Grebz - Bass

BASS

Reminder: we work on this song I wrote: Life

I recorded my bassby plugging it directly in a preamp, connected to my audio interface. I don't use a real amplifier and a microphone to record the instrument, like you would in a professional recording studio. Why not? Because I don't have any bass amplifier... As we are about to see, I use an amp simulator and an impulse loader instead. Advantages: you can play at a reasonable sound volume, or with headphones, without disturbing anyone, and you can edit the recorded sound at a later time by changing simulators and effects, without having to re-record anything. Drawback: it may not sound as warm, as realistic as a live recording. But we are in a home studio situation, with all the constraints that go with it (noise, room for the gear, cost of the gear...). Furthermore, even professional studios often record bass directly through consoles.

Here is the list of the plugins I used for the bass part:
        * Tube Saturator from Wave Arts, a tube saturation simulation
        * NoAmp from Mokafix, a free amp simulator for guitar and bass, with a hot sound
        * LeCab 2 from Poulin, a free impulse loader for my cabinet impulses
        * WizooVerb from Wizoo, a reverb plugin
        * TrackPlug from Wave Arts, a parametric equalizer
In the case of retail plugins, I will tell you which free plugins you can use to replace them.

In Life, the bass comes in rather late (around 2'59''). That's a deliberate choice, to add some thickness to the end of the song.

Track 1: raw bass - Track 2: saturated bass - Bass bus

There are two bass audio tracks. The audio of the second track is a copy-pasted version of the audio in the first track. What's the point? This allows me to produce two complementary bass sounds by applying different processings on each track.
The first track is the raw sound of the bass, as directly recorded.
The second track have various plugins to obtain a slightly saturated sound.

Both tracks are routed towards the Bass bus

RAW BASS TRACK

Mono audio track
Volume: 0 dB
Panning: center

This is the raw bass sound

No plugin is used to modify the raw bass. It is sent to the main Bass bus where it blends with the saturated bass sound coming from the other bass track.

SATURATED BASS TRACK

Tube saturation - Amp head simulator - Impulse loader

Mono audio track
Volume: 0 dB
Panning: center
The plugins are used in this order: tube saturation, amplifier head simulator, impulse loader.
Note that I don't use reverb with the bass. I think it tends to make the bass sound sort of blurry. Of course, it's a question of taste, and it also depends on the song. Here, the instrumentation is rich enough, with guitars, keyboards, vocals and drums, and there isn't enough room for reverb on the bass.
I will also use some EQ on the Bass bus. Thus the equalization will be the same for both raw and saturated bass tracks.

Saturation

This is the bass sound processed with a tube saturation plugin

At this stage, the sound is merely that of a bass recorded directly with some saturation. It still needs to go through an amplifier!

The purpose here is to obtain the same effect as if a real tube saturation device was used with a real amplifier head.

Settings used with the plugin Tube Saturator from Wave Arts:

- "Bass" is set on 2 o'clock in order to boost low frequencies a bit, "Mid" remains centered, "Treble" is on 10 o'clock to slightly decrease the amount of high frequencies, "Drive" is centered, so it brings some saturation but not too much, "EQ" is activated (or else, the "Bass, "Mid" and "Treble" buttons would not work), and so is "Fat". "Fat" raises the level of saturation when activated. Lastly, "Output" is set on 1 o'clock. That's the output level, and I set it so the maximum level obtained doesn't go over 0 dB.

- This plugin is a commercial product, and you can replace it by Tube Amp, a free plugin from Voxengo, which can bring the same kind of tube saturation. The settings are different, but you can achieve similar results.

Tube Saturator plugin

Tube Amp plugin

Amplifier head simulator

This is the sound of the bass goign through a saturation and an amp head simulator

Like with real gear, the sound now needs to go through a cabinet.

To complete the sound of this amp sim, we are going to add an impulse loader.

Settings used with the plugin NoAmp from Mokafix:

- This is a free plugin. You can download it here.

- The settings are visible in the screenshot below.

NoAmp plugin

Impulse loader

This is the sound of the bass going through a saturation an amp head sim and a simulated cabinet

Settings used with the plugin LeCab 2 from Poulin:

     - LeCab 2 is a free impulse loader plugin from Poulin. Impulses are "sound prints" from real cabinets. It allows to load up to 6 impulses simultaneously. I only used two impulses for the bass, that's why the screenshot below only shows 2 of the 6 available slots.

     - LeCab 2 offers various parameters you can set with each impulse slot. I set the volume to 1 (the maximum value), panning is centered, low-pas filter is set on 6 KHz to cut all irrelevant high frequencies. The other settings remain on their default value

     - I used impulses from RedWirez, a collection of high quality commercial impulses. Here, I used impulses from the cabinets Aguilar DB115, a 1x15" speaker cabinet (the real gear costs about 1000 euros and weighs 39 kg!). The first impulse is recorded at the center of the speaker with an Earthworks TC30 microphone placed against the cabinet cloth. The second impulse is recorded with a Shure Beta 52 microphone facing the edge of the speaker cone at a distance of 12" (about 30 cm). The first microphone puts the saturation forward, and the second one gives a warmer, rounder, less saturated sound. Blending the two sounds results in the sound you can here in the demo. If you want to load free impulses, you can find some on this page of my site,but they're not really sorted... You will have to look for the impulses you may find interesting, or look for others on the Internet.

LeCab 2 plugin

As there is no reverb for this bass, the saturated sound is now complete. We now need to assemble the sound of both Bass tracks on the Bass bus.

BASS BUS

This is the sound of the bass processed with saturation, amplifier head and a cabinet, before equalization

And after equalization

The sound of the bass is now ready. It will only be edited some more during the Mastering stage.

This is where both bass tracks are converging. The sound of the bass on this bus is final (before Mastering).
I add a TrackPlug plugin from Wave Arts, to eq the bass sound.

Volume: -6 dB
Panoramique: center

TrackPlug is a commercial product. You will find free equalizers here. I advise you to use Cocks ReaEQ.

     - The plugin TrackPlug is used to equalize the bass sound. The sound will not change completely. A syou can see on the screenshot below, I edited the following parameters:

     - A brickwall is applied to both high and low frequencies. I cut all frequencies below 80 Hz and all frequencies above 3 KHz. This will decrease the bass range and prevent to conflict with the bass synth called Saw Bass in low frequencies (this synth is boosted by 2 dB at 60 Hz). It will not interfere either with the guitars and voices in high mediums. Yet, it won't alter the bass, as you can perfectly recognize it's a slightly saturated bass.

     - I added a +3 dB point at 150 Hz (orange point), and another one at 971 Hz (yellow point) by +3 dB in order to boost these two frequencies that help the bass to stand out in the mix. There's no magic, I just swept through all frequencies while playing the song in order to find what frequencies bore the sound I was looking for, and chose those two.

     - Usually, bass sound is compressed to make it denser and stand out. I did not find it useful for this song. First, I think that the saturation I used compresses it enough already, and second, the bass is loud enough as it is. Compressing it further wouldn't have been necessary as the very low frequencies are taken care of by the Saw Bass synth.

TrackPlug plugin

Bass frequencies

MESSAGES

aissa
le 27/01/2013 à 14h24

Bonjour,

Je suis chanteur de reggae et rappeur, j'aurais voulu connaître vos tarifs pour l'enregistrement de quelques titres à moi.

Je souhaiterais faire la prise de voix plus le mix.

Je suis habitué au studio. Faites-vous des tarifs à la journée ?

Cordialement.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bonjour Aissa,

Merci de votre confiance, mais je ne suis pas un professionnel. Je n'ai pas de studio, simplement un home studio dans une pièce de mon appartement.
Je me contente de faire mes propres enregistrements, à l'occasion je bosse avec quelques potes pour leur filer un coup de main, mais ce n'est pas mon métier !
Et puis je n'ai jamais mixé de reggae ou de rap, alors je m'en voudrais de faire mal les choses dans un style que je ne maîtrise pas. Je vous conseille de vous tourner vers un studio pro spécialisé dans votre style, il doit être possible d'en trouver des pas trop chers.

Grebz

Veji
le 22/01/2013 à 02h42

Which particular Redwirez impulses
1)which mic(sm57/r121/421 etc)
2)distance(0''/0.5''/1''/2'')
3)cap/cone capedge etc
are your favorites for distortion and clean?

Also do you use the bass with shb-1 w/impulses or without?

Thanks

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Hello again Veji,

Concerning the SHB-1 bass amp sim, I find it very usable with and without impulses. Depends on the sound you want to get. The sound is brighter without impulses, deeper with impulses. It also depends on the tone you select on your bass when recording, on the settings you have in SHB-1 and on the impulse you pick.

I also sometimes don't use any amp sim for the bass track, leaving only the direct sound if it fits the song.

Or you can have one bass track with direct sound only, and a second bass track (a copy of the direct track) with an amp sim. Mixing the 2 can bring you the qualities of each, but it could also blur your bass sound. You need to try various possibilities and see (or hear) for yourself. Each song is different, so don't think you got it set once and for all. You probably need to make adjustments and try different combinations every time.

Now about the Redwirez impulses:
It's pretty damn difficult to tell you which impulses sound best. You probably won't use the same impulses if you play Metal songs or Rock'n Rollish songs. I am pretty sure that ACDC, Marilyn Manson, the Beatles, Oasis, Nirvana, Opeth, Metallica, Muse and Radiohead don't use the same gear.

It might be a good idea to try and find out what gear your favorite bands use and pick something similar, if that's their music genre you want to play.

As for me, I often use Vox AC30, because I love the Vox sound. That's my favorite.
But I also use Orange impulses, Engl Pro, Marshall 1960 as second choices.
Soldano, Bogner Uberkab and Mesa Rectifier from time to time.

For bass cabs, I try them all and change frequently. I don't have one favorite in particular. I have 4 impulse collections from Redwirez for bass: 2 Ampegs, Aquilar and Hartke cabs. They all have different qualities.

About the microphones and their positionning: most of the time, I use 2 impulses per guitar track.
My starting point is one R121 mic, CapEdge, 4'', and one SM57 mic, Cap, 0''. I found this combination to be pretty complementary, and it gives me a sound I'm immediately satisfied with. But it's not perfect every single time.
From that starting point, I will try to change the distances a bit until I find THE perfect combination (to my ears). Could be R121 at 2'' instead of 4, or CapOffAxis instead of Cap, etc.
It can be very time-consuming, it takes a bit of trials and errors, but if you want to reach your goal, that is to get THE sound you like, you have to go through this.

I also use my own impulses, particularly the Vox AC4 impulses, which sound pretty good, I'm proud :-)

Also note that the guitar you use will make a difference. My main guitar is a Fender Stratocaster, but a friend of mine lent me his Tokai Les Paul, and so my impulse settings need to be different, because these guitars sound different.

I also use Neumann U87 impulses, 421 or 414 mics... Really, I try a lot of things and it takes time.
Oh... and you have to try it in context. I mean, if you try various impulses while listening to your soloed guitar track, you will find a great sounding impulse combination, but when you play all the tracks together with all instruments, you will find that your combination doesn't sound so great anymore.

Have fun,

Grebz

Chochel
le 20/01/2013 à 07h40

J'ai tenté L'UCG 102 Behringer + AC Box Combo soi-disant facile, résultat : pas un son... Énervé, j'ai découvert Studio de Grebz.

Ma question :
Est-ce que j'oublie l'UCG102 ?
Quel montage serait le plus aisé et le plus simple pour un premier essai ? Le combo Marshall ?

Par la suite, je tenterai des montages plus sophistiqués.

Cordialement,
JP

Veji
le 19/01/2013 à 15h50

Hi,
What are your top 5 best amp plugins and top 5 best cab impulses?
Also can you send me the recabinet 2... I can't find it anymore.
Thanks

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Hi,

My favorite amp plugins for guitar are:
- Ignite Amps' NRR1 (free product).
- TSE's X50 (free product).
- Kuassa's Amplifikation Creme (retail product), US$ 34. Only emulates one amp, but the sound you get is fantastic.
- Overloud's TH2 (retail product), much more expensive - US$ 197 - but it emulates several real amps.

And for bass :
- Ignite Amps' SHB1
- Helian's 1st Bass or 2nd Bass (free products), which sound the same to me.

As for impulses, I use only Redwirez' impulses (retail products) which in my opinion are the ones that sound best of all the impulses I've tested so far. They're not free, but they're really unexpensive. The first cab impulses you buy will cost you US$9, then the more you buy, the more discount you get for the next impulses. And you can pick only the impulses you are interested in.

I cannot send you Recabinet's impulses, they are a discontinued retail product. They have been replaced by Recabinet 3, which cost only US$ 19.99 at the moment. That's quite a bargain, even though I think that Recabinet's impulses are not as good as Redwirez'. Your choice.

Finally, I am not sending any retail product to anyone. On my site, I make a large collection of free products available (amp sims, impulse loaders and impulses) for anyone to download, but I am not giving away any commercial products.

Cheers,
Grebz

Jak2112
le 08/01/2013 à 18h38

Salut !
Tout d'abord, félicitations et merci pour ce super site que je viens de découvrir et qui est très utile, notamment pour ceux qui débutent comme moi dans la MAO.
Donc en ce moment j'explore et je teste, mais j'ai un petit problème : je n'arrive pas à lire les extraits que vous proposez pour illustrer les différents plugins et logiciels ; le petit lecteur indique : Liste vide ! Peut-être ai-je oublié une manip en route ou autre ? Si vous pouviez m'aider ce serait super.
Merci d'avance et encore bravo !
Cordialement.
Jak2112

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Bonjour, et merci !

En ce qui concerne le problème de lecture des extraits... il s'agit de lecteurs Flash, il peut donc y avoir des problèmes de compatibilité avec certains navigateurs.

De plus, si vous utilisez un système Apple, sachez qu'Apple a décidé (unilatéralement) de bannir Flash de ses machines, donc impossible de lire quoi que ce soit en Flash avec un iPad par exemple ou un iPhone. Pour les ordinateurs Mac, je ne sais pas trop, je n'ai pas eu l'occasion d'essayer, mais je crois avoir lu que c'était possible en téléchargeant le plugin Flash Player, comme sur PC. En ce qui concerne Linux, j'ai lu que seul le navigateur Chrome proposait la compatibilité Flash.

Entre parenthèses, il vaut mieux que vous soyez sur PC si vous comptez télécharger des choses sur mon site, parce que je ne propose que des plugins pour PC. Je suis moi-même utilisateur PC, donc je ne connais pas l'univers Mac ou Linux. Rien de sectaire, mais je suis un simple particulier, je ne peux pas m'occuper de tout, donc je m'occupe de ce que je connais uniquement ! Mais utiliser un Mac pour faire de la MAO est une excellente chose, aucun doute là-dessus. Après, tout est question de préférence et d'affinités. Fin de la parenthèse.

Si vous êtes sur PC avec Windows, il n'y a pas de raison que vous ne puissiez pas lire les extraits, à moins que votre navigateur Internet soit trop ancien, donc pas à jour ou incompatible, mais tous ceux que je connais fonctionnent bien. J'ai testé avec Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera et Safari, et mon site fonctionne bien avec chacun d'entre eux.

Ce que je vais faire, c'est essayer de proposer systématiquement de télécharger les extraits sonores en version mp3, ce qui permettra à tout le monde de pouvoir quand même les écouter même lorsque le lecteur Flash ne fonctionne pas. Il va me falloir un peu de temps pour mettre tout ça en place, mais je vais le faire rapidement, promis.

Grebz