Bass Mastering

Get the bass-ics right and the rest will follow…

Bass is one of the most important aspects of any track. In some cases it's the driving force, in others it's the foundation, but if it isn't there, your track simply won't measure up in today's musical multiverse.

Bass is also one of the hardest things to master when it comes to mixing. Thanks to new technology, the line between good and bad bass narrows every day. The key is to keep it tight punchy and centred. Dont bother with stereo bass if you're making music for vinyl as it will have to be removed (otherwise the cutting needle tries to go in two different directions). It's also highly inadvisable to radically par bass-heavy sounds for anything other than an extreme effect as this will seriously unbalance your mix. Reverb too, is best avoided.

The main effects we use on bass are enhancers, EQ and compression, and all should be applied with the same goal in mind – achieving the loudest, tightest and clearest bottom end possible.

Bass cut: a pro's secret weapon

It there's one thing that separates amateur recordings from professional ones, it's usually the bass. Good bass is tight punchy and full, while the rest of the track stays crisp, bright and clear. Bad bass is muddy, indistinct and often too loud, while the rest of the track is muffled. Club-orientated music in particular can sound great in the studio but muffled and quiet on other systems.

Fortunately, this problem is easy to fix: trim the unheard sub-bass frequencies from everything, setting the cutoff frequency from 50–60Hz for breakbeat or rock, rising to lOOHz for dance genres. Also cut the bass much higher up from non-bass sounds, vocals and percussion, as this will create more space in the mix.

This trick will make your bass not only punchier, but louder too – by removing the unheard super-sub-frequencies, you can turn your bass volume up without overloading the channel or the mix. All these unheard frequencies do is simply gobble. So get rid of'em!

STEP BY STEP Processing bass guitar

1. First things first: compression. We've used 3ms Attack and 90ms Decay for a punchy sound. We've then used a low cut to tidy up the everything below 90Hz, and added an analogue-style comressor with 6ms Attack, 130ms Release and 8:7:1 ratio for a pumping effect.

2. Next we've added another compressor set to a low Ratio. 0ms Attack and 92ms Release to tame the pumping. A gate sees off any unwanted release tail noise from the guitar, and a Sonic Maximlzer provides bass boost and some top end clarity for a natural bass sound.

3. With the punch and weight sorted, we need to enhance the total distinction, so we've incerted an exciter to around 52OHz. Finally, a bit of valve warmth and multlband compression is dialled into Vintage Warmer before cutting everything below 85Hz.

STEP BY STEP Processing synth bass

1. First we insert a compressor with 4.5ms Attack, 2.8:1 Ratio and 98ms Release to beef up our bassline. Then Vintage Warmer adds warmth while Sonic Maximlzer Boosts the bass. Our bass is playing the same riff as our lead; make sure the tone of yours doesn't swamp the riff.

2. Next we add a low cut at 90Hz to get rid of those messy, unheard frequencies. After this comes another filter – this time a basic low-pass. This is because our bass has a lot of tonal quality in the upper mid and treble range that we want to tame early on.

3. We add another sub-Oass to fill out the bottom end by copying the bass track to another channel. We've loaded up a sub-bass patch and added a compressor, Vintage Warmer and a low-cut to kill everything below 100-Hz. Thе volume's set very low compared to our main bass.