Mixing acoustic bass and piano.

[Benjamin Strange]

I'm working on a tune which may involve a piano with a somewhat heavy left hand part and an acoustic bass guitar part. I'm having a hard time getting the two to sit well in a mix together.

Anybody have any experience with this? Any suggestions?

[Dbassmon]

Is the fact that you feel the mix isn't sitting well because of the recording or the musical arrangement?

As you probably know, piano players with a heavy left hand are a problem for us bass players. That's a musical issue.

Have you tried setting up a binaural or single stereo pair and record the composition live? Many famous jazz albums have been recorded that way and it works. You need players that can play from start to finish accurately as there are no punches. If it sounds good in the room, the recording should sound good too.

Might be worth a try.

[anderbass]

Dbassmon is right, when parts are arranged, played and recorded well,
mixing is a pleasure instead of a chore.

If the low bass notes are conflicting, I'd try some low frequency cuts
for one of the instruments, probably the piano.

R/L Panning may also help you give each instrument more of it's own sonic space.

[bassbrad]

When I mix I visualize the acoustic space. I would push each instrument to a seperate back corner and gently edge them towards the front & center until it fills, it also depends on which part is more important and well as what other instruments are there.
OTOH If you are using an electric(onic) piano you could split the keyboard signal and have seperate tracks for each part, easier to balance the mix.

[Lorenzini]

As a primary pianist, I can tell you first that playing bass notes is a no no. If you can, rerecord it...

[DocBop]

As a guitarist in the past and now a bass player I can say working with piano players is a balancing act. For guitar their only range is a piano players favorite range. On bass they can take advantage of you carrying the bottom do more with voicings and colors. If they are used to playing by themselves they will have that heavy left hand and won't leave room for the bass. You will probably have to duck one of them out of the mix, or get a piano player that can leave some room for the bass.

[AdlerAugen]

Well, you'd have to determine which is more important to the structure of the song. You also want to determine which is more complex...I don't think hearing a stead stream of eigth notes is as important as a piano if the piano is going all over the place doing some solo work. On the other hand, if the bass is more complex of a line, then bring it up more. If they're both equally important on the accompaniment line, then either re-record with a pianist that knows how to work his dynamics and 'musicality' better, or learn how to synthesize the piano part, or EQ it. However, if you throw a keyboard at a pianist instead of a grand piano, he'll throw it back at you and wonder what the heck you expect him to do with it.

By musicality, I mean knowing which parts to bring out and to let hang back a bit. The best test of this is 'classical' music. (there are actually different periods of 'classical' music, baroque, classical (this is the literal one), romantic, contemporary, etc.).
This can also mean his phrasing (like sentences, are his musical phrases monotone or are they interesting to listen to?). I say these things through years of piano lessons, almost 10, and as I intend to be double majoring next year in piano performance and electrical engineering.

It also doesn't hurt to get a pianist that knows improv so he can add or take out something that does or doesn't need to be there.

PS if you tell me to record something on a keyboard instead of a real-man's piano, I'll throw that object back at you. Unless you want a midi input. That's a little different.

[geoffkhan]

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

I'm working on a tune which may involve a piano with a somewhat heavy left hand part and an acoustic bass guitar part. I'm having a hard time getting the two to sit well in a mix together.

Usually low notes on a piano work well against an upright bass, but not an electric bass. There's just something about the timbre of an upright bass that makes it more compatible with piano. I wonder how an acoustic bass guitar is...

I would imagine the acoustic bass guitar would have a stronger presence of the first few partials in the harmonic sequence than the upright bass does, so that might contributing to the conflict with the piano. Just think of the frequencies each instrument resides in and how you can make room in the mix for each of these ranges. This technique is used most commonly between the bass and the kick drum (the bass occupying around 100 hz, so you cut 100 hz in the kick and boost around 50-70 hz in the kick and likewise cut those frequencies in the bass--though 50 hz might even be a little too low, being the lowest frequency your ears can perceive) Just search around with a notch in the EQ to find the fundamental frequencies of these tracks so you know approximately where they reside in the overall frequency spectrum. If the piano is playing low notes below C3 or so, with some panning you can make it more compatible with the bass, also. Think about the dimensions these instruments occupy and pan the mics accordingly. Not to say you should make your mix sound like a recording off of a live performance on a stage, but certain elements from that context can prove useful in your case.

If not already, bus your tracks to some reverb. When the reverb is on an aux, you'll find you can pan the tracks more drastically without becoming aurally irritating, since the reverb remains balanced. A small amount of reverb can help instruments blend, as long as it is applied tastefully.