Awesome in Early Mix... Less Awesome in Final Mix

[chaosMK]

I love our studio dude, we've recorded two albums with him and both came out great. Great engineer.

I was going through my mixes and the "bass mix" before a lot of our mastering was done is ridiculous... sounds huge and raw, my tone is awesome. The final mix ended up with tons of flubby guitar mids and who knows what else reducing the thundah. If you have a good sub system, sounds great (well, at least how I wanted the bass to sound). A lot of clarity on the low end and immediacy got lost in later mixes.

Cirrus/Bass 400 KT-88/Sansamp BDDI/Mesa PH 4x10

Left Brain - Solipsism (2010) - Kali & Emanations Raw Bass Mix by dr_thunda on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

[JimK]

This happened to me way back when...told this story before, too.

After the session (cough-cough), I was given a cassette (tells you how long ago this was)...sounded pretty good (bass sounded very good & upfront).

Couple weeks, I hear the "mastered" version: Bass now sounds like I am hitting a pillow.
I asked the songwriter "What happened?!?! What is that"?
He said, "Compression".

Any energy/dynamics was sucked out...haven't been a fan of compression since.

Later, it all made sense: The engineer had no clue with the bass, especially those that did not wield a pick. Come to think of it, he asked that I use a pick...& I thought about walking. The songwriter struck a deal...we would try fingers 1st & if it wasn't good I would use a pick (actually, I woulda walked).
Anyway, I heard LPs that came out of that studio (with some great local bassists)...same deal. Bass was a 2nd Class citzen. Guitars & vocals were wonderful, FWIW.

[BassBrass]

That's why bass players need to be in charge. "Experts" are handicapped by experience and dogma. "Mastering" often means push the mediocre button.
I'm in a band where the bass and guitar HAVE TO be equal in presence, which sometimes means More bass because treble frequencies carry better. I'm paying equal to the band members and our engineer is excellent (he also rants about mastering results, too many times what he thought he recorded was gone, made duller)
I still have to fight for space because bass (like people heard in the 50s) is "no longer in style". Live, working with sound-people it typically goes in volume 1. kick and snare 2. vocals, 3. guitar 4. bass. I actually have to hear it from the front myself to know if I'm in the mix like I need to be. Bass players are like 2nd class citizens. Fight for your right.

[chaosMK]

I was pretty involved and ended up with a present mix, just had no idea the dynamics were compressed. So much compression generally involved in metal I guess. I mean the song sounds like 2 bpm faster without the mastering job... just so much more immediate.

[renobassman]

This happened to me on the last recording I played on. Rough mixes were excellent, everything was clear and sounded nice and full. There was a good balance of high and low frequencies. Got the final master, and it sounded awful by comparison. The electric guitar and keyboard were really loud and the acoustic guitar disappeared almost entirely. The bass had no low end to speak of and sounded really thin. Everything was just over compressed and too loud in the high mid range.

[pedroims]

I think it depends on the engineer's approach, many mix are done thinking that everybody have a great sound system at home, I remember reading to some bass player where he said that he learn from an engineer how to make the bass sounds good even through car's speakers.