Here, the DI and amp recordings are set to crossover at 175Hz. Finally, I rolled off everything above 8kHz, where the bass contributes nothing particularly useful.Ĭubase’s Frequency plug-in provides all the control and visual feedback you need to EQ bracket your bass tracks. I also added a little 4kHz boost, which I find often helps to bring out note definition created by the fingers or pick. For the amped/driven track, I rolled off everything below the same frequency (175Hz). As we’re dealing with multiple tracks, I used Frequency’s linear-phase mode. In the screenshot example, DI provides only the solid low end, so I’ve rolled off everything above 175Hz (the ideal frequency will vary, but it will usually be in the 150-200Hz area) using a 12dB/octave slope, and everything below 50Hz at a gentler 6dB/octave. There are many options, but with our DI and amp tracks now in phase a good starting point is to insert Cubase’s Frequency EQ plug-in on each track. The screenshot above shows an amped track that benefitted from a slight negative shift along the timeline, and polarity inversion via the ‘phase’ switch in the MixConsole’s Pre rack the hollowness disappeared and my blended bass sounded much more solid. If you want to see what’s going on, zoom right in on the waveform, but you must use your ears! Although the EQ brackets focus each part on a specific range, there’s still some overlap, so start by checking the phase relationship of the two parts. Phase-cancellation issues, in which the blended sound appears ‘hollower’ than either sound on its own, can be tackled most easily by disabling snapping, and then shifting one track’s part along the timeline. This could be a traditional mic-plus-DI recording, or you could use duplicate DIs and treat one with a virtual amp, such as Cubase’s VST Bass Amp. To attempt this in Cubase, you need a bass part recorded to two audio tracks. In the final part of his Making Modern Metal in SOS March 2018 ( ), Mark Mynett describes a similar tactic that’s often used in the studio: the bass is multitracked, and high- and low-pass filters are used to ‘bracket’ a specific range of frequencies on each track you process each range individually and blend them together to create a composite sound. When playing live, respected players such as Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, Doug Pinnock and Billy Sheehan get around this with dual amp setups a clean amp provides a well-defined bottom end, while a second is overdriven for more aggression in the mids. The electric bass guitar often has to provide a mix with both low-end solidity and mid-range aggression, but setting up an instrument/amp to deliver both is tricky: drive the amp for a more mid-range character and you can sacrifice low-end definition and solidity. When it comes to mixing bass, sometimes more is more, and Cubase has all the tools you need. Whether you’re going to EQ bracket or not, it’s a good idea to check and possibly correct the phase relationship of multi-tracked bass recordings.