When you’re going to EQ your bass guitar, it’s about balancing body with the punch of the strings. It’s also about controlling the less flattering frequencies which aren’t contributing both in the mids AND the lowest frequencies. Make sure your bass guitar is set up for every subsequent effect in your processing chain by starting with these bass guitar EQ tips.
Bass Guitar EQ Tips
Let’s go one by one to shape your bass guitar with these EQ tips.
Know Your Bass Guitar Frequencies
First as arguably most importantly, it’s essential to understand the audible tones you’re getting from your bass at each frequency.
As I covered in my bass guitar frequency chart, the fundamental frequency range of the bass occurs between 41Hz to 196Hz:
Fundamental frequencies simply mean the lowest and main root frequencies of a tone. Visually, this is where the largest, widest peaks of that tone exist:
As it relates to the bass guitar, that 41Hz to 196Hz comprises the open low E string all the way up to the 12th fret of the G string (the highest string on a 4 string bass guitar).
For all intents and purposes, these are the fundamental frequencies produced by virtually the entire fretboard of the bass guitar.
Like with virtually any instrument or sound, the fundamental frequencies aren’t the only things we hear when we hear a bass string being plucked.
The overtones are heard well above it as well as the punch of the strings themselves. There’s a little boxiness in the early overtones, some edgy grit we can bring out above that, some clarity in the tone above that, and the punch of the strings above that.
Understanding the above spectrum of the bass guitar helps guide us in our bass guitar EQ decisions moving forward.
High Pass Around 40Hz to Remove Low End Rumble
Even the lowest frequency instruments in our mix can benefit from a high pass filter to remove inaudible or unmusical frequencies which aren’t contributing to the tone:
On the bass guitar, as we just covered, 40Hz is generally a safe point to high pass with a 24dB/oct EQ slope because the first practical note in standard tuning of that open E is roughly 41Hz.
This saves this space for the kick drum’s lowest end, and creates mixing headroom so you can create a naturally better sounding mix and master without having to run push a limiter as aggressively.
While the other end isn’t as pressing, you can get away low passing your bass guitar around 10k. This is a conservative estimate as the transient punch of the strings is a few thousand Hz lower as we’ll address in a moment.
Dynamic Cut at ~70Hz
The next of these bass guitar EQ tips involves taking another low end instrument into account, namely your kick drum.
Using dynamic EQ on your bass and sidechaining it to your kick will carve out a bit of responsive and conditional space for the kick.
This pulls down that specific frequency range exclusively when that kick triggers helps to get the the two low end elements of your mix working together:
With a dynamic cut, we’re only pulling the bass down at 70Hz when that kick needs the space for those split seconds it’s triggering.
This keeps your low end clean without overly aggressively cutting into the bass and taking more than you need.
Note that 70Hz is a rough estimate; check your own kick either through sweeping and listening on its EQ or just looking for the peak if you’ve got an EQ which shows the frequencies in real time like my favorite EQ, FabFilter Pro-Q 3.
Incidentally, FabFilter Pro-Q 3 makes doing this incredibly simple; just check out my guide on how to sidechain EQ.
Boost at 100-150Hz for Body
The next of these bass guitar EQ tips is more of a judgement call in terms of what your bass guitar needs.
When you need more body, a boost in the 100-150Hz region is key for the bass guitar:
Depending on the notes in the performance, you’re getting a lot of either fundamentals, overtones, or a combination of both in this range.
As an aside and just like with the bass, you might make a broad cut in the kick around 100-150Hz, albeit a conservative one.
(Dynamic) Cut Around 300-500Hz for Boxiness
I mentioned the boxy tones you get in that 300-600Hz.
This will vary between bass guitars and whether you recorded bass DI vs amp, but pay attention to that 300-500Hz region in particular.
A dynamic cut can help tame this region by 2dB or so at most as necessary to attenuate those cluttering tones, as well as the influence of unflattering room reflections in the case of amp recording.
Boost at 600Hz-4k (to Taste) for Grit and Clarity
This is another judgement call. Just like we were boosting in the body earlier, if you feel like your bass guitar is low and mid heavy and lacks clarity, you can play with the range between 600Hz and 4k.
In going back to our bass guitar frequency chart, we can add some grit in that 600Hz-1500Hz region with a small, wide boost there.
Jumping up to that 3-4k region, a small but wide boost here of 1dB or so can help correct a muffled, overly warm bass tone.
I should mention that the boxy range cleanup we did in that 300-500Hz region actually goes a long way in cleaning up our tone and adding clarity through subtractive EQ.
When you need a bit more, look to that 3-4k region for a small boost.
Boost Transients at 4-6k to Keep Your Bass Guitar Visible
The last of these bass guitar EQ tips involves bringing out more of the transient “bite” of the strings themselves to help the bass guitar assert itself.
This isn’t just limited to bass guitar, but a lot of people make the mistake of reaching for the fader when an instrument is getting lost in the mix.
Sometimes when you’ve already got an instrument sitting where it should in the mix from a level point of view but it’s not visible enough, it’s more about the transients.
Transients are the high frequencies of a sound which reach the ear ahead of the lows and mids (because of the relationship between low and high frequencies).
This is the basis of punch in audio terms – a mix which lacks punch is lacking high frequency percussive influence on one or multiple tracks.
On the bass guitar, the transients are represented by the metallic sound of the strings themselves and their influence on the overall tone. This is especially apparent when that bass guitar is played via a pick and you get that plastic on metal percussive punch.
You can bring out more of whatever transients you inherently have on your bass guitar recording with a small, wide boost between 4-6k:
As an aside, be careful when setting the attack time on your bass guitar’s compression; setting it too low/fast will engage that compressor ahead of the transients, pulling them down along with the rest of the dynamic peaks.
An attack of a few milliseconds can delay the compression long enough to let the peaks of the transients hit the ear and draw the listener’s attention to the rest of the bass tone before the compression smooths things out.
Check out my guide on how to add audio transients to your mix to ensure you’ve got a punchy, lively mix.
But again, on an EQ level, try a small, wide boost between 4-6k of 1-2dB before you try pushing the fader up any higher.
Once you’re finished with the EQ, check out my complete guide on how to mix bass.
In addition to EQ, I cover my own personal bass mix chain which I use to get the perfect bass tone start to finish every time. This includes EQ, compression, adding a bit of distortion, automation, and more.
Bass Guitar EQ Tips Reviewed
- Know your bass guitar’s frequency profile will help you understand how a cut or boost at any frequency will affect the tone.
- High and low pass your bass at 40Hz and 10,000Hz, respectively to create headroom and remove inaudible, unmusical frequencies.
- Add a dynamic cut on your bass at your kick’s fundamental frequency, typically around 65-70Hz and sidechain it to your kick to pull out a few dB when that kick triggers to create a much cleaner low end.
- Boost around 100-150Hz for a fuller, warmer body.
- Control the boxy overtone frequencies and attenuate room reflections in the case of amp recording with a dynamic cut in the 300-500Hz or so (note that this also adds clarity via subtractive EQ).
- Add some rough grit and character as well as clarity in the 600-1500Hz range and 3-4k range, respectively as your tone and tastes call for in balancing out the sound.
- Bring out the percussive transient punch of the strings and fingers/pick with a small boost in the 4-6k region to help the bass better assert itself in the mix via EQ.
