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Old 04-24-2018, 02:24 PM   #1
TLreaper
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Default How do you fix intermittent phasing issues with a bass guitar track?

Hello. I'm not great at mixing, I just occasionally attempt to record guitar stuff I write but rarely finish the whole thing as the recordings don't often seem to "work" like I want them to.

A couple of days ago I recorded some blues-rock improvisation; I didn't actually mean at first to record an entire thing as I was just jamming, so initially I just octave-shifted a regular guitar for the bass part, but I liked the overall result quite much and put plenty of hours into the fine-tuning so I now decided I should replace the shifted guitar with an actual bass recording.

So I recorded something reasonable, I suppose, after many takes (I rarely play the bass; I tried fingerstyle at first but got blisters and eventually went with picked bass). I'm using a VST amp simulator so I tweak the tone over and over again until I reach something that seems to work well enough.

But, some parts in the bass track seem to cancel out. At first I noticed a couple of problematic canceled notes that were fixed by inverting the phase of the bass track; the rest of the bass track seemed unaffected but then I noticed another part where the low E goes completely missing with the inverted phase.

That is the say, most parts phase-OK with the rest of the tracks either way, but then some require an inverted phase while some don't work at all with the phase inverted.

What can I do?

Thanks in advance!
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Old 04-24-2018, 02:38 PM   #2
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Phasing doesn't exist by itself - cancellation requires two waveforms. What's the bass cancelling WITH?
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Old 04-24-2018, 03:05 PM   #3
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this could also be certain bass notes going AWOL due to your monitoring/room combo.
check for the same problems with headphones or other systems/ other rooms as bass will lie to you in one place/system given the opportunity..


or it's just simple masking from other parts.
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Old 04-24-2018, 03:43 PM   #4
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Phasing doesn't exist by itself - cancellation requires two waveforms. What's the bass cancelling WITH?
Hey. Well, I know that, but my point is that happens only sometimes. I'm not certain what exact other track is making the issue; it's probably a bit from several but perhaps the most prominent is two clean ones playing open chords. Checking the bass just against these two doesn't seem to kill the bass as much is it happens in the whole mix, but the other ones (lead guitar playing rather high up the neck, a rhythm distortion guitar, piano/syth and the drums) don't sound like they cause a huge effect when soloed against the bass.
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Old 04-24-2018, 03:44 PM   #5
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this could also be certain bass notes going AWOL due to your monitoring/room combo.
check for the same problems with headphones or other systems/ other rooms as bass will lie to you in one place/system given the opportunity..


or it's just simple masking from other parts.
I am listening with headphones. It is phasing as the parts that are problematic resolve when inverting the phase.
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Old 04-24-2018, 05:04 PM   #6
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Does your processing (amp sims or whatever) have any EQ? That could cause it. So could mixing dry & processed sound together. A quick check would be to see if the problem is still present with the processing turned off. If the phasing goes away, the problem is in your FX chain somewhere.
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Old 04-24-2018, 05:19 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by TLreaper View Post
Hey. Well, I know that, but my point is that happens only sometimes. I'm not certain what exact other track is making the issue; it's probably a bit from several but perhaps the most prominent is two clean ones playing open chords. Checking the bass just against these two doesn't seem to kill the bass as much is it happens in the whole mix, but the other ones (lead guitar playing rather high up the neck, a rhythm distortion guitar, piano/syth and the drums) don't sound like they cause a huge effect when soloed against the bass.
Depending on the genre, you probably don't need low frequencies on the other tracks, aside from the kick. Try throwing a high-pass on them and slowly increase the frequency (with the whole mix playing) until you start to hear a difference, then back it down a bit.
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Old 04-24-2018, 06:59 PM   #8
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Does your processing (amp sims or whatever) have any EQ? That could cause it. So could mixing dry & processed sound together. A quick check would be to see if the problem is still present with the processing turned off. If the phasing goes away, the problem is in your FX chain somewhere.
Well, it does, but I think the "simple" process of amping the dry signal even without using dedicated EQ adjustments creates changes in the phase as it manipulates the shape of the waveform... I tried turning off the amping completely on either the clean guitar chords (I figured it creates most of the canceling issue) and the bass track, and it seems to go away when the bass track is left dry. But I don't want the bass left dry so on its own I guess it doesn't really help seeing that the unprocessed signal phases better with the rest of the track.

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Depending on the genre, you probably don't need low frequencies on the other tracks, aside from the kick. Try throwing a high-pass on them and slowly increase the frequency (with the whole mix playing) until you start to hear a difference, then back it down a bit.
Well, it's a blues-rock kinda jam. The track that seems to collide the most with the bass is the clean chords part - it features these "shimmery" strummed open chords that reminisce a bit the Pink Floyd sound. I tried high passing that at 90hz and it seemed to mostly get rid of the low notes going missing. I also high passed the solo guitar at 70hz and it improved a bit a couple of other parts. But, I wonder if that's the best option? The low E on a guitar is ~82hz, so wouldn't HP at 90hz, for example, kill a lot of the depth of that guitar part? I understand it's in a mix so the individual tonal qualities are differentiated from the sound of the complete mix, but I wonder whether there are other things I should look at to correct such issues.

I think one of the phase settings I tested also had some of the high notes from the bass randomly disappearing - that is something a low HP won't resolve, so what would you do then?
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Old 04-24-2018, 07:12 PM   #9
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The low E on a guitar is ~82hz, so wouldn't HP at 90hz, for example, kill a lot of the depth of that guitar part?
Maybe, also much of that low-e string's sound comes from harmonics; what do your ears tell you? You could also try a shelf instead of a HPF and give it a gentle slope in the same area, that may make it better and provided a more natural result. It's also possible that only one low frequency/pitch is causing the cancellation (hence sometimes), if you find that to be true, just dip that frequency a couple dB with a bell curve.

Or if you wanted to get fancy use a side-chain so the bass dips the gtr frequency for you only when it occurs.
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Old 04-24-2018, 07:28 PM   #10
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The low E on a guitar is ~82hz, so wouldn't HP at 90hz, for example, kill a lot of the depth of that guitar part?
If the guitar is playing low enough that it's making the bass disappear, then the bass is clearly playing at the same time and can therefore handle the low end on its own. IMO, at least.

For what it's worth, it's not uncommon in metal for the guitar to be high-passed well above that - 100Hz, 150Hz, even 200Hz depending on what's going on. The fundamental is great to have, but not at the expense of your mix's clarity.

As karbomusic suggested, this is a case where sidechaining a dynamic EQ or multiband compressor can be handy - TDR Nova is a great free one. As a starting point, set it up with a low shelf turning the guitar down 3db, say around 150Hz, and then use the sidechain to have the bass trigger that band. When the guitar is by itself, the EQ will do nothing, but if the bass plays a note then the guitar will be ducked out of the way.

Quote:
I think one of the phase settings I tested also had some of the high notes from the bass randomly disappearing - that is something a low HP won't resolve, so what would you do then?
At the end of the day, notes disappearing is an issue with too many instruments trying to use the same frequency ranges at the same time. You can either change the arrangement (higher voicings on the guitars, for instance), or use EQ to give everyone their own space.
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Old 04-25-2018, 02:09 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by Lokasenna View Post
If the guitar is playing low enough that it's making the bass disappear, then the bass is clearly playing at the same time and can therefore handle the low end on its own. IMO, at least.

For what it's worth, it's not uncommon in metal for the guitar to be high-passed well above that - 100Hz, 150Hz, even 200Hz depending on what's going on. The fundamental is great to have, but not at the expense of your mix's clarity.

As karbomusic suggested, this is a case where sidechaining a dynamic EQ or multiband compressor can be handy - TDR Nova is a great free one. As a starting point, set it up with a low shelf turning the guitar down 3db, say around 150Hz, and then use the sidechain to have the bass trigger that band. When the guitar is by itself, the EQ will do nothing, but if the bass plays a note then the guitar will be ducked out of the way.



At the end of the day, notes disappearing is an issue with too many instruments trying to use the same frequency ranges at the same time. You can either change the arrangement (higher voicings on the guitars, for instance), or use EQ to give everyone their own space.
Well, I did my best with the tools I had and this is what came to be. Well, I'm not even sure it's my best because a couples of times after adjusting a bunch of things I felt like the mix just went a little bit more lost but I wasn't sure what caused what.

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Old 04-25-2018, 06:50 AM   #12
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The triple-feel closed hat stuff at around 1.00 sounds very mechanical. I know it's "just a jam", but I'd try thinking of that bit as a drum solo/freakout and climax point.
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Old 04-27-2018, 12:38 AM   #13
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The triple-feel closed hat stuff at around 1.00 sounds very mechanical. I know it's "just a jam", but I'd try thinking of that bit as a drum solo/freakout and climax point.
Well, I'm really not good at writing down programmed drums, but I thought it fits OK; I wanted a change in rhythmic feel at the second half, I don't know what drum solo are you thinking of. I think it would be conflicting with the soloing guitar.
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Old 04-28-2018, 09:29 AM   #14
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So, you verified the fx you are using is the cause of your problem. To fix it, try using different processing. There are lots of options. Time to get creative!
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Old 04-28-2018, 11:03 PM   #15
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So, you verified the fx you are using is the cause of your problem. To fix it, try using different processing. There are lots of options. Time to get creative!
Well, the VST itself is very useful, I use it to simulate guitar amplifications and you can get some really nice tones out of it with a bit of work. Again, I believe any sound modification could affect the phasing, no?

So the point is what should you do when discovering such phasing effects that are not entirely consistent? Isn't there something to partially "rotate" the phasing of track rather then completely 180° it? Perhaps that could help me find a more balanced point.
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Old 04-29-2018, 12:07 AM   #16
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Well, the VST itself is very useful, I use it to simulate guitar amplifications and you can get some really nice tones out of it with a bit of work. Again, I believe any sound modification could affect the phasing, no?

So the point is what should you do when discovering such phasing effects that are not entirely consistent? Isn't there something to partially "rotate" the phasing of track rather then completely 180° it? Perhaps that could help me find a more balanced point.
Rotarors work really well for aligning multi-miced recordings where the mics weren't positioned well during tracking. Not so sure it'll help here; what I see happening is you'll get back your missing notes only to find other ones have now disappeared. But it might be worth trying. There is a decent JS Rotator in my setup that I've tested with oscilloscope measurements; it works great. Though I don't know if it came with Reaper or was part of a ReaPack or SWS extension.

I suggest trying a bass processor, like JS Dr. Bass, maybe Waves MaxBass. Or an amp sim designed for bass. Even better would be re-amping it through a real bass amp and micing the cab, if you have the gear and know-how.

I suspect the problem is due to low freq phase shift that accompanies EQ or low end rolloff in the amp sim, which varies over the frequency range of the bass enough to cancel specific notes
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Old 04-29-2018, 12:52 AM   #17
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Isn't there something to partially "rotate" the phasing of track rather then completely 180° it?
Try an all-pass filter.
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Old 04-29-2018, 02:19 PM   #18
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I use a UAD plugin called Little Labs IBP. It allows you to seamlessly allign the phase of a signal. I don't know how it works exactly but it is very useful in these situations (if phase cancellation is your problem).

There are probably other similar plugins around.
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