How To Mix HEAVY Bass - Metal Mixing Tips

Having trouble getting your metal or hardcore bass tones to sit right in the mix?

Here are some tips on getting your metal bass tracks sitting right in your metal productions using simple EQ and compression techniques.

[NickHillMakesMusic]

Right at the source. Good player. Fresh strings. The key! It's insane that people come unprepared. It's such a good thing to point out that you DON"T need an insane setup. A simple two-channel interface will get the job done. Great video man

[Mudvana]

Bobby has THE BEST tutorials...I recommend you all to get his course...AMAZING

[theopinson]

“There can’t be clashing notes” ...Cliff Burton has entered the chat.

[DeeKeyLP]

Bassist recorded himself with old strings, but i think i found the way around it. Some saturation for upper mids, some multiband to tame unbalanced frequencies and yeah! It works!
It's just a bit different mixing process when you have that kind of bass.
Thanks, bro, glad i found your channel.
Also you remind me of BFMV's vocalist

[MikeF]

You are very good at explaining these things. These videos are really starting to clear the fog for me when it comes to audio engineering.

[silaswintersguitar]

Theres a million youtubers giving "lessons" or whatever on here and tbh you are the only one I've actually improved from watching and find educational. These other guys are like "its gotta be like this" and you are telling us what works for you, why you think its the best way to go, instead of "i know everything guys" lol. Fr never change.

[yoe]

I love that headbanging at 14:32 haha. He should have headbanging tutorial vids too, and show off his repertoire there.

[DielectricFailure]

I’m learning so much here in 2023. Great video!

[johnsguitarmusicanddemos]

I like the way you break it down for your mixing tutorials and let us know the frequencies. Even the frequency range of where to do your high pass and low pass filters.

[AleArzMusic]

Just wanted to share with you all that I spent all day trying to figure out why my recorded bass DI tracks sounded like s**t, but now I just realised I was recording an active bass at INST level 😂 😂 👏👏

[firmansaragi]

Thanks man.
Bass is my worst enemy in mixing until now
So true about the DI. DI in bass makes a huge difference even with different pickup.

[jakeeheredia]

These tutorials/tips have been invaluable for me, thank you so much!

[Masterlessmusic]

Dynamics are important. Aggressive playing is good but also some degree of consistency and control. Otherwise it gets a bit all over the place. If it's tight though then that sorts out most of it. So even though if it's a little too hard on attack that can still sound cool so long as its tight. I also DI for bass sometimes with a mic blending.

[michaelfrgegaard]

This is a fegging awesome video. I learned alot. Thanks for sharing. Rock on ...

[vaemusic]

Waiting to see the drum vid! Nice and simple approach to mixing, I like it :)

[charlesrocks]

This is a KILLER tutorial. Thanks for putting this out here. It's super helpful.

[High]

Thank you so much for helping me save my bass mix with this tutorial! Keep up the excellent work. Thanks again

[Audio_Jesus]

Awesome video! I've been having trouble getting the bass to sit right in the mix and I think this was the secret sauce I needed

[funsimulator]

Awesome tutorial dude, bass is an easy thing to overlook in metal.

With heavy stuff, I almost always add a little saturation/fuzz to the bass to help it gel with the guitars. I find it helps get rid of that flabbiness and makes it sit in the mix instead of random notes poking in and out. Of course compression alone evens out the dynamics but some saturation/dist/fuzz really helps the bass harmonically and eliminates that poke/flabbiness.

Bobby, I have a question. I am a Cubase user and if I want very similar bass sound of Sansamp, what plugin do you recommend? I thought BDO is similar but still not sounding like Sansamp. To my ears BDO is too warm compared to Sansamp. I saw you were bypassing BDO on this mix so I’m sure you compared these two and decided for Sansamp. Any alternatives?