next on our list is bass very straight
ahead there is a DI and then two
different amps and SVT in the basement
and obviously Mike's a great bass player
and Chris is great recording engineer so
there's not a lot going on here they
were being collected into a mono output
on the session they sent me so I'm
collecting into a mono aux there's a
Decapitator for a little bit of color
there is a fatso and this is because I
got a session to mix once and someone to
put a fatso on the base and it sounded
really cool and I just saved their
settings I don't even remember who it
was it sounded cool so every once in a
while and I'm not sure what I want to do
with the base I'll just pull that up and
then there's an EQ which is something I
use quite often on bass and guitars
it's a Helios model and UAD has one wave
sized one I've been using the waves one
lately and adding either 700 or 1k on
the bass is just the presence as well as
using the 60 Hertz circuit of the Helios
and this particular makes I'm actually
adding one DB of it normally that can
just sit at zero as soon as you switch
it in there's resonance and it's just
because of the way the filter circuit is
built you have some sort of feedback in
the crossover I don't know exactly what
the topology is but it will resonate at
around the frequency that it's set to so
this can add a lot of really cool low
end to the bass so I'm going to play you
the bass tracks individually with
everything still on and then we'll go
through what I'm doing overall here's a
DI just adding a bunch of presents to
that and that's not because I think that
it sounds better with that what it is is
I'm using that di track to get the sort
of intimate part of the bass M which is
the sound of the strings themselves as
opposed to the Thundering bass tone that
is the rest of it then here's the first
of the amps
and here's the basement a little bit
dirtier and obviously added together
those two amps are just going to fill
out the low end because the low end is
going to be completely in phase but the
mid-range would be a little bit
different so we're going to get more low
end a little more solid it will also
even out this particular base track is
pretty even note to note but just having
two recordings of it will even it out
because the notes that are quiet unless
it's the base itself aren't going to be
the same amount quiet in every amplifier
every microphone adding the DI back into
that you start to get more definition
and that definition sort of acts like
aggression the more you can hear the
attack of the note the more aggressive
the bass will sound sometimes especially
while recording there people have seen
who feel as though the more distorted
something gets the bigger and more
aggressive it will sound and the reality
is the more distorted something gets the
less attack it will have and it can
quite often get less aggressive and
especially in the track you start to
lose all of the rhythmic element which
is where the energy and aggression will
come from from something like that so
it's actually sort of a cleaner base
than you might expect on this track but
it will pick up distortion from the
guitars in a way so it's much more
important that you can hear exactly what
it's doing and it's the driving pick on
the strings that's making it happen now
that we've got all three tracks in I
will show you what's going on with these
overall plugins so the Decapitator
you
pretty subtle just a little bit of drive
on there that is then followed by the
fatso
it actually has the feel of parallel
compression to me so it's bringing the
low-mids to the forefront and it's
really evening everything out and then
last but not least the EQ
what's interesting to me about this and
it's why I love this particular EQ but
just EQ in general to me this makes the
biggest difference to the bass and it
obviously sounds very different with the
fatso but the fatso is just making it a
bit more of what it already is
this little bit of EQ at 700 Hertz and
then the resonance at 60 is turning it
into a really exciting bass sound as
opposed to just a really good bass sound
of an exciting performance so check that
out again
there you go EQ is much more than just
frequency shaping it can really change
the character of stuff and that happens
on the toms it can happen on anything
really but they think it's really
apparent there and then this is getting
sent off to the rear bus
