I've never balanced the bass to the guitars. I have always looked at bass as a stringed percussion instrument and glue it into the drums. The guitar is the glue in between percussion and vocals. It is always good to think outside my normal box, thanks Joel!
I have a visual guide, like MMultiAnalyzer, and I try to put the bass at the same level as the stereo buss rhythm guitar if I want it more present or if it has too much bass information, or maybe 3 db LU lower than stereo buss guitars if it has too much mid range information.
I spread my low guitar frequencies to the outer regions with the highs more to the center with the bass centered. Levels always vary depending on the range of notes/strings
I like to pan my guitars 1 and 2 out to -75 and 75 respectively, sometimes doubling up the same track on both sides if there's only 1 guitar riff going on. Bass guitar will pan between -25 and 25. Sometimes I use synth to fill in bass so the synth pans to opposite side of guitar. I record between 0 and -2 dec so I can use EQ to enhance track volumes without changing volumes. Maybe not the best way to do it but it sounds good to me :)
Dude, I can't thank you enough. I've been mixing an EP for the past 8 hours, and about to ram my head through a wall. I couldn't explain it, but I felt like my mix was just "lopsided." I was just afraid to turn my bass up. Problem solved, life changed.
Try referencing it in mono, rebalance, put it in stereo and rebalance, and keep tweaking it until the balance is the same in both, then you know your levels are perfect.
Always! no matter how good a mix feels, i always have to come back later and check it with fresh ears. most of the time i do it every time! especially listening for balance... and they're sometimes notably off! lol.
@@slavesforging5361 I'm the opposite, big only because I go so far out of the way to try not to that I end up mixing them really quite. I listen later and I'm like yeah these drums dominate the mix hahaha
Norhing wrong with the guitars coming to the foreground! The smart thing to do is send them To the background when the solo or the vocals come in to dominate the mix. 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
I find tone at the source before everything is a huge part of the process. My downfall in the beginning was i had this great fat guitar tone when it was on its own but a nightmare when attempting to put in a mix. I'm no longer afraid to make drastic cuts boosting midds and cutting low ends and cutting high ends sounds odd on its own but when a bass guitar is added to the picture its fat and sits great :D I'm learning a lot more that things have their spaces so make cuts where pieces don't so they can breathe. Makes the whole mixing process a lot less stressing and more fun lol
It's funny how a lot of guitarists demo a new drum VSTi, and their guitars are so loud you can barely hear the drums at all, and the bass guitar is completely inaudible. Ah, the guitarist ego at work. Never fails to astound me.
to be honest i thought he eq'd these tracks so professionally, that he actually got away with cranking up either guitar or bass without it completely destroying the mix and stepping on it. the timbre's were so inherently different (with each instrument being so isolated by frequencies), that nothing really could step on each other no matter how volumes were setup. which was pretty interesting. had i cranked these up on any of my projects, the effect would have been much worse!
So you would automate the volume of the guitars for the chorus, but what about EQ? Would one ever typically automate that to leave room for vocals? Say a dip in the 1-4 k-hz range somewhere, or whatever?
Awesome video!!! Wish i saw this video a few years ago.. haha I always used the VU Meter trick locked with the kick and when it was set that was it for the mix. Now i see myself automating a lot more like you shown in this video. And using feel more than a meter.
It's nice to know that there's some wiggle room for the guitar volume; I was actually surprised how much you were able to turn it up. From my experience, turning the guitars up seems to be a good way to create "perceived" loudness, but I tend to have trouble maintaining that "bite" when the vocals come in. Any tips for getting guitars and vocals to play nicely?
Automation could be a great tool for this-- you could automate either the volume or EQ shape when the vocals come in. Here's a little tutorial as an example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g7N_wanbQ9w.html
Very nice! I find when I have 2 Guitars, 1 left, 1 right, guitar left playing a different melody to guitar 2, sounds soft and when they both join up to play the same thing, they are both very loud. How do you balance that?
automation is one way... but the loudness there is perceived loudness. communicate with the artist about their intention maybe.. if it is dynamic and fits the song ? keep it. that's my call. sure there is limits.
I like to do it before EQ-ing, makes my EQ-ing process easier. But hey, there's no one way of doing it, whatever works for you. But bear in mind that you can't EQ a poor volume level, so pay closer attention to it.
What's your preference, when tracking rythm guitars, in panning a 2 guitarist band where the 2 guitar players use different amps? For my latest record instead of wide panning the 2 guitarists separate. (1 guitarist on the left with both his takes using a 5150 and the other on the right x2 takes usining a JCM 900) I paired them together so there's a 5150 and a jcm 900 on both the left and the right to balance out the tone. I sent all tracks to one Bus so they all get the same EQ and multi multiband compression. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Great video!
Shut up, balance is fun! 😁 Seriously tho, It's the crucial, but also creative part of mixing Nice tone, bass is a bit quiet for me. Hate sampled drums, they sound obvious
Very insightful! I know you mentioned automating the guitars up for the part that doesn't have vocals, how does that differ from placing a side chained compressor on the guitars that would duck the guitars down 2db when the vocals kick in on the chorus?
you're going to get slightly different effects from a compressor than just an eq or volume adjustment due to attack, release, knee and all those lovely things we adore compressors for. generally, i say automate for levels, compress to make something more brutal and really control how it hits hard, or glides in nice and easy. if that makes sense. you're really changing the shape of the sound when using a compressor, not just volumes.
So, only after everything is levelled you insert compression etc if its needed? Also do you do any EQing before even levelling everything? Thanks for a good lesson!
People over compress bass. It for sure needs compression usually to some degree, but i’ve found people and myself using multiple instances of compression in some way or another and it kills what the bass is a lot of times. Everyone seems to want a basically constantly running sub exciter with a bass guitar… some might even think they are being conservative in that mindset by multiband compressing it but leaving the super lows pretty quiet but constantly tickling it… honestly almost nothing could be worse to my ears with bass toned like that. You are supposed to lose some of that grounding that happens with different or higher notes. Multibanding the shit out of a bass, or over use of distortion to essentially get the same squashed effect just kills it for me. It was one of my biggest problems. My basses now sound SO much bigger with smarter and a lighter hand with compression because it will move away from that hugeness and come back at times. When you are constantly running the subs it’s just shit.
@@hannes1734 Das ist doch super! Stell´dir vor, die hätten´s nicht gemacht. Dann könntest du hier gar nicht deinen Senf abgeben. Ich find´s gut. Gratuliere. Es lebe die "Gibdeinensenfabfreiheit."
Mein anfänglicher Kommentar war vielleicht etwas platt, aber eigentlich wollte ich sagen: Diese Video ist eigentlich Zeitverschwendung, denn es werden nur Platitüden rausgehauen, ohne Mehrwert. Beste Grüße
The bass tone is awful to my taste.... This kind of bass tone is made for making room to other instruments. So lets just cut the bass out of the mix... It is basicaly the same thing. The video is great, still i would like to hear and understand what the bass player is doing.
this bass tone is definitely designed to sit in this mix. wouldn't sound good on it's own, but that happens a lot in rock and metal mixes, were the bass tone is supportive, not the highlight. i've seen people overdue their tone and sometimes drum tone in metal, and it just doesn't fit into the song.
Don't get me wrong, the video is great, the song is great. But what i'm not into is that the bass is submerge into the guitar sound. Why does the bass has to be supportive? Why doesn't it takes place like another instruments? Basically, low ends on the side, the bass sound just add a layer of grind on the guitar tracks. Plus, the bass tone is not good for me because with good speakers or good headphones (HD650), I don't clearly hear what he is playing. No matter the band, no matter how famous they are. it could be great to dip a frequency in the guitar tone to make some room for the bass guitar, less mid saturation and you get both bass guitar understanding and guitar tone goodness. And yeah, i'm a bass player and only bass that's why i like to hear the bass.... A matter of priorities i guess.
@@BZK33 yup i feel ya. in my own music the bass is usually playing a counter melody to the guitar, and the instruments are somewhat justaposed as the bass is often playing higher than the guitar. this song isn't a riff i would ever write. but what he did makes sense for it. for recording, i find i have to write two bass parts. one that follows the guitar to thicken them up, and the original bass line i wrote that is actually melodic, musical, and separate from the guitars. which is... interesting to mix well. (i'm still working on that one).