Isolating Base Line from Old Recordings

[Carl]

I am having a difficult time isolating the bass lines on recordings made in the sixties and early seventies. I can turn the bass way up and sort of hear it, but on many recordings it stays lost in the mix.

Any ideas?

[jamesblue]

I have a hard time too, but one thing you can do is:
Get an MP3 or copy it to your computer.
Use a 10+ band graphic eq or a notch eq to help bring out the frequency you can best hear the notes of the bass.
A sequencer program like Audacity (free) with some VST EQ plugins should help.
Get into digital recording, it's fun. Takes time though.

[WillBuckingham]

Originally Posted by Carl

I am having a difficult time isolating the bass lines on recordings made in the sixties and early seventies. I can turn the bass way up and sort of hear it, but on many recordings it stays lost in the mix.

Any ideas?

Which recordings are you having difficulty with?

[billjr]

I have noticed the same problem. I notice it on early recordings for bands like The Drifters, The Four Tops, and many original blues recordings. It is much better if you find an artist that has re-recorded songs later, when the recording technology and techniques where much better.

[Rattlehead]

Very difficult eh?

In the 80s you would expect better bass sound. But I listen to metal more than any other genre. Try picking out a bass line behind distorted guitars and amidst double bass drum action - probably as difficult, if not more difficult than picking out bass from older recordings.
And it gets even worse for Death metal and especially in Black metal, where poor quality recording seems to regarded as a good thing by some.

Apart from cranking the low frequencies, there are a few other things I've found that help.

If it is a stereo recording, unplug one speaker. Sometimes they put some instruments only on one "side" of the recording. Bass and drums are always in both, but sometimes there will be one guitar on the left only and another guitar on the right only

Buy the vinyl. Apparently vinyls have better bass sound than CDs, if you compare a good quality vinyl player to a good quality CD player. That's one of the reasons vinyls are becoming popular again. I can't speak from experience though.

Cranking the bass frequencies helps, but sometimes, oddly enough, doing the exact opposite helps. If the bass has a puchy high end, you might be able to pick this out better if you crank the treble. At any rate, this might help you anyway, as your mind sees the contrast and starts to separate the diffrent frequencies into different mental "tracks".

And also, check Powertabs.net
Powertab is a program that creates midi files from guitar tabs that people input into the program. It is free for download. On the website, there are many "powertab renditions" of songs, and sometimes these can be quite accurate.

[WillBuckingham]

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

Buy the vinyl. Apparently vinyls have better bass sound than CDs, if you compare a good quality vinyl player to a good quality CD player. That's one of the reasons vinyls are becoming popular again. I can't speak from experience though.

I don't think so. One of the big drawbacks of Vinyl records is that bass is often heavily compressed, as necessitated by the physical issues with analog recording. CD's generally have better bass sound, IMO. Further, trying to transcribe parts from an lp is one of the least enjoyable things I've experienced (after you're used to the convience of doing the same from a cd or cassette tape).

[seanm]

If, as a bass player, *you* cannot hear the bass line, the audience cannot hear the bass line. Just make up something that sounds good.

It took me a while to appreciate this. I have had people come up to me and say "You played it just like the recording!" when I wasn't even close. What they really meant was "The bass line fit the song, so it *must* be the right one."

[dmperry24]

There's a piece of software called Transcribe! put out by Seventh String (www.seventhstring.com) that will read an mp3, or even directly from a CD if you have enough computer memory. You can then go to an effects menu that allows you to select the bass which will boost the bass line to the point that is almost all you hear. Conversely you can also cut the bass part out of the tune all together and practice a music-minus-one type of situation. It works pretty well on all types of music, and sells for around $50 or so. You can mark measures, beats, and sections of a tune, and then slow it down in percentages to pick up the rapid notes. It's great!

[Carl]

Thanks for all of the information. My computer died and that is why I am so slow getting back to this.