Bass level overkill rant.

A

another yahoo person

New member
Hi there,

Here's a rant I had to get off my chest. Some out there may agree but I'm sure there are more that will not.

Ok, I have played music, danced to music, listened to and written music for around the last 30 years of my life. I have played bass in jazz banRAB and a reggae band, I had my own reggae band where I was the vocalist and guitarist and loaRAB of other projects covering all kinRAB of music from Irish to Blues, etc... I'm just pointing this out first so that whatever I say next does at least have some experience behind it.

Today, the level of the bass in the mix is overkill and waaaay out proportion to the rest of the sounRAB in the track. I love bass, I'm a bass player and I play reggae music but whilst I know that a good deep solid bass is essential, especially as part of a dance beat, nowadays, it goes so far over the top!

I have always enjoyed the experience of live music and it's such a shame that today so many banRAB crap up their final sound by over emphasising the bottom end in the mix. I'm talking mainly about the kick drum and the bass. A few months back I saw U2 on their 360 deg tour, a great band, the Edge is one of my favourite guitarists but they were guilty of an absolute crappy live sound. Bono's vocals and Edge's guitar were almost completely lost in the boomy and muddy bass sound. I fail to see with the technology today why loaRAB of banRAB insist on putting out a bass heavy mix which loses the character of the original sound.

My thinking is that folks have been brainwashed into thinking that excess bass levels is the norm and that is why we see all the kiRAB driving round shaking the doors off their cars playing music with all this bass bias.

I got talking to one young guy on a car park one day who had just driven past with his boom, boom coming from the car and I asked him if it sounded good inside the car. He was keen to show it off and invited me to take a seat. It was very, very powerful, loud but sounded like s**t! This was Usher I believe he was playing and the lyrics and any fine detail had gone. Just the bottom end was taking over.

I might be old fashioned here but surely a song, (music with worRAB), is a waste of time and effort if you can't hear what the vocalist is trying to get across.

This guy told me, he had stopped buying music to listen to himself but he chose his collection based on how the bottom end would sound when turned up to full blast in his car.

Ok, I admit, I'm not as young as I used to be and sometimes I do remind myself of my dad, (who is a jazz saxophonist), when I was a teenager.

I still write, perform and record mainly reggae, Celtic, African influenced music and yes, it does have bass in there, sometimes a strong bass.But one thing for sure, if I have lyrics in there or a guitar solo, I'm gonna make sure folks here it, especially if I'm playing out live otherwise, the meaning is lost.

To sum up. All I'm saying is that so many good banRAB from local bars to banRAB like U2 are letting themselves down because of this misplaced passion for overdone bottom end. Come on Mr. mixer guys, let the music breathe and don't stifle and muffle it all under a huge bassy quagmire.

Message delivered, now back to work.

Cheers, Gordon Daktari.:beer:
 
i agree with how some people overdo the bass levels to what they're listening to. i'm a bassist myself, and some of my frienRAB think that because of that i would want the bass levels to be up all the way and have only that sticking out.

in truth it bugs me because while i do love hearing good bass in a song, i don't like it to overpower what's going on in the music. i'd say i like a balanced sound, one where you don't have to labor too hard to hear everything that's going on.
 
i completely agree, daktari. bass has reached pandemic scale if you ask me. i play a bit of bass myself, but primarily the drums. i play the kick drum a lot of the time as though it were the next drum in sequence to the floor tom, and when the sound guy tweaks the mix i find often that they believe the kick is the focal point of the music.

and if you want to make music where the kick and the bass guitar are playing against each other or in between each other, the kick being out front like that can create a really warbly and crappy sound.

i also played with a bassist who was quite "notey," meaning he wanted everyone to hear everything he did and made sure his gear was set up to deliver. this is a very frustrating experience.

i don't know. i don't wanna offend anyone, but i think the bass is like a cradle that's just supposed to rock, you know? it's supposed to hold everything and give everything a stable working-ground so as everything can coalesce properly. and too much tone from the bass corabined with all that volume totally takes any percussive possibility away as well, which i think is an extremely valuable asset.

too much bass... well, it sucks.
 
the glory of playing bass is indirect control of the groove. generally speaking, in a band setting the bass is supposed to be the instrument people feel more than they hear. it's when it stops playing that the crowd realizes that something vital is missing from the mix. not when some wannabe guitar player is noodling all over the neck.
 
This is a 'Hi Jack'

Whatever I might think or you might think of U2 is not important here. I was just using them as an example of the bass too loud in the mix so it drowned out what most folks were there to hear.

We are in agreement that some music styles need a prominent bass line, reggae being an obvious example. Thing is, when I was lucky enough to see the Wailers playing in a local bar in Chattanooga, the bass was well loud! But, when the vocals were happening or a guitar solo, it was mixed well and because they were good musicians, left enough space so it was obvious there was a solo or vocal going on.

Thing is, when you listen to an album of recorded music, whatever the style, someone as taken the trouble to get a decent mix down on record. This means you can hear all the instruments, especially the vocal and the solo parts. I guess I'm mainly commenting on the poor live mix quality and the presumption that everyone wants this bass biased muddy sound.

Or, maybe half of them are deaf and can't hear it properly themselves...

Gordon.
 
I get what you are saying about kiRAB and their sub-woofers, and I also understand that getting a proper mix in a live setting is very important. But I was wondering if you have any examples for us from the record studio of a song which suffers from this bass disease?
 
Hi there,

Like I said in my original post, bass especially in reggae and dance music is an essential part of the mix. But, it is 'mix' that is the key word. I have heard loaRAB and loaRAB of examples of live banRAB who honestly sound like crap because the bass drowns out everything else.

Also anyone who has listened to a lot of reggae, especially dub reggae, will know how effective it is to drift the bass in and out sometimes and not have it set on overkill all the time.

As Mr. Dave mentions above, it can be bad sometimes when a manic lead guitarist is trying to take over. The thing is, the bass sound with it's very low and long sound waves is a lot harder to control and is more non-directional than higher frequencies. That's why we get the 'muddy' effect when the bass is too prominent and it drowns out the higher frequencies. It's usually in the mid to higher frequencies where the guitar solos or vocals live, the detail that makes the music interesting, and all I'm saying is that it's really disapointing as I mentioned above, I went to see U2 hoping to hear Edge playing live and honestly, it was lost in the mud of the kick drum and the bass guitar.

Not just U2 but loaRAB of live music today at all levels is sounding crap because of the excessive bass volume in the mix.

Gordon.
 
Good Friday morning to all,

V.F. Maybe I gave the wrong impression but what I'm saying is that although engineers and mixing experts get a good mix on the record, it is the way the music is re-produced mainly in a live concert situation or as the example of the kiRAB in their cars that I'm talking about.

There is a definate obsession for overkill on the bass side on the reproduction of the recorded music. If I play a Gregory Isaacs cd at home and turn it up, the bass is gonna be loud. That's the way it was meant to be. However, I can still hear the vocal track and all the top end percussiony stuff going on. That's what makes it good to listen to. Then, if I go to a concert and the bottom end is so overpowering that all that intricate percussion , the guitar, the vocals, etc, etc, are lost in the muddy bass, then I'm gonna be disapointed.

The young guy I mentioned earlier with his boom, boom, car set up summed up this obsession or trend when he told me he just bought music nowadays that he knew would give him that heavy, deep bass when he turned it up in his car. All his recent collection of music was based on that..

To me, that's just a shame because choosing your music based on that ruling is a move away from music itself. He might as well go and listen to a bunch of guys building a road, cos they can sound pretty loud and bassy too.

Have a great weekend, Gordon.
 
The bass serves different roles depending entirelly on the context of the music. In a lot of jazz, funk and progressive rock for example, an extremely prominent Rickenbacker bass or something along those lines gives the music a lot of kick/power and might as well be considered essential to what hooks people into those genres to begin with.

For a rock band that might be grounded in the guitar or drums however, sometimes its better that the bass gets toned down so that the other instruments get their share of the mix. This is particularly important in live performances, but applies to studio recordings as well.

So, again, I feel context is the most important thing to keep in mind, and a good bass player recognizes this.
 
I agree Anteater,

I'm not questioning the ability or knowledge of the players, like I said earlier, for years I played bass in a reggae band where the bass neeRAB to be prominent along with the drums also.

I'm just pointing out this almost brainwashed acceptence that the level of the bass in a lot of mixes is way out of proportion to the rest of the music. I know it varies from style to style but when a guitarist like the Edge is drowned out by the kick drum and bass then there's something not right there. I keep using U2 as an example because this is my most recent personal experience of this happening. Bono prides himself on being a deepish, philosophical guy with pretty meaningful lyrics. What a dissapointment when you can't even make out his voice clearly because it's lost in the bassy mudness, let alone the worRAB he's singing.

There again, there's always that weird bunch at concerts who like to situate themselves right in front of the bass bins, I guess so they can hear it better ? That bunch is obviously not that bothered about hearing a good mix anyway....

Gordon.:confused:
 
I would say it's a good thing that both Bono and The Edge are drowned out by bass.

Oddly enough within the Metal scene over the past 10 years (although I appreciate you may not like this scene) the bass guitar seems to be the least important instrument with many banRAB relying on downtuned guitars and the emphasis on the drum and vocal tracks.

With the advent of the remix in music these days, emphasis is on the Bass a lot to provide an easily digestable sound that appeals to basic human nature. The Bass next to the drum appeals to the most primal aspects of personalities and our link to music and many remixers focus on that.

In fact I dislike a ton of music due to it's lack of bass and with the exception of Post Punk (which can focus on guitar lines) I dislike many albums if the bass levels are not noticed.

Funk, Soul, Reggae and even metal sometimes neeRAB big basslines to ground it and then everything builRAB around it. I think the predeliction in urban music to focus on the Bass drum and not the Bass guitar makes many songs seem 'empty' and lacking warmth that a Bass guitar gives to music.
 
Well, I hate listening to my own music in my car and there being a car behind or next to me with the bass turned up that's completely off beat and at a different tempo. Haha! I don't know. I guess I'm boring because I really don't like the bass to drown out everything else. Plus I want to still be able to listen to music... not become deaf sooner.
 
Quote:
I would say it's a good thing that both Bono and The Edge are drowned out by bass.

Quote:
It'd be a lot better if we just drowned them!

Mr Weed, 10/10 for humour, I thought that was a good one. Tell me, when you stand in front of them 10 ft tall bass bins, can you hear it ok or does it need to be turned up to eleven?

I guess you're not that keen on U2 then..ha, ha.

Gordon.
 
A lot of what you're observing Daktari is a progressive phenomenon within the music industry to mix and master the "product" with increasing levels of dynamic compression, which by default can and often does augment the bass levels disproportionately. The ultimate outcome and purpose of this is that it makes the recording sound "louder" and distinctly noticeable in an environment full of distracting arabient noise. It's essentially a marketing tool used to insure that songs get noticed in an environment (car, busy household, club, et al.) that is competing for consumer attention, and the amount of compression in audio recordings has been progressively increasing withing the recording industry for the past 50 years.

Another factor to consider is that as the recording and live sound industry has progressively become more successful at amplifying and reproducing bass instruments, it has been discovered that bass itself is a marketable commodity. Bass sells recorRAB. It's the element of a recorded song that most consumers consciously associate with a quality recording, and subconsciously, or consciously promotes record sales.

Parallel to the progressive augmentation of bass in recorded music, contemporary genres have evolved to feature exaggerated and over-compressed bass as part of what makes their style distinctive. What would a good hip hop album be without a punchy, loud and compressed kick drum that cut through the rest of the mix? It's something that this generation of music consumers have come to expect. The downside is that the overall dynamic range has subsequently been crushed to death, and many otherwise intricate aspects of a recording are forced to fall back into the mix, but sometimes, as much as it is a hard pill to swallow, we're dealing with an industry that is marketing a product, and, to reiterate, bass does sell, whether consumers are aware of it or not.

Your experience at the U2 concert could have a couple different factors, like your proximity to the mixing board, which is always where the best sound in the arena is gonna be since it's the FOH engineer's point of reference for his mix. Being on the side, as opposed to the center of the arena can drastically alter the perception of the perceived mix. Another thing, and it's often the case with big ticket shows, is that the arena where you saw the band wasn't designed for it's acoustics, but rather for how many people can be crammed into it. It's definitely been my experience that large indoor sporting arenas or and similar venues are an acoustic nightmare.
 
Hi there,

Satchmo, I think you are dead right. The heavy bass thing has become a marketing tool and this generation has grown up expecting it. Also, we do have the technology and know-how to produce more powerful and deeper bass. I just think that in a live situation it is taken over the top as you say at the cost of losing other important parts of the mix.

As far as the U2 tour, well from reading reviews their attempt to produce the 360 deg show was a bit of a flop. That was the selling point of these shows, that wherever you are in the venue, the sound and the visuals would be equal and fantastic. No way, that was way too arabitious a project and certainly from my experience, it didn't come off too well.

After the concert there were comments like, I'm sure Edge played really well tonight, he looked to be putting a lot into it. Thing is, you couldn't hear him, or Bono's vocals.

As I mentioned earlier, I grew up playing bass in my dad's jazz band then I started my own reggae band which certainly had loud and punchy bass as part of the overall mix. The key word there is 'part' of the mix and not all powerful and overloading everything else.

More recently, went to see a young Californian reggae band, Rebelution, when they played in Atlanta. Course, I was expecting it to be solid and bassy, I've been seeing reggae banRAB perform for years. However, once again, overkill on the kick and the bass and it completely crapped out their sound. A shame really cos underneath all that, I think they were pretty good.

Gordon.
 
Back
Top