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Pro Tools question

J

Jade Stolar

Oct 9, 2008
71
0
Whitby Ontario, Canada
#1
Does anyone know if you can load a track from a band's CD in to Pro Tools and either separate the bass track or increase the level of the bass?

The reason I am asking is that I have a CD from Bruce Kulick (former lead guitarist for KISS and current lead guitarist for Grand Funk Railroad) and the bass level is so low on all the tracks that it is almost inaudible. He told me that when he was mixing the disc, he thought the bass was too loud so he turned it down but he turned it down too far.
 
#4
In short: no.

Well. You can TRY to boost some frequencies with parametric EQ (narrow Q) but the result really depends on how the source material is mixed. If there is no much instrument separation in the frequency spectrum you'll end up boosting a bit of everything. If you're lucky the bass might be almost alone somewhere between 70 and 160Hz and you could be able to dig some of it up. But the result won't be anywhere near what actually raising the entire bass in the mix would sound like.
 
#6
Stingray_EB said:
I have doubts that you will be able to do it, unless it was recorded on pro tools.
Click to expand...

Nope, it doesn't matter what it was recorded with if OP doesn't have the multitrack session or separate tracks as audio files - which he obviously doesn't.

There's no way to fix badly balanced mix by remastering the track. Such things as kick drum punch and snare punch may be boosted in some occasions but rarely with desirable results.
 
#7
if you just want to hear the bass, try separating the stereo track into 2 mono tracks and flipping one out of phase (audiosuite:invert). now everything that was equal on both sides is gone. things that were panned less are lowered in volume. you can hear whats right up the middle a lot better, and 90% of the time, the bass is right up the middle with the kick drum and lead vocal.

but in short, no, you cannot isolate the bass
 
#10
You just need to use a multi-band EQ to boost he bass frequency range. Pro Tools has multi-band EQ's, but so does iTunes and other music players. Other tools like Amazing Slower Downer that boosts or cuts fixed frequencies and also can slow down the tune to ease transcribing.
 
#11
like some said, is not possible to just divide the tracks, unless you have the original pre-mixed file.
Only thing would be use EQ to the whole track. Boost the frequencies at 60Hz, lightly until you see if there is a difference. Cut some frequencies above 1khz but not too much. I guess you just gotta play with the EQ that way and see what you get.

Maybe it can be done with some other more expensive equipment.
 
#12
using a M/S matrix (mid/side) you can isolate and process the center information separately from the side information... in most cases, the stuff panned center is the kick drum, bass, snare drum, and vocal... obviously there are other elements in there, too, but it can be a very useful mastering technique to be able to, for example, de-ess the lead vocal aggressively, without affecting the nice high end on the stereo overheads very much.... in the case of the original poster, i would experiment with some multiband expansion/compression on the center/mono information, focusing on trying to get the bass up without messing up the rest of the spectral balance too much. a compressor on only the low frequencies with a fast attack and release would allow the bass to come up inbetween kick drum hits, yet compress the kick hits so that they don't then become way too prominent in the mix.

bla bla bla... lots of fiddling would ensue, for sure.

buy bob katz' book 'mastering audio'... it is pretty much a must have for anyone who wants to record music digitally.

john
 

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