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Help! I lost myself in the mix!

D

DeadMike

May 17, 2005
85
0
Des Moines, IA
www.myspace.com
#1
I hope somebody has a suggestion for me. I am the bass player/engineer/producer for the band I'm in and we record all of our rehearsals (mainly to practice mixing and to document them).

I have been playing a fretless jazz bass, but last week I began to play a Washburn Taurus 5-string. I've never played one (or recorded one) before. I've got the hang of playing it, but when I recorded everything (vox, two guitars, bass and drum set which includes a floor tom), I lost myself in the mix, specifically when I played south of the E on the B string. I think I'm blending too much with the low toms on the drum kit...but I'm not sure what to do now.

I realize I can play the notes up an octave, but I'm wondering if it is something with the way I mixed it (through a Mackie DFX 12 and directly to CD). Any ideas?
 
#8
DeadMike said:
Baba- Are you refering to the mids on my head or on the board?
Click to expand...

On your head. You could do it just on your channel on the board too, but I believe in tone shaping as best as you can before the board. Use the board and or mixdown for final tweaks if needed.

Also....the bass and the kick drum share much of the same frequencies. The idea is to create eq "holes" within the mix so instruments aren't stepping on eachother. Google will bring up lots of good info on this. Try keywords like "mixdown eq" or "mixing down eq". There's tons of info on how to eq specific instruments so there is separation in the mix.
 
#9
If the Bass is lost, I bet the low end in general is pretty muddy. Try rolling off the low end of the guitars and even the kick, but not a lot on the kick. A lot of times the kick and Bass fight for a place to live. As said before, punch up the mids in your bass, and then suck some low end out of the guitars try a high pass at about 120 or so. Try pulling around 350 out of the kick. All this at the mixer, guitar player will crap if you ask him to eq at the head, besides it would not get what you want anyway.

Its a place to start, good luck.
 
#13
DeadMike said:
So is it just the frequency of the notes lower than the low E on a bass that get more muddled with the low toms and kick drum? We've been recording rehearsals for a couple of months and I've never had this problem.
Click to expand...

No, I was just being sarcastic. Don't mind my last post.

Frequencies higher than your E can also get muddified with the kick and even guitars. Just research the use of eq to create seperation between instruments within your mix. The effect will be amazing.
 

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