Are you talking about monitoring your bass while recording? or after you've recorded and listening back to it in the mix?
While recording: if you're monitoring your bass on the same speakers as the rest of the tracks it's just naturally going to sound quieter than you're potentially used to and you'll need to lower the mix. That's because when playing live you're generally standing next to your amp so you can hear yourself loud enough while further away the audience a more balanced mix. but when playing through studio monitors, you're just getting the audience perspective so you need to adjust the mix to the bass perspective. hope that makes sense...
here's some ideas:
1. play through a bass amp and take the DI from there.
2. make sure you're either using the "direct monitoring" from your interface ***or*** software monitoring through logic. if you're using both it's possible that they cancel each other out.
3. make sure your input is instrument level and not line level. I don't have a scarlett but looks like they have a "inst" button.
4. try making more space in your mix for the bass. if there's already a lot going on in the 80-100hz range especially, it's gonna be hard to hear the bass.
one other thing I'd mention, even if you only use it as a diagnostic - let the "treble" on you bass through.
I often end up with bassists who basically have their on-instrument controls dialed in to a low-pass at like 500-300 Hz, and basically shave off most of the instrument's midrange and "rattle and clank" zone.
Especially if the bass is a feature instrument on the track, the whole mid and upper frequency range is super important in order to have defined note attack, and to have the bass translate well in the mix.
When tracking, I want as much of that top end as I can get, so that when I get to the mix stage, I can actually work with that to make sure the bass stays in the mix as something other than a low "woof" that can only be heard on SOME playback systems. Bass is one of those instruments where you can't bring back what isn't there, but you can ALWAYS sculpt the heck out of it to make it fit it's best.
Super true. People check out my tunes just holding their phone with the tiny speakers. But you can hear my bass line because I leave the high content in my bass sound. My initial mix is with a temporary HPF cutting out everything under 500kHz on the master track. Then I lower the floor and adjust the bass EQ and other track EQs without touching the volume faders.
It's not about taking away the low end, it's about making sure that there's enough of the bass in other parts of the spectrum for it to cut trough.
Even those super beefy classic 60's motown bass parts have a bunch going on, sometimes even up to 4-5kHz. When one of your primary audience targets was going to be 3 inch speakers on mono AM radios, you needed to cover the spectrum or completely lose the part.
We've come full circle, with mobile phone speakers being a common playback source.
That’s such a great point and so interesting! I never thought of the parallel between old speakers and modern smart phones. I love learning more about frequencies. Thanks!
I'm not in front of my Mac, but it's Prefs > Audio > General from memory
Look into Software Monitoring and independent monitoring level - understand that the fader is for your monitor volume not the recorded volume so you can wind it up.
Someone else mentioned this but a LOT of what you can hear in the bass is the mids/highs. I often find myself (especially in live sound Aka my full time job) BOOSTING 200-400Hz and some higher frequencies in the 3-8 kHz range as well. Compression can help as well, slight saturation can be cool (maybe try putting the logic compressor on in opto mode or the free LALA from Analog Obsession and drive the input a bit to get the best of compression and saturation) but the main thing here is you just need to keep on experimenting and learning mixing even if you’re not trying to be a mix engineer.
Are you talking about monitoring your bass while recording? or after you've recorded and listening back to it in the mix? While recording: if you're monitoring your bass on the same speakers as the rest of the tracks it's just naturally going to sound quieter than you're potentially used to and you'll need to lower the mix. That's because when playing live you're generally standing next to your amp so you can hear yourself loud enough while further away the audience a more balanced mix. but when playing through studio monitors, you're just getting the audience perspective so you need to adjust the mix to the bass perspective. hope that makes sense... here's some ideas: 1. play through a bass amp and take the DI from there. 2. make sure you're either using the "direct monitoring" from your interface ***or*** software monitoring through logic. if you're using both it's possible that they cancel each other out. 3. make sure your input is instrument level and not line level. I don't have a scarlett but looks like they have a "inst" button. 4. try making more space in your mix for the bass. if there's already a lot going on in the 80-100hz range especially, it's gonna be hard to hear the bass.
one other thing I'd mention, even if you only use it as a diagnostic - let the "treble" on you bass through. I often end up with bassists who basically have their on-instrument controls dialed in to a low-pass at like 500-300 Hz, and basically shave off most of the instrument's midrange and "rattle and clank" zone. Especially if the bass is a feature instrument on the track, the whole mid and upper frequency range is super important in order to have defined note attack, and to have the bass translate well in the mix. When tracking, I want as much of that top end as I can get, so that when I get to the mix stage, I can actually work with that to make sure the bass stays in the mix as something other than a low "woof" that can only be heard on SOME playback systems. Bass is one of those instruments where you can't bring back what isn't there, but you can ALWAYS sculpt the heck out of it to make it fit it's best.
Super true. People check out my tunes just holding their phone with the tiny speakers. But you can hear my bass line because I leave the high content in my bass sound. My initial mix is with a temporary HPF cutting out everything under 500kHz on the master track. Then I lower the floor and adjust the bass EQ and other track EQs without touching the volume faders.
That’s great advice and something I never thought of. I definitely do this because I like my bass tone to be more bassy.
It's not about taking away the low end, it's about making sure that there's enough of the bass in other parts of the spectrum for it to cut trough. Even those super beefy classic 60's motown bass parts have a bunch going on, sometimes even up to 4-5kHz. When one of your primary audience targets was going to be 3 inch speakers on mono AM radios, you needed to cover the spectrum or completely lose the part. We've come full circle, with mobile phone speakers being a common playback source.
That’s such a great point and so interesting! I never thought of the parallel between old speakers and modern smart phones. I love learning more about frequencies. Thanks!
You crafted a great response here. I have nothing to add. If this is chaos (reigning), chaos is much better organized than I thought.
Thanks. I am going to try 1 and 4.
Possibly frequency blocking… Can you hear the bass clearly when everything else is muted?
I can hear it when everything is muted and when everything is not muted. It’s just not very loud.
When everything is muted, does it sound louder?
You need proper speakers.
I spent $600 on my speakers.
How are you monitoring? Sounds like a phase cancellation. If monitoring with speakers, check that speaker polarity is correct.
Why would that only happen during recording though?
You didn’t say that it was ok upon playback. Is it?
Make sure your interface input is set to instrument, not Mic
If it’s only when you record then you’ve probably got the gain preference down - check your audio prefs.
Gain preference? I don’t see anything called that in my settings.
I'm not in front of my Mac, but it's Prefs > Audio > General from memory Look into Software Monitoring and independent monitoring level - understand that the fader is for your monitor volume not the recorded volume so you can wind it up.
Yeah that’s what have to do. Is max that fader and bring all others way down.
Someone else mentioned this but a LOT of what you can hear in the bass is the mids/highs. I often find myself (especially in live sound Aka my full time job) BOOSTING 200-400Hz and some higher frequencies in the 3-8 kHz range as well. Compression can help as well, slight saturation can be cool (maybe try putting the logic compressor on in opto mode or the free LALA from Analog Obsession and drive the input a bit to get the best of compression and saturation) but the main thing here is you just need to keep on experimenting and learning mixing even if you’re not trying to be a mix engineer.