Like any musician who records and mixes their own music, I’ve been on a personal journey on how to mix bass to get the best tone. After spending literal years testing different pedals, amp modelers both hardware and VST based, effects processors, etc. – all of which to record with to find that perfect bass tone, I’ve found that nothing beats the sound (and convenience) of simply recording DI and clean at that.
Once that bass performance has been captured I can always re-amp it, but 99% of the time I’m simply adding a few simple plugins to the mix chain to get the desired sound, so let’s talk how to mix bass with my personal and simple bass mix chain.
How to Mix Bass
As mentioned, you can apply this bass mix chain to your own DI recording just like I do, so let’s go left to right, start to finish. Note that these are all general settings which I myself will tweak from mix to mix depending on what kind of bass sound I want. Sometimes I don’t change anything at all, but I wanted to mention that.
Tuner
TECHNICALLY I begin my mix bass chain with a tuner plugin in case I need to punch in to fix a part or if I’m recording from scratch.
I also use this entire mix bass chain as part of my mixing template these days so I can record fresh bass tracks to new songs and mixes and have that ideal bass sound already in the bank.
Just a pro tip before we move on to the actual chain on how to mix bass, but always insert the tuner at the START of your processing chain if you’re going to use one, meaning ahead of any other processing. Most forms of processing will distort the reported tuning, giving you an inaccurate read and potentially leaving you recording your DI bass, guitar, etc. out of tune without realizing it.
Gain
If you’re importing pre-recorded bass into your mix, you’ll more than likely need a gain plugin first.
In my Ableton Live, I use their “Utility” plugin which is a bit of a Swiss Army knife for affecting the width, polarity, panning, and clip gain of your audio at that particular point in the chain.
Inserting a gain plugin at the start of the processing chain allows you to adjust the level of your bass before it hits any subsequent processing. This is important for maintaining gain staging in your audio which was recorded too quietly or more often than not too “hot” or loud.
As you can see from my gain staging cheat sheet, you generally want to aim for -18dB on average. Admittedly bass is one of the more dynamic instruments in your mix which is why we’ll want to compress it in a moment, but ideally you can adjust the gain plugin so that your bass averages that -18dB and peaks at -10dB at most.
Not only does gain staging maintain responsible levels across your mix, but it feeds the ideal level into each subsequent plugin in your processing chain which yields better results and ultimately makes your audio sound better.
Note that this is primarily for importing existing recorded bass. If you’re using this how to mix bass processing chain for new bass tracks you’re about to record, simply set the gain on your recording hardware to hit that -18dB on average.
Regardless, make sure you maintain that -18dB with each subsequent plugin by utilizing each of their respective output gain settings to ensure you’re always feeding that optimal level into the next plugin.
Mono
This is to piggyback on that Live “Utility” plugin I just mentioned. As I covered in my audio panning guide, the bass should be panned in the center and, as an extension of that, should be kept in mono.
This is for two reasons.
One, this keeps your bass consistent across the stereo field. The bass is an essential part of anchoring that rhythm of the mix and keeps the listener aware of the key and changes in the music. It should be constant no matter.
Secondly, this also keeps the bass from being wide in the mix which is a quick way to muddy the mix it up (or even cause problems in cutting for vinyl).
While this won’t even be an issue in most cases, if you’re importing a bass track which had some width treatment to it during recording or after the fact, you may want to either lock it in complete mono or at the very least shrink that width, either way with a stock utility/width/mono plugin in your DAW.
EQ
As I covered in my tutorial on how to EQ bass guitar, there are a number of adjustments you can make to your bass to shift the tone and ultimately get it sounding its best:
Let’s do a brief overview of each adjustments to better understand why I recommend each move and how they affect the tone.
High Pass at 40Hz
High passing your bass at 40Hz removes inaudible and unwanted low end rumble while preserving the sub-bass frequencies.
Cut at 60-70Hz for Kick
One of the keys to having a clean and good sounding low end is to create complimentary moves between the instruments which share this frequency space, namely your kick and bass (see my low end mixing tutorial).
Find the peak of the body of your kick via a visual EQ like FabFilter’s Pro-Q and create a small cut here on the bass, though you’ll typically find the peak body/ the meat of the kick around 65Hz.
You can make this a sidechain, dynamic EQ cut in order to only pull when that kick is triggering. I actually did an entire overview on how to sidechain EQ bass to kick, so check that out for a simplified explanation on how to do just that.
This ensures that you’re not cutting more than you need to which is important considering you get the meat of the bass’s sub-frequencies below 100Hz.
Boost at 100Hz for Body
Speaking of 100Hz, this is around where the body of the bass asserts itself. A small boost here (when necessary) will give your mix more of an anchor of the roundness and thickness of the bass which is great for top heavy/thin bass recordings.
Cut at 350Hz for Contour
A lot of the sculpted, clean tone you hear on the bass in contemporary mixes today comes from a generous cut around 350Hz. You’ll see a lot of bass amps and modelers feature a contour setting which does a healthy cut in the mids to achieve a similar sound.
This contours the tone of the bass to carve out the boxy, unflattering, cluttered sound from the tone and focus on the body and top end clarity.
Boost at 4-6k for Transient/String Sound
After addressing those lower mids we just covered, if you decide you want to bring out more of the metallic sizzle from the strings to give your bass a bit more of those asserting transients in the mix, try a small boost at 4-6k. I like adding a little distortion as I’ll mention later, so you should set this boost in concert with that adjustment (if you make it).
If you want to low pass your bass, you can safely do so around 15k without losing the sound of the strings, especially if the bass was played with a pick.
While it’s unlikely your output level changed much after your EQ adjustments, make sure you’re still keeping that -18dB on average level via the output gain control on your EQ.
Let’s move on to the next move which is just as important, especially when you mix bass: compression!
Compressor
Compression is all about reining in an overly dynamic signal and is more important on some instruments than others.
Along with vocals, bass guitar in particular is arguably the most dynamic instrument in need of some compression to get a somewhat more consistent level to achieve a steadier and stronger presence from that low end.
Here is my cheat sheet for compression on bass:
Threshold
The threshold on your bass compressor determines what level the bass needs to reach before compression engages. Without getting too into the weeds here, suffice to say that a good amount of gain reduction is 8-10dB on average, but this is determined not just by the threshold but by the remaining settings, so set and readdress your threshold as necessary alongside the other settings.
Knee
The compressor’s knee determines how strictly the threshold is enforced. I like a relatively hard to average knee of 6dB on bass to proportionately affect the level.
Ratio
The compressor ratio is the most important setting on the compressor as this is how hard you’re driving that compression.
With the bass being as dynamic as it is, I’m looking to really rein it in by using a relatively aggressive ratio of 8:1.
This means that every 8dB which exceed the threshold, they’re reduced to a 1dB output. This seriously pulls down those peaks without completely flattening our bass, giving us a much more consistent level from the bass so that it becomes a much more constant presence in the mix whether we’re doing a walking bass line or just strumming away.
Attack
The attack on the compressor determines how quickly the compression engages once the threshold is exceeded. Depending on your compressor, this can be instant or you can delay it by several milliseconds to allow the front end of those peaks to pass through before the compression engages and drags them down.
Like with any other instrument, the reason to delay compression on bass is to keep those transients we just mentioned in the EQ section alive and present.
As such, I like a relatively slower attack of about 20ms on bass to give more than enough time to allow that sound of the strings to come through, grabbing the listener’s ear before the compressor engages to give us a nice even level.
Release
The release is the off ramp for the bass compression.
In other words, this is how long it takes after the level drops beneath the threshold for the bass to return to its non-compressed state.
I like a 50ms release with a 15ms hold (which keeps that compression engaged for 15ms even AFTER the level drops below the threshold) on my bass compression.
This creates a natural release without adding any artifacts or hearing the compressor turn off from on.
Makeup Gain
By definition, compression reduces the level of our bass, so makeup gain is necessary for getting that level back to -18dB.
Manually adjust the output gain to achieve that goal and maintain gain staging (an added bonus of the compression is that it will be easier to maintain that average -18dB).
BassKnob (Distortion/Sculpting)
This next step is a bit of the secret sauce in your bass mix, but I love a bit of distortion to enhance the tone of the bass.
Admittedly, distortion has a number of connotations in mixing; we can use this as saturation to seriously benefit a top heavy, thin bass in need of body.
Alternatively we can use it more of an “exciter” to add some presence to the top end of the bass which is great for bass tone which has the body but isn’t cutting through on the top end.
Depending on how you get there comes down to personal preference; you can and should experiment with different stock forms of distortion from your DAW to fill in what’s lacking.
Personally I love a plugin called Bassknob from Bogren Digital:
I love it because despite its simplicity, I find it adds just the right flavor I want to my bass in most occasions.
The only two settings at play here are a toggle switch between “Clean” and “Dirt” for a more or less distorted tone, and then the “Gain” dial which you can use to dial in just the right amount of character from the amp modeler.
I like settings similar to what I have shown above to add a little warmth and thickness to the bass to give especially a DI sound that authentic amp captured tone.
Pushing the dial all the way to the right (especially combined with the “Dirt” setting) will produce an increasingly distorted tone.
While you can dial back the gain to get a nice blend, you can also use the most extreme settings with parallel processing to add a touch of grit underneath the surface of your existing tone while keeping your clean tone untouched.
Note that the bass amp modeler boosts the level via that gain knob, so it has an output gain slider to control the output level to maintain gain staging.
Automation
You might think that after all that compression, why would we introduce automation to the bass?
Automation is a great way to keep our bass present and more controlled outside of the compression while still adding a bit of life to it.
You can do this manually, but I prefer to use a bass rider to do it automatically for me:
Set the “Target” to the average level you want and adjust the “Range” sliders to the max and minimum you want that level to be adjusted.
The sensitivity can be adjusted to taste to get the right balance of more or less live adjustments, and just like that you have a little added life into your bass.
Bass Mixing Tips
There is my recommended bass mix chain; simple yet effective:
- Adjust the gain level if necessary to aim for -18dB at the start of your bass mix chain and at the end of each subsequent plugin with gain staging in mind.
- Keep your bass mono and centered in the mix 99% of the time for best results.
- EQ can be used to add body, top end, and/or contour the tone to sculpt and shape your bass tone to taste to fit the rest of the mix.
- Compress your bass with an 8:1 ratio, 20ms of attack, and overall aim for 8-10dB in gain reduction to bring more control to your overly dynamic bass.
- Distortion can be used in a number of ways to add warmth to the mids or top end sizzle. This is the one instance in the bass chain where I reach for an amp modeler a lot of the time.
- Automation can both bring more control and life to your bass and easily at that if you use a bass rider.
A lot of people overthink things when it comes to how to mix bass, but this chain applied to a DI bass recording sounds excellent.
Note that this can just as effectively be applied to an amp recorded bass tone, as well, I would likely just be more conservative with the EQ adjustments and any distortion I impart to the tone.
