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Little help with j bass tone

jasmangan

jasmangan

Jul 13, 2008
409
719
#1
Hello all,
My band has recorded an album and are now listening to the pre-release mix. Although I'm happy with my over all tone, I've realised that on two of the songs I'm playing with both p/u's wide open instead of having the bridge p/u only. Is there a way to bring out the bridge p/u's frequency without rerecording the line?
Thanks
 
#4
Yes, the bass has it's own tracks, so going back through with a different eq won't be a problem. I've used eq to bring something up or down but not to get rid of one p/u's sound to bring out another's.
In this case time is money, so I'd prefer not to rerecord.
Are there certain frequency's associated with each p/u that I need to isolate or should I forget about the bridge p/u and just eq for the best sound with what I've got? I probably just answered my own question.
 
#6
There's a lot of overlap between pickups in terms of frequency response, so removing one from the equation in post would be next to impossible.

If you can run your signal through a spectrum analyzer (Blue Cat Audio makes a great free one) and compare a part played solo on the neck pickup to the same part played solo on the bridge pickup, you should be able to generally identify the major points of the curve for each. After that you try to minimize the offending pickups high points, while maximize the desired pickups high points. That's all a lot of work for what could be accomplished with a good ear and a EQ in post, although it'll never be the same.

Ultimately don't sweat it if you can get good results as recorded.
 
#7
Thank you for your responses and suggestions. Our engineer/producer has been great and I know that he is willing to do some editing, but I do feel a little guilty asking him to spend hours fixing what is my mistake.
I think we'll just give it a different eq setting to bring a little more clarity to the line, and I won't worry about a preconceived sound I had in my head.
Ultimately the song still rocks.
 
#8
jasmangan said:
...but I do feel a little guilty asking him to spend hours fixing what is my mistake.
I think we'll just give it a different eq setting to bring a little more clarity to the line, and I won't worry about a preconceived sound I had in my head.
Ultimately the song still rocks.
Click to expand...

If it takes more than 5 minutes to coax the tone you want from the recorded track, I'd be inclined to re-record the bass part. That said, it shouldn't take long to EQ some of the lows and low-mids out of the bass track.
 
#10
Assuming its in a daw? take one track and shift it (the whole track) a few milliseconds ahead or behind of the other track. I frequently eq the tracks completely different just to avoid phase cancelation and frequency build up in certain areas. Ill run a full spectrum track and a second or third track that is low cut up to 300 hz, slight bump around 600hz and another at 3khz. solo'd that track will sound like im playing through a tin can, but in the mix gives enough lift and mid pressence to hear a little bit more without infringing upon the kick drums home
 
#11
jasmangan said:
. Although I'm happy with my over all tone, I've realised that on two of the songs I'm playing with both p/u's wide open instead of having the bridge p/u only.
Click to expand...

I use to record (and playing in live too) using bridge, neck and both pickups. I find thath it adds another color (texture, taste,...) to the music. I´d leave the bass line played with both pickups if you can get another kind of bass sound that fits well for your music.:cool:

silky smoove said:
There's a lot of overlap between pickups in terms of frequency response, so removing one from the equation in post would be next to impossible.

If you can run your signal through a spectrum analyzer (Blue Cat Audio makes a great free one) and compare a part played solo on the neck pickup to the same part played solo on the bridge pickup, you should be able to generally identify the major points of the curve for each. After that you try to minimize the offending pickups high points, while maximize the desired pickups high points. That's all a lot of work for what could be accomplished with a good ear and a EQ in post, although it'll never be the same.

Ultimately don't sweat it if you can get good results as recorded.
Click to expand...

With this you´ll are close to get it, but it will be not the same. I don´t know if I gotta find the right words to explain it, ´cause sometimes my english isn´t so good.:cool: But I´ll try:

When you´re playing with both pickups there´s some frequencies that they are canceled. The explanation is that each pickup receives (retakes) the string sound in different position that the other. So each pickup recives differents harmonics too. You know that when the string is moving up and down don´t have the same direction in both pickups. So while the string it moves don´t does at the same time in both pickups. Can be that the string has going down (or going up) a little bit before (or after) in the bridge pickup that in the neck pickup. So this smallest differences (or shortest delay) in the string moving is that really produces this differents phases. This differences between phases at the same time it produces some cancellations in only a few frequencies. This is the reason that with an equalizer your sound enginier will be close to get the tone of your bridge pickup but never will be exactly the same tone that if you record again the same bass line with your bridge pickup.

Sorry if I did some grammatical incorrections/mistakes. I hope that you can get understand my explanation.;)
 

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