Phasing/drop out (or just mixing?) issue...

[remis]

Howdy fellow 11R fans. So I finally have part of my studio gear setup at my new place and was able to sit down for a few hours last week and start working on re-recording some older songs I wrote way back when. I was having a blast using Benoni's DevilDriverFury patch and my LTD with active EMG pups and was really happy with the sound that was coming out of my monitors! (Focal Solo6 Be) but when I went to record some bass I noticed something interesting. I had 2 guitar parts I'd double tracked with the ER, one panned slightly right and the other slightly left. When I started playing the bass it was as if it was somewhat cutting out the guitars, or at least dulling them right down. Without the bass there the guitars sounded really powerful and well balanced...but with the bass it dropped a lot of the depth to the sound (not in terms of frequency depth though).

Is this likely to simply be a mixing issue? I tried messing around and getting the bass to sit better in the mix, but to no avail...perhaps my mixing skills are somewhat more non-existent that I though...

Or could it possibly be related to the acoustics of the room? I'm yet to put bass traps and other acoustic treatment in the room and it's fairly echoy (can clap your hands and hear it reverberate and bounce around the room).

Unfortunately I'm away from home until Thursday night, so can't bounce an example for you...nor try with headphones (not sure why I didn't think of this at the time) to eliminate room acoustics...but still would appreciate any thoughts you much wiser and more experienced folks than I may be able to offer

[remis]

Anyone?

[Chris Townsend]

I would try phase inverting the bass track.

[remis]

Thanks Chris, I'll try that. Sorry for the noob question...as you can tell I have a lot to learn about recording and mixing...

[remis]

So as a follow up to this, I tried phase inverting the bass track and playing with the panning of all the tracks but to no avail. This isn't something I've come across before when recording, so hopefully someone will be able to shed some light on this for me. I've uploaded two clips here onto soundcloud for people to listen to.

The first clip has both guitars, drums and the bass.
The second clip doesn't have the bass.

To me it seems as if when the bass is added that it cuts out and distorts some of the guitars...I don't get it

I'd greatly appreciate any help on this.

Cheers

[mikefont]

I kinda sounds like the bass levels are just too high, clipping the meters.
Are you using a compressor on the bass track? If not, that should help out ALLOT....keeping the dynamics of the bass levels even.

Check this article out here...Bass Compressors...and here...Bass Compressor settings


.

[madgt621]

+1 on the compressor. You'd want it post-rig, probably in your rtas chain. The BF compressor plug that comes with PT is pretty good. A little light compression goes a long way.

Also, if you then find if your bass is getting lost in the mix, put a high-pass filter on the guitars to roll of some of the bass information in them. It will allow your bass track to breathe a bit more.

[remis]

Originally Posted by mikefont

I kinda sounds like the bass levels are just too high, clipping the meters.
Are you using a compressor on the bass track? If not, that should help out ALLOT....keeping the dynamics of the bass levels even.

Check this article out here...Bass Compressors...and here...Bass Compressor settings


.

Thanks for the responses guys. The wierd thing is that the bass level goes no where near clipping...at least according to the meters in pro tools and the eleven rack. I was going to sion a screen dump of the mix window but it was late when I posted that and forgot. I can play the bass track fine by itself with no clipping, but when I have all the other parts going I get the above result. I'll give the compressor on the bass track and hpf on the guitars another go, but I seem to remember trying that before.

Cheers

[remis]

So after trying the suggestions you guys have made already the issue still persists. It's as if by adding the bass The overall sound distorts...

[madgt621]

well now that its a decent hour where im at, i got a chance to turn up loud and check it out. here's my take on it.

The problem is with how the rhythm guitar and bass are interacting. Some serious frequency collision going on there. The guitar has this mean crunch to it, which sounds sick on it's own, but the bass track just really messes with it too much. I can still hear it with the bass-less track.

So what I would do, is start cutting out "unimportant" and "ringing" frequencies out of the bass guitar. There's a reason why in a lot of heavy music the bass guitar is almost mixed out! Don't worry though, since you got a hpf on the guitar, you can boost a bit the low frequencies that are not really present in the guitar track. this will still allow the bass to be heard, it'll just be a little more background. It's all about carving little pockets for each instrument to live.

Also, an issue seems to be that the kick is getting eaten up in the mix. Try to lower the guitars a little bit in contrast to the drums. Remember it doesn't have to be brutally loud just yet. Thats what master bus compression is for.

The guitars are real thick, which sounds cool, but it's like a morbidly obese guy on a crowded train. He's sweating and breathing on everyone, and no one's having a good time.

Hopefully I could be of help, let us know how it turns out.