source to get the bass sounding great. Yes, it does
take some tme to experiment and discover the right combinaton of source, additonal process-
ing and EQ etc. but its always tme well spent, and tme that you might otherwise use fxing
problems with the sound and how it fts at the mix stage later.
Initial Recording: Acoustic And Electric Bass
Well start with looking at how to record real bass instruments, both acoustc or electric. Usu-
ally with bass guitar the best opton is to DI the signal directly from the guitar output (or possi-
bly the last box in a hardware or stompbox efects chain) into your soundcard or audio interface.
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However, if you have acoustc bass instruments of you want to get more ambience into the
inital recording, youll need to mic up either the instrument itself or the amplifer. There are a
few mics specifcally designed for recording bass instruments, so if you can get your hands on an
AKG D12 or D112, Shure Beta 52A or Audix D6 youll have the tools optmized for the job. These
mics are tailored for bass applicatons in their frequency response (with reduced mid-range and
a slight peak in 3-4kHz to pick up the all-important atack click for defniton) and can withstand
the kind of sound pressure levels generated by kick drums and other botom-heavy sources.
Of course its defnitely possible and wise to conisder more neutral general purpose mics as
well, partcularly if youre miking the amp and want to capture some nice room ambience. Here
an FET condenser-type mic will be best such as the Neumann U87 and U47 or AKG C414. Just be
careful not to overload and damage such relatvely sensitve mics by placing them too close to
high-SPL sources, like acoustc bass or bass amps! As ever, experiment with mic placement (tak-
ing into account the pickup/polar patern of your partcular mic) and distance as this will always
have a signifcant efect on the quality, presence and warmth of the recording. For a start, if you
want a warmer and more ambient bass sound try pointng the mic further of-centre, away from
the middle of the amp cabinet itself.
Of course theres nothing stopping you having the best of both worlds and combining both a
recorded mic (or even multple mics) and a DI signal. This will give you maximum fexibility in
the mix to add more or less character, warmth or ambience as the situaton requires just be
careful and check the phase alignment between your two bass sources, as one or other is likely
to need slight adjustng to make sure theyre hitng exactly together.
Worldized Bass
Even if your bass originates from a synth or sample, you can stll mic it up to imbue it with ad-
ditonal real-world ambience and vibe. This is a trick that comes most famously from the flm
sound design world, where sound designers would take their fantasy and sci-f sounds and play
them back over a small speaker positoned and miked up in a real world locaton such as a sub-
way staton or elevator shaf. This would give the fabricated sounds a real reverb and character
that can be quite diferent to what could be achieved with studio processing. Plus, its way more
fun to record stuf in unusual spaces, and youre guaranteed to come with original sounds!
Initial Synth Bass Sound Programming In 5
Steps
Unlike with a bass guitar part in a typical rock song, its not always very clear how a synth bass
part should sound in order to fulfl its role in the complete mix. The optons are limitless with
VSTi synth patches and presets, but it can be difcult to fgure out from amongst all the possibi-
lites what the track actually wants. Of course much of the quality of a given bass sound is purely
artstc choice, and with many style of electronic its normal to base the entre track around the
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character or motf of the bass sound. But whether the bass takes centre stage or not, it stll
needs to hit certain technical marks in order for the entre mix to work. For example, you want
it to provide wieght, but not so much that it unbalances the mix; you also want it to cut through
the other elements and actually be audible, which is a challenge in itself for low frequency
sounds in a busy mix.
So with creatve and technical consideratons in mind, here are some tps for the inital program-
ming of your bass sound (or preset selecton for further tweaking as you progress to the mix):
1. Start With A Sound Or Waveform With Plenty Of Harmonics
Even if youre aiming to create a sub bass sound that will appear to be just a deep thudding
boom, its a good idea to start with at least some other harmonically rich component layered
over the basic sine wave: sine waves literally have no harmonics (hence the smoothness of the
waveform), so any fltering you do on a sine wave will simply reduce its level, and anyway as you
turn a deep sine wave up loud enough to hear, youll use up far more of your available head-
room than is really necessary.
Using additonal saw or square waves will not only provide additonal sonic character to tweak
into your perfect bass sound, but these waves inherent upper harmonics will enable the sound
to literally cut through the mix and register at lower listening volumes and on smaller lsitening
devices. Remember, harmonically rich sounds will always appear louder than pure tones.
Old School Waves
Its worth notng that the classic Roland
TB-303 bass synth, beloved by many
dance producers, ofered only saw
and square wave optons the lack of
a pure sine wave didnt stop it from
producing killer, heavy bass sounds.
If you ever wondered what the
harmonic diference is between the
diferent wave types, saw waves
contain all of the integer harmonics
(both odd and even), while square
waves contain only the odd, integer
harmonics. Triangle waves are much
less harmonically rich than saws or
squares, making them a poor choice
for bass sounds in most circumstances,
while sine waves have no harmonics at
all.
In fact, many electronic producers literally con-
struct their bass sound as two or three separate
components, programming diferent sounds that
occupy specifc frequency ranges and that give
the impression of a single frequency-spanning
behemoth when played together. This allows the
sub-bass to do its job of adding real weight, and
the mid-range bass parts adding sonic interest,
character and sizzle.
If you want to remove some or even most of the
resultng harmonics you can sculpt them away with
a low-pass flter but you cant sculpt or empha-
size later what isnt there to begin with, so start
harmonically rich and refne down as necessary, as
you go.
Layer Detuned Oscillators
A favourite way of achieving instant harmonic
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interest is to use two (usually identcal) oscillators pitched apart by a specifc number of cents or
notes. For example, one might be pitched an octave below the other; another opton is to pitch
each oscillator either up or down by the same amount, for example one +7 cents and the other
-7 cents. Its important to keep the pitch change the same for each oscillator so that the com-
bined pitch of the overall sound stays the same: if you pitch one oscillator at +7 and the other
at -9 you end up with an unmusical sound (although this may be what you want in some situa-
tons!).
Once you have the oscillators set up, try adjust the amount of pitch diference between them
untl you get something that feels right with the best combinaton of depth and defniton. Also
try switching one or both of the oscillators to diferent wave types and see what works best, or
adjust the flter envelope setngs to be slightly diferent for each oscillator every situaton will
have its own optmal setngs.
Layered Samples
The same rules for detuning synth oscillators also apply to samples: try layering up two diferent
bass samples and tuning one sample a few cents sharp and the other a few cents fat, or alter-
nately tuning them a whole octave apart.
2. Initial Envelope And Modulation Settings
Ideally while playing back your bass rif, or at least playing diferent notes up and down the
keyboard, begin to shape the sound with amp and flter envelopes. Youll almost certainly want
a fast atack for helping each note audibly punch through the mix, and a reasonably fast release
as you dont want the tail of each bass note fapping around uncontrolled afer youve let go of
the key. Keep things tght and controlled at this stage, unless you have a creatve reason not to.
Decay and sustain will help create the character of your bass sound, making each note more
plucky, for example, or longer and more pad-like.
Generally, the longer each note is in your bassline, the more movement you can and should
introduce into each of those notes. Try assigning an LFO to modulate pitch, flters or oscillator
level. You could also assign velocity and even keyboard tracking to certain parameters so the
notes sound diferent depending on how hard they are hit or how high up the keyboard register
they are.
Keep playing diferent notes and litle sequences to see what a diferent each tweak makes
dont just repeat a single note over and over, as this wont give a very useful impression of the
sound in context.
A neat trick for enhancing the atack of a bass sound is to route an envelope to the flter cutof
and set it with very short atack and decay tmes and zero sustain, so that it very briefy opens
the flter up a litle at the start of each note. This can help a struggling bass sound be heard.
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3. Bring The (Subtle) Noise
As well as your harmonically rich waveforms, most synths will allow you to add some form of
creatve distorton, whether its a white noise-generatng oscillator or distnct distorton or
warmth efects secton. Its a good idea to add some noise at this stage to bring out even a lit-
tle grit and character in your sound a completely clean and polite bass sound is generally one
that will disappear in the mix context, so youll be surprised at frst how much noise and har-
monics you can get away with on bass without it being perceived as a distorted sound. And as
before, you can always remove unwanted frequencies aferwards.
Quite ofen the best sounds are created from just one or two oscillators and maybe three enve-
lopes modulatng the flter, pitch and amplifer sectons of the patch. By all means experiment
and partcularly try taking apart presets to see how they work, but for efectve bass program-
ming for a track try not to overcomplicate maters by using all the oscillators and modulaton
optons at your disposal.
4. Confgure The Bass Part To Fit With The Kick
The most efcient way to put together an efectve low end rhythm secton for an electronic
track (and for any genre really) is to fgure out prety early on how you want the bass elements
to work with the kick drum, both in terms of their sonic characteristcs and their respectve
musical paterns. For example, the classic template for dance music is to have the bassline play-
ing a simple of-beat throb around the kick: not only does this keep a driving, syncopated but
consistent intensity in the low frequency range to push the track along, but it also means there
is no danger of the bass and kick sounds clashing or masking each other since they never play
at exactly the same tme. The upshot of this is that you can allow both the bass sound and the
kick drum to be sonically larger, each occupying a slightly wider frequency range as as such each
delivering more energy and more impact.
Of course its perfectly acceptable to have bass notes and kick drums sounding at the same
tme, and this is where youll want to be that much more careful about the sonic makeup of
each. For example, in Drum & Bass youll typically have a very deep sub bass sine-wave under-
pinning things in the 40-80Hz range; then youll have the kick, selected and/or EQd specifcally
to slot its fundamental frequency in at around 100Hz; then higher above the kick you might
have the distorted, character part of the bassline, fzzing with mid- and even high-frequency
energy to really help defne and enlarge the perceived presence of the bass. What this all
means is that youve built the track with carefully defned layers, making sure from the start that
each component is hitng its own fundamental frequency. Of course you can always use EQ at
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the mix to carve holes in unwieldy sounds that are masking others, but when you begin with a
clear strategy of whats basically going where in the frequency spectrum, you give yourself the
best possible chance of making a great track and focusing on the creatve decisions, without the
need for purely correctve mix surgery later.
5. Give it that extra touch
At some point during the inital sound design process (probably somewhere between the other
steps mentoned, but it will always depend on your approach and that partcular tracks needs)
youll want to go that extra bit further to begin developing a unique character for your bass
sound, or even simply to give it some movement that fts the specifc needs of the sound of the
part that its playing. The possibilites are endless, but here are some ideas and typical startng
points for further exploraton:
Layer multple sounds together, either the same synth sound with diferent amp envelope or
flter setngs, or the sounds from two completely diferent patches or synths. This si a great
way of coming up with unique and signature sounds, and allows you to combine hard digital
with warm analogue, or sharp atack sounds with swelling pads for example, in such a way
that they appear to be one complex and developing texture.
Nows the tme to explore the many optons provided by LFOs (Low Frequency Oscillators)
for modulaton and rhythmic movement tailored to your bass rif and sound style. For
example, a triangle wave LFO modulatng the flter cut-of on a bass sound is guaranteed to
change things up and spark fresh ideas.
Once youve got your bass part, the rif or notes, fgured out, re-appraise the inital transient
of your sound to make sure its providing enough atack or a smoother fade-in, if appro-
priate to punch through the mix, work with the inherent groove of the part and keep the
separaton between the notes clear and distnct. One trick here is to actually use the atack
part of a completely diferent sound, such as a percussion hit, guitar pluck or even a snippet
of pitched or fltered white noise: layered up to trigger with each bass note, it becomes part
of the perceived bass sound itself, providing additonal character and defniton.
Related to the tp above, if youre using mulitple oscillators for your synth bass sound, try
setng a pitch envelope to bend one of the oscillators down and the other up at the atack
phase. As long as theyre the same amounts the tuning will remain in the right key, and
youll have an interestng sound with plenty of movement.
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Part 2: Refning The Sound,
And Fitting It Into The Mix
Bass In The Mix
With your bass part developed and recorded/sequenced into the tracks structure, you may
think that the majority of the work is done. But if you really want to achieve a professional-
sounding mix, this is just the beginning. Now its tme to begin the real craf of mixing and
producton: refning the sound and bedding it properly into the mix so that it gels with the other
elements to form a cohesive whole. Remember that how the bass sounds, or any soloed part
for that mater, can change quite dramatcally when played in the context of a full mix, so dont
be put out if your amazing bass part needs a fair amount of tweaking as you go on its all par
for the course.
Mix Order: Bass, And The Rest
One factor that might determine how much work your bass sound needs in the mix is the order
in which you introduce all the parts into the mix. You might be inclined to start with the lead
part such as the vocal or main synth or guitar rif and mix around that, and this is valid of course
if it works for you. But all other things being equal, the most popular and strategic mix process
is to start with getng a rock-solid foundaton for the track with the bass, kick and snare drums:
get these balanced and their grooves locked together and its difcult to mess up the rest. Bring-
ing the bass in early also means you can can flter, EQ and balance the other instruments around
it, pre-emptng the scenario where you bring up the bass into an already busy mix and fnd no
mater how loud you turn it up its not being heard. Having the bass there from the start means
you dont have to carve holes at the end to slot it in: its been there all along. Doing things this
way also means youll have a good indicaton of how much high-pass fltering you can get away
with on all the other instruments (its advisable to high-pass everything to some degree apart
from the bass and kick drum, keeping the bass range clear and tght) youll be able to remove
more than you would think if you were fltering the part in solo, as the bass will be doing its
conventonal job of providing focused low-frequency support for everything happening in the
higher ranges. Remember, dont worry if things sound worse in solo if it sounds right for the
complete mix, thats all that counts in the end.
Use Distortion For Additional Punch
Once youre into the mix and have a few elements playing nicely together such as bass, drums
and a melodic part such as guitar, youll quickly discover whether the bass has the necessary
presence in the right frequencies to make itself felt and heard. The programmed harmonics or
light creatve distorton from the inital sound creaton or recording may have helped, but this is
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the tme to try out some more overt distorton efects, either from something like a guitar amp
simulator or distorton efect plugin. Creatve distorton adds the kind of harmonics that really
contribute to an increase in perceived loudness, reshaping the structure of the waveform poten-
tally quite radically.
Guitar amp plugins are great for adding distorton to any instrument, not just guitars, as they
typically ofer so many ways to controll and shape the distorted sound. They are also a natural
choice for distortng any sort of lead instrument because, with their speaker or cabinet simu-
latng component that follows the amplifer secton itself modelled on the hardware in terms of
smoothing or otherwise taming the unruly and less musical high frequencies.
Another aspect of distorton which is sometmes forgoten is that the added harmonics follow
the signal dynamics, so the louder the signal the greater the efect. And as distorton usually in-
volves some aspect of limitng or even hard clipping the loudest parts, youre efectvely getng
compression on these louder parts.
This is why distortng bass sounds in partcular is so efectve you get added upper harmon-
ics for a perceived louder sound overall, and a more even level that is less likely to disappear
behind other instruments all in one process.
Give Your Bass Sound An Attack That Helps It Cut Through The Mix
So youve got a nice and loud bass sound that doesnt get lost behind the rest of the mix. But
once you bring in the combinaton of drum hits and sustained melodic sounds such as guitars
and synths, you might fnd that the defniton of each note start is now somewhat imprecise. An
this can be problematc because we get most of our psychological percepton of the tmbre and
character of a sound from its inital atack.
Here are some fxes for sharpening the atack of your bass sound to really cut through any mix:
If youre using a synth bass, revisit your synth patch and program in either an additonal
oscillator with a partcularly hard or higher-pitched atack sound, or program a fast flter
change to sweep very quickly through the existng sounds atack phase at the start of every
note. For example, you can set the flter with an envelope to be fully closed at the start of
each note and on note on open partally or fully as quickly as it possibly can. Additonally,
have the flter then close right down again: the resultng percussive thlip will sound familiar
from many electronic records.
The tp above provides a clue for another technique: rather than programming a flter sweep
into the source synth sound, simply add a completely separate additonal percussive hit to
the start of each bass note. You want something prety short and tght, although you may
need to both lengthen the atack porton of the hit to make it less obviously drum-like and
pitch the hit up or down to get it sitng in the frequency where it feels like it belongs to your
complete bass sound and contributes the bite to each note that were looking for.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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Also try the above trick but with a sample of white noise: extend, chop and pitch to taste for
a partcularly sharp atack noise to add to your bass.
Well cover bass compression below, but if your sound at this point uses any compression
(some synths like the brilliant z3ta+ have a compressor module built in, for example), make
sure that the compressor is set with an appropriately long Atack setng to allow the inital
transient of the bass notes through unsquashed.
Bass Compression
If youre working with a bass guitar performance or any samples of acoustc bass instruments
that are not as apparently malleable as the synth patches weve been discussing so far, youll be
relieved to hear that compressors can be used to similarly transform the dynamics of any sound
source you choose to feed them. Compression can be used to turn a fairly limp bass guitar
recording into a breathing, growling monster, or bring up the detail of tmbre and recording art-
facts that give the part (and potentally the whole track) a sense of character and uniqueness.
Consider that compressor models have diferent characteristcs and can sound quite difer-
ent to each other, partcularly when pushed to relatvely extreme setngs. For compressing
bass instruments (and most other things as well), two of the most iconic compressors are
the Teletronix LA-2A, Urei 1176 and Empirical Labs Distressor, and there are now plenty of
compressor plugins modelled on these original hardware designs such as the Waves CLA-
2A and CLA-76 and the Universal Audio ofcially licensed emulatons. Why are they ofen
considered to be head and shoulders above the rest? Apart from the intuitve controls, its
specifcally for their saturaton characteristcs when driven hard with loud source signals.
They can imbue sounds with nice and smooth distorton or extra grit (partcularly useful for
rock, metal and dubstep).
One trick used by many rock producers is to subgroup the drums and bass together and ap-
The Kick Drum
Most of the tps weve discussed so far for creatng and sculptng ultmate bass sounds apply
equally to kick drums as well. Layering electronic or sub kick samples with higher-frequency
acoustc ones can provide with a desirable combinaton of character and punch; and of
course, compression, limitng and distorton are your best friends when it comes to drum
processing too.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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ply compression to the group. This will help further glue the bass and percussion elements
into a cohesive groove.
Taking the bass and drums compression idea to an extreme in a sense leads to sidechain
compression. Ive discussed this in much more detail in the GTPS Ultmate Guide to Com-
pression, but essentally youre compressing the bass every tme the kick drum sounds,
which both ensures the two are adequately separated and also contributes to the cool dy-
namic breathing efect found in most modern dance and electronic music.
You can usually get away with far heavier and more aggressive compression on bass than
other sounds and parts. With this in mind, also try the classic processor chain of a compres-
sor/limiter combinaton:
Use A Compressor And Limiter In Combination For Maximum Power
One of the main reasons to compress the bass sound will be to enable a signifcant increase in
its overall level: we squash the peaks and bringing the average signal level up. Ironing out the
peaks also of course makes the sound more consistent in level, which is doubly important for
the track foundaton role of basslines and sounds.
However, compression can be only part of the soluton to processing the bass sound for maxi-
mum punch and loudness. One of the signifcant characteristcs of compression is that it works
optmally over periods of at least tens of milliseconds: If you try to make a compressor respond
faster than this by using very short atack and release tmes (in an atempt to capture the inital
transient hit of the bass note), the compressor begins to respond to individual waveform cycles
rather than the greater overall shape of the signal, and you start getng distorted lower fre-
quencies defnitely not a desirable side-afect for bass processing!
The answer can be to use a compressor together with a limiter, in series. Limiters work in micro-
seconds, which can make all the diference, and the nice sof clipping type of harmonic distor-
ton generated by valve designs (and valve-emulatng plugins) rounds rather than hard clips the
peaks which conveniently increases perceived loudness.
A limiter will only introduce sof clipping on high-level signals, so the idea is that by using a
compressor followed by a limiter, you can allow each of them to play to their tme-based and
amplitude strengths.
The compressor evens out the overall level of the signal, not clipping the peaks but bringing
them to a more uniform level (you dont have to worry about compressing the peaks anyway,
as any that do spill through will be reined in by the limiter thats next in the signal chain). This is
then just the sort of raw-but-optmized audio a limiter likes it simply has more signal to work
its sof clipping magic on, for achieving maximum overall loudness gains without unwanted
compression artefacts.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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Bass EQ
With a suitably loud and consistent bass sound playing back in your mix, the next step will
naturally be to refne the way it slots into the frequency spectrum under and around the other
instruments. This is the primary role of EQ, and while its difcult to ofer universal rules for
EQing any sound every situaton will have its own problems and solutons there are a few
bass-specifc EQ tps that are always worth bearing in mind:
When selectng and setng up an EQ plugin for bass, its generally beter to start with shelv-
ing EQ rather than introducing bell-shaped EQ curves. This is because its very easy to start
boostng or dropping partcular frequencies that will make individual notes stck our or
disappear undoing the work of your compression processing to keep things nice and even.
Shelving EQ will keep any boosts you add suitably broad and non-lumpy.
For specifc frequency ranges to boost, try startng at 300Hz or 400Hz for added low-mid
presence that will allow the bass to come through on smaller speakers and to make it feel
more smooth and warm; and around 700Hz to bring out any aggressive bite inherent in the
bass sound. To really make the bass sound poke out, you can boost a litle at around 3kHz.
Its generally a good idea to cut high frequencies on any instrument above their partcular or
characterising ranges: this applies equally to bass. You might be surprised to fnd just how
much relatvely inaudible stuf is going on in the mid and high frequencies of your bass
sound, and by cutng these away with EQ or a low-pass flter you can free up this space for
the instruments that actually sit primarily in those ranges. However, be careful not to overdo
the fltering: sometmes, there are odd bits of pluck noise, string squeak or almost unnotce-
able fzz or vibe in the higher frequencies of a bass track that you dont want to necessar-
ily lose completely. Try startng with a low-pass flter at 10kHz, sweep it up and down the
frequency range a litle as you listen back to the mix, and check its not boxing in the bass
sound in any way. If you have a good spread of higher-frequency instruments playing with
the bass, this should add a litle extra clarity.
Its a good idea to pay partcular atenton to the evolving relatonship between the kick and
bass parts as you go through the stages of processing, EQing and sculptng. Each change you
make you want to be strengthening the way the two work together: if you fnd that a signif-
cant change to one hurts the way it interacts with the other, its probably beter to rethink
the new change than potentally be undoing the interacton youve created so far. Always
think of any mix change in the context of the full mix this is the only way anyone else is go-
ing to hear it, afer all.
EQ & Compression: Which First?
As mentoned in the Ultmate Guides to Compression and EQ, there are decisions to be made
about the order in which you apply processing and EQ to your bass sound. There are several
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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optons and it can seem confusing at frst whether to EQ or compress sounds frst. The key thing
is to remember exactly what efect youre having on the sound at each stage: Compression will
naturally tend to emphasise the stringest tones of the source material, so it does make sense to
place an EQ before the compressor in order to shape the sound that you actually want to em-
phasise. But you could also use EQ afer compression if the situaton calls for it: this
post-compression EQ can be used more to further sculpt the sound into the context
of the complete mix.
Bass Mix Trick: An Alternative To EQ
Sometmes youll fnd that no mater how much EQ tweaking and adjustment you
make, the bass just wont cut through the mix like you want. In these cases, a very
simple but efectve trick is to just duplicate the bass track and have it playing back
on two identcal tracks. Here youll simply get more gain to play with and avoid the
scenario of pushing a single tracks fader dangerously into the red.
And of course from here, youre also ready to process the two tracks either identcally
or diferently, with EQ, compression and distorton. This parallel processing provides
you with yet more fexibility and opportunites to sculpt and scale up the bass sound
as big as you need it in the mix.
Harmonic Enhancers
Once youve created, distorted, compressed and EQd your bass sound into the mix,
you might very well stll fnd that with all the sculptng, not to menton the process-
ing on the other parts in the mix, the bass is not cutng through just as much as you
want. Partcularly if youre using a relatvely clean or smooth bass sound, you might
be missing some of the vital upper harmonics we discussed earlier that give the bass
that extra presence.
An harmonic enhancer plugin here can be more efectve than EQ at this point for
increasing the clarity and perceived level of the bass sound in the mix. What these
processors do is read the incoming material and generate new harmonic content
from it. Whats more, they allow you to adjust the balance between the fundamental
frequency or root note and these new harmonics (even as far as removing the funda-
mental frequency completely). This works because the way our brains naturally inter-
pret sounds and harmonics means they tend to hear any missing fundamental if the
upper harmonics are present so the processor essentally creates an illusion of more
bass while actually potentally reducing the level of the lowest bass frequencies. This
is partcularly useful for getng your mixes to sound full and bassy even when played
on systems with no actual bass response, such as radio or headphones.
There are enhancers designed specifcally for bass, such as Maxx Bass and Renaissance Bass
from Waves.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
Page | 20
Subharmonic Synths/Generators
These work in a similar way to harmonic
enhancers, but here youre adding lower
frequency harmonics rather than higher. This
can be used to add extra weight and sub-bass
frequencies that just werent present in the
original sound.
Some producers also use pitch shifers at this
stage for similar efect, pitching a copy of the
bass part (and ofen kick drum too) down by
an octave and mixing this with the original. In
a sense, this works in the same way as layer-
ing diferent components for the ultmate bass
sound that we discussed in Secton 1.
Bass Panning
Its generally accepted that the main bass and
kick drum parts should always be kept panned
to the centre, for a couple of reasons. First
is that this shares the high-level bass energy
equally between the two stereo speakers, so
you maintain maximum impact overall. Anoth-
er reason is that it maximizes the chances that
listeners will always be able to hear the bass
properly, even when theyre not positoned
directly between the two speakers (moving
around or sitng to one side of a large room,
for example).
However, remember that if youre building
your bass sound from multple layers at dif-
ferent frequencies, and youre working in a
genre where the bass is a key melodic or hook
feature of the track, consider using separate
panning and efects treatments on the lay-
ers that dont occupy the lowest frequency
regions. For example, youll want to keep
sub-bass and any deep layers central, but any
mid- or higher-frequency elements of the bass
sound some fzzy distorton or flter swoosh-
es on a Dubstep sound, for example could
be panned progressively wider the higher in
frequency they get. This is one technique to
help create a really big, epic-sounding synth
bass that stll keeps the fundamental bass
energy front and centre.
Bass & Effects
Related to the above trick, its best to leave
the primary, low frequencies of your bass
sound clean and powerful, but with the higher
layers or frequencies additonal efects pro-
cessing can bring movement and variaton to
the sound. Therefore, the best sorts of efects
for bass, apart from the now familiar distor-
ton, are those that incorporate some kind of
sweep or modulaton efect: fangers, phasers,
and any of the new breed of auto-flters and
LFO-shaper plugins are worth a try.
Typically bass and delay or reverb are a tricky
combinaton to make work: these efects eas-
ily mask and obscure the original sound with
their washes of extra sound, which is usually
the opposite to what we want when working
to create a punchy bass sound.
However, there are tmes when a whole-note
delay line could be used to create a sort of
arpeggiated variaton on your original bass rif,
or a bit of pre-delay (and short or non-existent
decay tme) from a slapback-style reverb can
help place the bass in a characterful space.
Whichever efects you end up using on your
bass sound, be sure to set up a flter afer the
efect to flter out all the low-frequency re-
turn, partcularly from a delay or reverb. This
way youll get to keep the tght low end of the
original untreated bass in place.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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Part 3: Finishing, Testing And
Mastering
Mastering Bass
Mastering is the stage at which, traditonally, a fnal mix is taken to a dedicated studio with a
very experienced engineer who tweaks the frequency balance, EQ, compression and overall
level so that the mix is in its most optmized form for mass reproducton and distributon. These
days many aspiring producers undergo this process themselves, partcularly because the equip-
ment required to do mastering is now much more available in plugin form.
However, decent mastering depends at least as much on the highly controlled mastering room
and the know-how and experience of the engineer as it does on access to the fnest EQs and
compressors. With that in mind, if you stll want to master yourself, tread carefully but there is
stll a lot you can do to further tghten your fnished mix, especially in the low frequencies.
Getng the best results will probably be a mater of trial and error at frst. Some tools to get fa-
miliar with are mult-band compressors, dynamic EQ and enhancers, if you arent already. These
will enable you to select and treat frequency ranges independently from the others, which is of
course paramount when youre dealing with a complete mix.
One more thing on mastering: its generally beter to go into mastering a track with slightly too
much bass present than too litle: its a lot easier to sculpt, flter and reduce excessive levels and
bass frequencies than it is to introduce something that wasnt there to begin with.
And fnally, if you dont have the budget for professional mastering, your best bet is to just
make sure, through trial and error if necessary, that your mix sounds great on as many diferent
systems as possible.
Judgment Day: Accurate Monitoring & Referencing On Different
Systems Is Crucial
Here, at the end of the producton process, youll want to come back to the queston of what
kind of listening environment youre primarily catering for. Is your music destned for radio play,
or are you mainly interested in making club bangers that are optmized for a large and powerful
soundsystem?
These choices have big implicatons for the bass element of your mixes: for radio and home
listening, for example, its almost pointless creatng a monster sub-bass whose fundamental
frequency at 50Hz will just disappear on a small speaker system. Here you might want to use an
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
Page | 22
enhancer to give the illusion of bigger bass through mid-range harmonics.
On the other hand, your perfectly-crafed studio mix might sound quite small and boxy when
played over a massive club system if you havent ever tested how its sounding outside your
bedroom. This is usually because of the psychoacoustc efect of listening level: we perceive
extreme low frequencies and high frequencies as being quieter than the mid-range at low
playback levels, and its only when hearing things at an overall much greater level that the per-
ceived frequency balance is fat. So although its preferable to work and mix at generally very
low levels, try and crank things up ideally on a variety of diferent systems as you progress
towards the fnal mix. If producing for the club, try and build in some test listening sessions (or
if you DJ, incorporate a work-in-progress mix into your next set) before you get to the fnishing
and mastering stages.
Get That Pro Sound - The Ultimate Guide to Bass
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Conclusion
Throughout this guide weve covered everything from sourcing and
shaping your initial raw bass sounds, to ftting them into full mixes,
to applying the full gamut of mix tricks, techniques, processing and
effects to make the bass component deliver exactly what you want in
the context of your own music productions.
You might fnd that having worked your way through the diferent sectons, once you get to the
fnal part about mastering and testng your partcular tracks, youll have a beter understanding
of the importance of the discussion at the very beginning: the idea that you can know all the
producton techniques and have decent equipment, but the botom line is that you must
be able to hear accurately what youre doing - or at least what is going on down in the low
frequencies - in order to make bass work well for you.
In this sense, dont worry if your bass doesnt come up to scratch on inital testng on diferent
systems as mentoned: just return to the earlier pages and see if there are any acoustc
treatment tps or sound-shaping techniques that you can apply to solve the problem.
Most of all, I hope this ebook will be helpful in your next sonic adventures - let me know
how you get on at george@gethatprosound.com, and dont forget to check out the
GetThatProSound blog regularly for new posts, more tps and more ebooks coming soon..
Best of luck, George Robinson
Get That Pro Sound
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