Recording - October 2009 - 18

after the eq on the track so you can visualize the reduction in energy in the lowest octave after the eq, which would otherwise have cluttered up the mix. Many times, cleaning up other tracks by cutting errant low frequencies is all it takes to get the bass to sound better. Get used to the sound of your speakers in your room by listening to well-produced music in there, and you’ll know what good bass should sound like in that room. Then A/B (listen back and forth) your mixes against pro mixes to learn how to make your mix sound more like theirs. Get in the habit of using highpass (lowcut) filters on tracks that don’t need a huge bottom, then many times all you need to do is turn the bass up a bit, and it fits better in the mix. Why size matters It’s a good idea to reference your mixes on a small set of speakers, like small computer speakers, Auratones, or other bandwidth-limited speakers. Listening on these speakers will give you the ‘myspace’ view of your mix. Many people listen to songs on their computers, their portable music players, clock radios, old crappy car stereos, etc., and the mix has to be able to stand up to the brutal reality of imperfect listening conditions. One thing that happens when you listen on small speakers is that you get the midrange-only version of your mix. These speakers expose the basic mix balances, and without all the high-end sizzle and lowend thump from a larger speaker system, you are forced to focus on the midrange balance. It may take some work to get a big bass sound out of small speakers. It should sound big, but controlled. One technique for clarity in a mix is to turn the mix up on tiny speakers, like your computer speakers, to the point of distortion. Don’t blow them, just take them to the level where they distort. They distort because they The Mixing Workshop Mixing Bass Guitar—Part 1 The bass guitar helps form the foundation of a track, and its placement in the mix is crucial to a big, professional sound. Here are some tips to get the bass right in your mixes. by SEAN SHANNON Align and conquer Many times an engineer will be mixing a track that has a DI (direct inject) track, which is a recording of the bass directly from the bass itself, and an amp track (or tracks), recorded from mics placed at the bass amp. If you are using a computer DAW (digital audio workstation), you can zoom in on the bass tracks so you can see both the DI bass track and the mic track(s) next to each other on the screen. You should zoom in so you can see a transient peak close up. (See Figure 1.) Then you physically slide the mic tracks, time-aligning them until the peaks line up with the DI track. (See Figure 2.) You’ll notice the bass sounds fuller and more defined with the tracks lined up, possibly saving you a lot of work dialing in a bass tone. If you nudge the mic tracks while playing the track, and use your Undo button, you can hear the ‘before and after’ effect on your bass tone. The big picture The bass takes up a lot of space in the lower octaves of your mix. Take a big-picture look at your mix, and use the concept of ‘spectral eq’ to make room for it. The idea is to remove frequencies from instruments that are not needed, like low frequencies on a piccolo, thereby carving a space for instruments that do have necessary frequency content in that range. See Figure 3 for an example of how a highpass filter helps clean up unwanted lows on an acoustic guitar track, leaving more room for the bass. I have put a spectrum analyzer before and 18 RECORDING OCTOBER 2009 FIGURE 1 FIGURE 2

Recording - October 2009

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