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Old 07-16-2017, 03:33 AM   #18
Bjorn218
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Texas
Posts: 305
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In addition to whatLokasenna posted, in the Bass Bus or Folder (terminology of same thing) add a narrow EQ spike at 800Hz. This seems to be a bass guitar's frequency where the bite/spank comes out. Not too much just til you can hear it within the full mix of the instrument. Also always listen to your bass tracks while drum tracks are playing which helps figure out where those two instruments will play well together. Add guitars afterward. Even in metal.

I use similar technique to Lokasenna, but split mine up for clean, emphasis of transients, warmth, and distortion.

Clean track: I run mine through TSE BOD until is sounds nice and not too exciting, then hit it fairly hard with Modern Deathcore (their spin on a Distressor). I will HPF around 36Hz and LPF around 7K and use the BOD and guitar to get the eq I like.

Transient Emphasis track: will be set up to over emphasize the attack of each note played the best I can. I will use whatever I have to do this via transient shapers, compression, as well as eq. This track usually sounds pretty horrid on its own.

Warmth Track: I will Duplicate the Clean Track and it's effects chain, but run a bass amp sim like the one from Ignite, or Kuassa Cerberus and bring out the warmth of the bass. Think Geezer Butler's tone from first two Sabbath albums.

Distortion track: Take another duplicated clean track and only use Boogex on this and crank the gain, eq is a frown to emphasize the mids and kill the built in impulse response file. This one here is going for massive disotrtion and ugly ugly ugly..

These tracks are then bussed together with faders down and I will start to blend the clean and warmth tracks together until they start happening and grooving with the drums. The transient track comes up next just to where you hear the bass note attacks but not every time a note is played.

Finally the Distortion track comes up and only enough to get the track to growl every so often. You really do not want to hear the distortion or be able to pick that track out. It is more a feel thing. This track is what makes the bass sound like its being played through an amp.

Now once you get this far, balance the Bus EQ with the low end of the drums and keep them from stomping all over each other. You can also do some heavy scooping between 250Hz and 550/600Hz as this is where guitars will sit with the low mids. Find the resonant peak of the bass somewhere around 100-150Hz and bump it up a little make sure the Q of the bump is fairly small. Make a similar sized scoop from 190-215 as guitar cabinets have a low resonant peak here.

Now bring up the guitar tracks and see how it sounds. Adjust the scoops and EQ peaks so the bass, while still maintaining its own personality, is providing the clean low end to guitar white noise. Bass in metal actually provides the emphasis and articulation to guitar riffs. Metal guitar and especially extreme metal guitars essentially sound like 3 -5 minutes of someone trying to hawk a loogey, even if played well. The bass adds the musical tones to them to create a full package bad ass rhythm.

If your bass keeps getting buried, don not forget to make that small 800Hz peak to punch through the wall of noise and add its bite. Do not be afraid to add in 3-4 instances of your EQ plugin to the bass bus with each tailored to a specific eq spectrum you are trying to accomplish. Just keep gain structure integrity.

Also find 4Front Piano plugin and use that on a separate track to follow along with note changes that the guitars and bass are doing. Dont use this to make 16th note runs, but whole, half, and quarter note runs following the bass and guitars. blend this track into the overall mix until your hear it, then bring the fader down until the piano track just goes away and you can no longer audibly discern it is there. Then mute and then unmute the piano track to see what it adds. This is a neat trick I learned from Mixbus TV that actually works fairly well on songs with busy riffs where a lot of speed picked rhythms are being played. Play the piano one octave lower than the bass.

Watch some videos from ChernobylStudios, I learned quite a bit off that guy as he uses a more visual approach. Mixbus TV has good videos as well, but the music he does isnt really what I would consider metal, but the techniques carry over. Spend $25 and pick up The Systemic Guide to Mixing Metal by Ermin Hamidovic. Above all others, this book helps me anytime I start piecing more than one instrument together and run into a roadblock.

Last edited by Bjorn218; 07-16-2017 at 03:49 AM.
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