I need some help with computer generated effects. Im looking for a nice warm as close to professional sounding recording as I can get. Im having a hard time finding a combination of reverb and chorus to get a sound that adds a little bit of warmth and depth without getting something boomy and overly bassy. BTW this is for solo bass music. Im using a line out of my bass amp into a 4track mixer then into my soundcard recording and editing in cool edit pro if it helps.
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Computer Effects
- Thread starter Clay_Bass
- Start date
Our recording guy (the guitarist, 
) swears by Izotope Ozone. You can get it Invalid Link Removed. You've got 10 days of full functionality, after that it mutes for about a second every 40 seconds. So it's definitely a try before you buy deal. Not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for. You could also look for a "tube warmer" (I think 
) effect. The number of effects available is enormous, I'd go so far to say as there are more vitual effects than physical ones, and almost all effects cost out the ying yang. Good luck on your quest, you're going to need it. One thing to keep in mind, the best sound you'll ever get out is only as good as the sound going in. In other words, you can polish a turd all day long and then it's just a shiny turd. Your soundcard could be the weak link, if it's a real cheapy soundcard you'll probably never get anything semi-professional sounding out of it.
) swears by Izotope Ozone. You can get it Invalid Link Removed. You've got 10 days of full functionality, after that it mutes for about a second every 40 seconds. So it's definitely a try before you buy deal. Not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for. You could also look for a "tube warmer" (I think ) effect. The number of effects available is enormous, I'd go so far to say as there are more vitual effects than physical ones, and almost all effects cost out the ying yang. Good luck on your quest, you're going to need it. One thing to keep in mind, the best sound you'll ever get out is only as good as the sound going in. In other words, you can polish a turd all day long and then it's just a shiny turd. Your soundcard could be the weak link, if it's a real cheapy soundcard you'll probably never get anything semi-professional sounding out of it.Reverb is a lot of getting "that" sound, and not to say to overuse reverb either. But you definitely want to get something with a little more quality than your average 8 comb reverb. The Waves reverb is great, as is the Lexicon Pantheon. For a free alternative, Ambience is really good.
I actually find that I only need minimal effects to get a full, professional bass sound for solo bass. Most of it is what kind of bass tone you're getting before the effects, of course.
Ozone is good for mastering, I used to use it more often, but I'm finding I haven't been using it lately since I've been pretty getting that "mastered" tone without having to go through that extra step. It's also VERY important not to use Ozone (or any other mastering plugin) after you've been recording, but to use it on a "fresh day", since otherwise you'll tend to boost the highs way up.
I actually find that I only need minimal effects to get a full, professional bass sound for solo bass. Most of it is what kind of bass tone you're getting before the effects, of course.
Ozone is good for mastering, I used to use it more often, but I'm finding I haven't been using it lately since I've been pretty getting that "mastered" tone without having to go through that extra step. It's also VERY important not to use Ozone (or any other mastering plugin) after you've been recording, but to use it on a "fresh day", since otherwise you'll tend to boost the highs way up.
This is an excellent plugin to add warmth...
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If you're using a lot of depth in your verb on bass, it's going to muddy things up a bit and throwing a chorus on it won't help it much either.
You could try and get creative... duplicate your bass track and run one track through a high-pass filter (many eq plugins usually have this option) and the other track through low-pass (you might want to try reversing the phase on one of the tracks too to avoid any potential phase cancellation). Then add you verb to the high pass track and leave the low pass track uneffected.
Not sure exactly what the result would be, but I think it sounds good in theory
Having only the higher frequencies travelling through the reverb should give you depth without creating the added bass boominess (I would think). Something to try at least.
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c
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If you're using a lot of depth in your verb on bass, it's going to muddy things up a bit and throwing a chorus on it won't help it much either.
You could try and get creative... duplicate your bass track and run one track through a high-pass filter (many eq plugins usually have this option) and the other track through low-pass (you might want to try reversing the phase on one of the tracks too to avoid any potential phase cancellation). Then add you verb to the high pass track and leave the low pass track uneffected.
Not sure exactly what the result would be, but I think it sounds good in theory
Having only the higher frequencies travelling through the reverb should give you depth without creating the added bass boominess (I would think). Something to try at least.---
c
chrisp2u said:Not sure exactly what the result would be, but I think it sounds good in theory
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c
Yup, this is definitely the way to go. I do this a lot when I record electric bass where the bass is a very prominent instrument. And this technique sounds great, too! Another way to do it without duplicating your track is to just use a send.
If there's still some boominess, you can use EQ to try to figure out where it resides, but generally I advise to eliminate any problems such as this as early on as possible.
geoffkhan said:
Ah yes, the aux send method would work too. That can be confusing sometimes to some folks though who aren't familiar with routing that way. You never know what a person's comprehension of that stuff is, so I try to keep it simple
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c
DougP said:
I'm not sure if "warming" is exactly what's needed for the solo bass sound. Seems like that would tend to muddy the bass tone in that instance, especially with using Izotope's Trash plugin.
don't know if you have heard of this site, but it's one of the largest collection of VST effects and instrument plugin places. they can range from free to lots of money. you can find some really good stuff for free.
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Im not really looking for effects to download just how to use reverb on a computer to get the sounds I want. If it was like a rackmounted effects unit I could just twiddle knobs untill I got the right settings but Im having trouble putting numbers together. If you want an example of some sounds I like
Michael Manrings cd Soliloquy
John Pattituccis song Sachi's Eyes
Matthew Garrison's song Three Tree
Jeff Schmidts Little Sunflower etc from his myspace
Victor Wooten's Overjoyed and Norwegian Wood.
Michael Manrings cd Soliloquy
John Pattituccis song Sachi's Eyes
Matthew Garrison's song Three Tree
Jeff Schmidts Little Sunflower etc from his myspace
Victor Wooten's Overjoyed and Norwegian Wood.
Try using a reverb plugin that has a low-cut filter to keep boominess at bay, and use a chorus with an adjustable mix control. I don't know the capabilities of Cool Edit Pro--can you record dry bass to one track, effected bass to another, and then balance them at mix time? I'm very fond of the Kjaerhus VST plugins for Windows--they cover subtle to outrageous and all points in between http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php.
When recording to 4-track use high speed recording (if yours has it) to minimize low-end buildup. I often end up cutting lows/low mids and sometimes adding a bit of high end when mixing from 4-track to computer.
When recording to 4-track use high speed recording (if yours has it) to minimize low-end buildup. I often end up cutting lows/low mids and sometimes adding a bit of high end when mixing from 4-track to computer.
