You made a very good point there. Clarity suffers so often in live situations, those guys are probably partially deaf due to constantly being exposed to such loud noise that they don't understand what the rest of us are actually hearing lol. IMHO though, the nasal nature of pronounced mids is always a problem as far as aural pleasure is concerned, exactly because in order to have the same loudness you have to drop the lows. And this reduces the overall scope and aural impact of the bass. A lot depends on the setup and sound engineer. In a studio recording context, even in albums by the same band, you can see the difference that a different arrangement can bring about. Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins (produced by Butch Vig) has guitars with as many as 40 overdubs, the bass is a picked P-Bass and yet the sound is just awesome. Bass is registered aurally not necessarily as a distinct instrument but as another level of sound. It just occupies its own space, it's grandiose, heavy and filling. Listen to "Cherub Rock" you'll see what I mean. In contrast, in their next album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", (produced by Mark Ellis a.k.a "Flood"), all you hear is a garbled mess of frequencies fighting against each-other. It just doesn't sound right... yet you can't really say there's more bass than in Siamese Dream! I don't know how Flood botched that masterpiece of an album but it is what it is. So the point I'm trying to make here is that it's the overall arrangement of the instruments that needs to be balanced. If the bass doesn't sound clear and distinctive, the solution shouldn't always be to just turn it into a baritone guitar - maybe the guitarists should just remove some of their own low end. Heavily distorted guitars or overbearing keyboards that play chords can mess things up pretty heavily without the bass really being responsible for it.
Props for the detailed answer! Yes, definitely. The whole band has to contribute to a better overall sound. As you mentioned, guitar players tend to boost a lot of low end, too, “stealing” room from the bass and the kick. Everyone has to let go a bit of their ego and focus on the final mix :)
Explains why Precision Basses sit so well in the mix. When I played Metal I used to scoop the Mids , now everything is flat except bass around 1:00 o’clock,much fuller. Thank you for the video Ivan.
Ivan, you're the man! YES! It's all about the mids. I'm really glad, I found your channel. We seem to have a lot in common in terms of taste and sound philosophy. I couldn't have explained and showcased that content better. Just on point. Bässte Grüße aus Dortmund und alles Gute für 2022!
I agree with you, Ivan. That said, bad sound from FOH has become so ubiquitous that I haven't been to a concert with good sound in years - typically WAY TOO MUCH bass and bass drum through the subs. With sound this bad from FOH, we bassists typically don't stand a chance.
Just read your comment and I can totally understand what you mean from my own experience. My way to deal with it: I use high pass filters in my preamp/floorboard setup to avoid those ultra low frequencies just from the start. When I have an FOH engineer I don't already know, I usually tell him to put no EQ on the bass as a starting point to avoid those common bass boost and high cut mistake that makes the bass sound dull and boomy. Yeah, right, I'm a control freak! (LOL)
I bought a Traynor YBA-200 that has two knobs I could not wrap my brain around, one called Scoop and the other Resonance and because of this video I played with them tonight and it opened my eyes thank you...
Great Video...Bass dudes constantly harping on "MY TONE"...usually bedroom tone...this nails it...I actually like the BASS CLEAN track the best myself...Goldilocks SPot..thanks for all you do
Wow what a great presentation. I was just playing with the settings on my amp yesterday and said to myself that sounds pretty good with the mid-scooped but being in the practice area would be so different. I could hardly pick out the base with the mid scooped at times. Thank you
Glad to hear it was helpful! A lot depends on the type of music and which section of the mids you’re scooping, but what i show in the vid is a good rule of thumb to keep in mind :)!
Hi Ivan ! Great subject here ! Very interesting indeed to see the importance of our natural perceptions of frequencies. Would gladly appreciate some more infos about that in the future ! Thanks mate !
Thanks for the video, this is what I recently became aware of a couple of years ago, I had been in "smiley face town" for most of my years as a bassist. But I started to listen to Incognito and stuff like that and I realized how nice the bass sits in the mix. Too much lows get lost with the bass drum and the sparkling high overtones get lost with the cymbals. That's why now i mostly use my p bass with Dimarzio Model Ps. I still use mu Jazz, but boost the mids accordingly to be heard right. Nice demo!
Thanks for watching! A lot definitely depends on the genre and which other instruments are in the band. What works for a hard rock tune, might not work for a soul or reggae mix 😄 Another important point is that one has to trust the sound engineer and vice-versa
@@IvanBassist así es... definitivamente depende del tipo de música, pero siempre en mi caso va una buena medida de medios. Mi vieja costumbre de opinar cosas en RU-vid en inglés y tú eres peruano. Gracias y saludos desde El Salvador!!
You are completely right. It took me years to realized especially now playing bass where I used to be a lead guitarist. I think one bassist that got the perfect sweeping mid is Getty Lee. OMG. He definitely has it down. If you know how low vs high frequency works you will find the low bass or frequency is what you hear in the crowed and you feel it also oppose to just a loud tone with no bottom end thus one of the many jobs as a bassist.
While this demonstration you showed is definately true, that the tone with boosted mids cuts thru the mix better. I think if you took the scooped tone and compressed and distorted its slighly, it would still cut thru pretty nicely. Also it depends what kind of bass you have and how low your tuning is. For example when playing low tuned metal, those boxy frequencies around 300-600 can get pretty annoying if you dont scoop them atleast a little.
I personally have noticed that in quite a few songs (especially when playing with backing tracks) if I turn the tone knob down (I am playing on a j bass) the bass starts cutting through really well. At some cases for example going at almost 0% makes the bass sound very clear which I didn't expect since you are cutting treble (and maybe some high mids?) which I thought are supposed to give definition. I am not sure if this is because the bass has now a more contained and dedicated frequency range and does not blend with other instruments or it is just my rig or the songs (mostly classic/punk rock). In any case thanks for the video very useful information. Cheers.
@@IvanBassist Well, I have an "Aphex" aural exciter big bottom in rack unit, I read somewhere that works well for bass guitar, just used with synth since i borrowed it to a friend couldnt try with electric bass yet. "Waves" plugins have a plugin version of a vintage Aphex , I believe its the most used of it kind :)
Ivan excelente contenido tu canal! Tienes un video sobre grabar instrumentos a tu mac? Veo que utilizas Logic X Pro. Me encantaría ver un video sobre el tema. Gracias!
@@IvanBassist Interested to hear your take on parametric. My amp (PF350) just has a set 500hz mid and VT bass has the character knob and mid which I believe are at 1khz. I've seen people advocate for higher eg 800hz or as low as 450hz being the sweet spot
@@craigthornley333l I see no problem with the 500hz center frequency. That helps to bring out or cut the “woody” character of a bass. 1khz usually sounds more a like nasty nasal frequency, which also sounds good for rock heavy music. I really like the VTBass DI. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, unless you’re not getting the sound that you want. If you want more flexibility adding an EQ pedal like the Darkglass harmonic booster could help
Aside from that Metallica album, that same issue is prevalent with Dream Theater. And live it's even worse! Which is a shame, because John Myung is a monster bassist.
@@IvanBassist Ah, I'll have to check that one out then. I haven't listened to it yet. It's a bit ironic that Myung cites Geezer Butler, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee and Jaco Pastorius as the main influences on his playing style. All of those guys are also known for their _very_ prominent bass sound in the mix!
@@IvanBassist Yep. I'm not a recording guy, but I've done it mixing live. There are some generic frequency brackets that'd pre-apply to some instruments, male vs female vocals, etc. Sometimes there is a need to adjust obviously, but for a lot of channels it works ok. It's like if you have someone playing a pbass with flats, you can bracket out the tweeter range, low end of female vocals, etc.
I agree for the most part, but I HATE hi mids. I cut those but leave low mids alone. I know a lot of people love the Geddy Lee/Steve Harris/Billy Sheehan tone, but I don't. Also, I've never played a bass that I've like the "flat" or "clean" sound of. If I have too much hi mids in my tone its like I can't even play. I know many will disagree with me but that is my opinion.
Hey there :) 500hz is not really a “high mid” frequency. I boosted/cut 5db on both signals to keep things equal, but less mid boost would definitely be enough to be heard better, depending on the preamp. I’ve never been a fan of Sheehan’s tone on records either, but live it SLAYS.
@@IvanBassist It's all good. I think reasonable people people can disagree on tone, etc. I felt like live his tone lacked low end, but like I said its subjective. Best live tone for me? Pino Palladino for me. Smooth, warm and lots of low mids. I guess I'd say I don't like 500hz that much either, and that's ok, like I said people can disagree on these things. Great video. Keep up the good work.
The bass needs some kind of "nose", some "cardboard box quality" to be percieved. It needs to be somewhat ugly to sit in the mix. A P-bass has that tone by nature, compared to other basses/models. Unfortunately, many bass players AND sound engineers today go for that "whooofy" sub bass low end muddying things up...
I don't know what all these burnout "cool guys" are going on about. The bass boost half of it is thwumpy muddy garbage and the treble boost side is too nasaly/thin sounding (I'm not a guitarist for a reason), and then of course you evaporate from the mix. Scooping the mids is just the worst, I don't get it
Fact: You can dial in what you feel is the perfect tone in your bedroom and as soon as you step on stage you either get buried in the mix or you sound like shit. You r demonstration got the point across. What you really are dealing with is frequencies. Its not about decibels,which is how we measure volume. Its about hertz,which is how we measure the frequencies of sound waves. Now obviously if you have the volume (dBs) set low no one is going to hear you but we are discussing how bass gets lost in the mix and how those midrange frequencies playy a role in this. Without giving a course on equalization here I'll give a quick example of whats going on. The drummer in our metal band is going to town on the kick drums so he is laying claim to sonic space. If your bass is clanky and devoid of mids its possible that your bass sounds like the kick drums,which sounds like a mess to your audience. Your bass even getting close to sound of the kicks is about the worst thing that can happen. Keep in mind our example here is a metal band. The genre really doesnt matter,its where each member of the band is sonically,especially from the perspective of frequency. Now,if you guitar player has his marshal stack cranked he is also taking up sonic real estate and as a bassist you need to recognise that the drummer is takiing up frequencies and the guitars are taking up their chunk of sonic real estate as well. As a bassist you need to learn where the space is in the mix,i.e. which frequencies the guitars and drums have neglected and try to dial in to that space to the best of your ability. If your guitarist has scooped his mids and is blasting heavily distorted riffs then scooping your mids is just going to make you both sound like shit. Bass players should learn about dynamic range,which frequencies the guitar player has layed claim to,and how to dial up the eq so that they put themselves in the sonic space the rest of the band isnt in. It seems complicated but its actually simple once you know that amp and pedal manufacturers have been putting the info you need on your amp and eq pedals the whole time. Graphic equalizers have markings on the sliders and mostly those marks are Hertz. Check out which frequencies the guitars have dialed back on their eq and boost those on your eq. Even better,buy a parrametric eq and take the time to learn how to use it. You will never get lost in the mix and the entire band will sound better. Realise that you are all claiming sonic space and you dont want to be fighting for the same space.
