Bass guitar has LOTS of overtones and that could seriously clutter up your mix if you leave it untouched.
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I was determined to make the process of learning how to EQ bass guitar more interesting. Well, now I actually look forward to EQing bass. ThanksGiving just got even better..! We've got a FREE selection of 20 expertly created guitar channel strip settings for Logic Pro users.
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Most amp modelling plugins can load in impulse responses, but you can always use Space Designer in post-production to shape the sound even more. I usually set my HP filter around 40 Hz, but you might want to go up to 60 Hz if you want more of a vintage-funk bass tone. If you go below 40 Hz, you may clutter up your mix so be careful. I want to create a darker sound for this track.
Once you find it, widen your Q and boost until it sounds fuller. Use your ears and find a band of frequencies that adds muddiness to your bass tone and cut it. Depending on your bass guitar, you may actually want to boost here so use your best judgment.
Just find a pleasant band of frequencies that gives your bass guitar a bit more edge and boost keep the Q relatively narrow. Basically, we want to leave the 2nd band unaffected. Bass guitar has LOTS of overtones and that could seriously clutter up your mix if you leave it untouched. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Editor's Rating: 4. Lots of you have been telling me about your different solutions in the comments.
As a rule, amp modelling works well enough for clean sounds and also for heavily distorted, edgy rock sounds — it's when you want something that falls in-between the two that you have to work a little harder. While the focus on this Logic workshop is on getting the most out of Amp Designer, I like where possible to put some analogue pedals before the input to my audio interface rather than relying on Logic's pedalboard for everything.
As well as ensuring you have the right input impedance, using analogue pedals helps round off any sharp peaks that might cause brief converter clipping, which in turn makes the attack of the notes sound more natural. And don't be tempted to push your record levels too high — peaking at around dBFS is more than loud enough.
If you call up a Dual Mono plug-in you'll see L and R tabs that let you view and adjust the left and right channels independently. This opens up some interesting creative possibilities, particularly when it comes to guitar processing. To make use of these Dual Mono plug-ins, we need a stereo channel — even though the guitar input or pre-recorded dry track is probably mono.
My approach is to set the track to stereo input, then instantiate a Direction Mixer plug-in from the Imaging plug-in menu and adjust its Spread fader to give zero stereo width — which puts your mono input equally into the two channels. A Dual Mono instance of the Pitch Correction plug-in will let you achieve a natural-sounding double-tracked effect. If you want a safety net to ensure your bent notes end up in exactly the right place, then put an instance of Logic's Pitch Correction after it set to Chromatic and with a slow correction speed — about half way up on the correction speed fader.
This allows your bends and wobbles to pass through intact but any long sustained notes will land on an accurate pitch. This might sound like a bit of a cheat, and it won't work quite so well if you like to use those slightly off-key blues bends, but it can also be used creatively by setting different correction speeds for the two sides of a Dual Mono instance, to introduce small changes in pitching when notes are being bent. This helps cement the fake stereo double—tracking illusion that I'll cover later on.
A little compression before any amp modelling can help make the sound feel more springy. If you haven't got a compressor pedal you can always just use a plug-in — I like to use the Logic X Opto or Vintage FET compressor models set to an attack time of 10 to 20 ms and a release time of maybe 50ms. A ratio of around usually works well, then adjust the threshold to get between 5 and 10 dB of gain reduction on the loudest peaks.
This doesn't sound too obviously compressed but adds a bit of life to the guitar sound. Placing a compressor early on in the signal path will help smooth out the 'spimky' DI signal. As any amp or pedal designer with tell you, EQ is a powerful pre-treatment, as the overdrive section of an amp or pedal will react differently according to the EQ of the input.
I'm planning to use a Dual Mono amplifier for this example so I've put a Dual Mono Channel EQ after the compressor, dialling in a few dB of mid-range boost between 1 and 2. If you make the centre frequency a little different on the two channels, that will also help create a bigger stereo image.
Using mid—boost EQ in this way helps sharpen up the amp sound without making it 'fizzy'. Some users suggest feeding two chains of amps and effects from buses, but to play without annoying latency, it is necessary to engage Logic's Low Latency button, and this disables bus sends as well as plug-ins that cause long delays when active.
After recording, click off the Low Latency button and all your tardy plug-ins and buses come back to life. Using buses is no problem if you are treating a dry guitar track you've already recorded, but if you want to hear something like the final sound as you record, bus sends are probably not the way to go.
Which amplifiers you choose depends on the sound you're out to achieve, but a useful tactic is to choose an amplifier and speaker combination that delivers a bright attack for one channel with perhaps a warmer sound that has more body to it for the other. By mixing them using the amplifier output level controls, you should be able to get a solid sound that still has a well-defined attack. One often—overlooked feature of Logic's guitar amplifiers is that if you click EQ above the tone controls, you'll see a menu offering alternative EQ types, and they all sound distinctly different.
If the amp sound is too dull or too edgy, try a different EQ. It's well worth experimenting with different amp and cabinet models. The virtual microphone position can also make a big difference to your final tone. Amps load up with default choices of loudspeaker cabinet but again you can mix and match to get closer to the sound you're looking for.
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