You Got it Going

Hey, Larry.

Sounds good overall. In the interest of polishing the mix, here are a couple of things I noticed. I'm in my office studio at the moment, which has reference monitors and acoustic treatment. While it's not my main control room, things usually translate well enough to trust.

The rhythm guitar level is significantly hotter than bass & drums. It's difficult to tell because of the guitar, but the bass might want to come up just a touch to balance with the drums.

Bass / low frequencies aren't as directional as higher ones, so I don't think it buys you much in terms of panning it. I've always kept mine dead center. It won't get in the way of your vocals as most humans don't sing in that range (although that would be a neat party trick).

I think rather than turning up the solo, if you bring down the rhythm you might find it sits in the mix okay.

Hope this helps. Keep rockin, man.

Quote from BayouTexan

Should've left it alone.

Yeah, they're going to write that one on my tombstone.

Quote from BayouTexan

I tried another "less is more" approach by using single tracks on guitar and bass, and only a subtle delay on guitar just for a bit of atmosphere. I panned guitar and bass off center to give room for a center vocal. This is my first attempt to polish a mix. I'm not sure if I like the tone used for the ending solo because I went softer than usual. I used the TD - Jer Can profile for rhythm (SD Pegasus) and lead (SD Custom). Eb tuning.

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Hey there. One thing I'd say is that your work on timing has paid huge dividends from tracks not that long ago. There's still work to be done but it's now really beginning to come together in a much more professional sounding way.

For me I wouldn't par things down too much. Even though many bands have only one guitarist if you pay attention to their studio tracks they'll often pad things out (in the case of Def Leopard a bit more than was feasible to play live till they got Campbell). So check out the tracks of the artists you love and don't be afraid of some studio experimenting.

Well done Larry , bass is more prominent than the last one, good thing ! That must be hard for the timing to play rhythm parts with such delays ?

Hej Larry,

Your best one so far!
I'd like to echo Per's comment on the timing and Chris' comment on the level of the rhythm guitar. Looking forward to following your further development.

Cheers,

Mats N

Of all the gazillion things to consider when recording and mixing, I think figuring out how to make your bass portable has got to be one of the most difficult things, even all these decades later.

One thing that helped me, since I'm not a bassist myself, was finding good sounds. For a long time I used some from my JV-2080, but I'm now finding similar tones in my Kronos, Fantom and Montage keyboards because the sampled sounds are so good. Bearing in mind that I'm a classic rock guy, what I look for is a bass that's got some heft on the bottom but is still a fairly focused sound, e.g. a P bass. I enjoy the sound of a good fretless Fender (I'm a big Humble Pie fan), but having a bit of a transient on the attack helps a lot when you're listening on a phone's speaker or some other smaller device / speakers. The full tone comes through on your studio monitors, but without the transients the bass can completely disappear in those scenarios.

The challenge for focused bass in my case isn't the phone speakers, it's when someone listens on earbuds. In particular, I have an iPhone and find the Apple ear buds really hype the low end. Probably because contemporary music favors the whoompy bass of rap / hip hop. I'm sure those styles sounds great on earbuds, but I have to walk the line between "full range sounds good on studio monitors" and not go into "OMG, I can't hear anything but the whoompy bass" when I listen on buds. In my case, I use the same bass tones repeatedly and I've learned through experimentation (the modern version of "car mixes") where the line is for the bass to translate.

And that points to another thing that I've found to be very important. My main studio monitors are 8" two way Mackie HDRs from the 90s. I'm sure that in a side by side comparison with all the great monitors available today the Mackies wouldn't be impressive at all. They're good speakers and have served me well, but the single most important think about the HDRs is that I know them. My ears have become accustomed to what it should sound like in the control room (HDRs + the room acoustics) if it's going to sound good in other environments.

In your case, I would imagine you're experiencing the same thing. You spend a lot of time in your studio, and I'm sure you test your mixes in other environments and on other devices, so you're getting better and better at knowing how it will translate. Like Per said, if you listen to other artists while in your studio, then try to make your bass sound like theirs, that will help you with translation. That's something a lot of us have done.

Your craft continues to improve. I look up to you because I've got all this gear and I'm sure I don't spend near as much time in the studio as you do. Because that's the real secret. Endless repitition.

Quote from BayouTexan

I need to compensate my pick position on the right hand for each note. No easy task but MuddySludge suggested I try to practice that.

He's right on the money with this. I can understand why it might seem difficult, but you may be much closer than you think.

While the bottom four strings are tuned the same for bass and guitar, the spacing between strings is wider and the gauge heavier, so it feels different. The technique, however, is the same as it is on guitar, and given the number of years you've been playing, I'm willing to bet that you already do this as it's a common guitar technique. It may be that it's just become second nature to you so you're not even aware that you're doing it. I find that I use this a lot on acoustic because there are no tone knobs, but I also do it without thinking on electric to get different tones and articulations. It's just a normal part of my playing, and it may already be for you as well.

If it were me, the first thing I'd suggest would be to analyze your guitar playing since that's your primary instrument. Do you make use of this technique on electric, moving the pick closer to or farther away from the bridge to alter your tone? If so, then you have a point of reference for bass. Pay attention to how it feels when playing guitar, and then "think like a guitarist" while playing bass. Then you just have to get used to the differences in spacing and string gauge, but the technique itself might feel more natural to you.

If it turns out that you haven't been using this on guitar, you might try integrating that into your six string playing first. That will give you a feel for the wheel in a context that's more natural to you, after which it will be easier to translate to bass.

Another thing that can help you tighten up your bass tone is palm muting. Again, I'm sure you do this instinctively on guitar, to the point where the palm mute is not an on / off thing, but often shades of gray in how much muting you do for a given feel. This will help you on bass, particularly with the woofiness of the low notes. You can get the transient and let the note bloom as much as you like, then dampen it before it expands all the way to woofing out.

As with the other technique, stopping to analyze what you're actually doing on guitar can be useful. After playing for so many years, much of what we do is muscle memory. When a beginner asks how you get a certain expression, you might even have to stop and think about it for a moment because it's instinctive. If you do this kind of analysis for these techniques, realize exactly what you're doing and how, it'll help translate to bass.

And just for the record, I have on occasion worked as a bass player, but only when I really needed the money. Because I'm a crappy bass player. That's why I cheat and just play keys with bass samples.