Helix - Still struggling to get awesome recording tones for bass guitar

[pipelineaudio]

Edit: For those who didn't read all my rambling responses...its nothing to do with the helix.
It turns out it was just a matter of me learning the same lesson I somehow have to relearn every three years....its just easier to have a decent recording in the first place...I was trying to make really crappy bass parts sound ok



I've applied signal chains that worked in the real world in the passed, watched a few thousand piles of videos on the subject, and tried a lot of the presets out there, even bought old farty mcgeee rick beatos presets, but still croaking on this....

On the other hand, for really heavy modern metal, I never had anywhere near close to this easy of a time, but really struggling with the regular stuff here.

Anyone have decent rock presets that fit in a mix, not the muddy tone knob rolled off low stuff?

 

[BahamaDada]

What exactly have you tried?

The SVT Bright channel, 8x10 (with a rather bright/"slim" mic) and then the SansAmp before it to drive it a bit. No compressor. The Sansamp compresses.

My bass at home is a RG Bass with active Preci and J pickups. I mainly use the 50/50 mix and get a rather jangly result.

I play bass in a Metal/Crossover band and like you I watched HUNDREDS of vids. In the end they all used so much tricking, EQing and compressing. More than I'd ever use. So the idea to start fresh with own ideas is good.

 

[EOengineer]

Sometimes I’m able to get everything I want with just the bass Sansamp sim. Try a dual path with the Dripman normal paralleled with either clean bass or sansamp and mix levels to taste.

With bass I’m all about getting a little grit and color happening.

 

[spawnofthesith]

I’m still struggling with regular guitar myself

 

[pipelineaudio]

It kills, me, every time this comes up, its when I'm trying to mix. Then after I give up, I plug in a bass myself that isn't old and dead with bent up rusty strings, pick ANY helix bass amp/cab combo and it sounds like a million bucks before tweaking. I need to just start farming out troublesome bass parts to someone who can play and don't tell the band I fixed it

 

[ian_dissonance]

It kills, me, every time this comes up, its when I'm trying to mix. Then after I give up, I plug in a bass myself that isn't old and dead with bent up rusty strings, pick ANY helix bass amp/cab combo and it sounds like a million bucks before tweaking. I need to just start farming out troublesome bass parts to someone who can play and don't tell the band I fixed it

Unless it’s outside your purview just tell the band the tracks aren’t good because the strings/setup/tracking wasn’t good. Or get super creative with your pre-Helix DI processing.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Definitely outside my purview

 

[BahamaDada]

@pipelineaudio

Can you upload a DI of your playing and give a link to a sound/tone you'd like to achieve?

 

[[Nathan]]

Are we changing the title of the thread to "My bass tracks suck" haha, sort of resolved itself in a couple of comments here

 

[pipelineaudio]

@pipelineaudio

Can you upload a DI of your playing and give a link to a sound/tone you'd like to achieve?

Honestly I sadly realized that with a decent bass part, helix is almost incapable of making a bad bass tone. I don;t know why I do this to myself over the decades...Good tracks mix themselves, and the bad ones are bad no matter how much Manilla Gold you spray on them

 

[EOengineer]

Performance beats all. Fresh strings help.

 

[Orvillain]

Dunno if this will help, but maybe:

 

[bikescene]

I’m far from a bass tone expert, but I still try to dial bass tones in my amateur recordings mainly with Helix Native. If I’m trying to mimic a bass tone, I’ll take a reference mix and start soloing bands to tweak how the bass sits in the lower frequency regions.

I had TBProAudio’s free ISOL8 plugin on my computer unused for many years, but started using it to dial in bass in the manner over the last year.

For heavier rock, I’ve used Helix’s SVT Brt a lot. I’ll use the 3000Hz mid setting, but sometimes drop to the 800Hz setting if I am tweaking a lot. I took a peek at some older projects and it looks like I flip through the mics a lot in the cab section of the matching 8x10 SVT Cab: I’ve used the 421 Dynamic, 7 Dynamic, 47 Cond FET. Looks like I gravitate to those that are typically used to mic kick drums. All with some decent distance 3”+ and all pointing at the cap edge or a little more towards the cone.

I always throw an Opto Compressor at the end of my chain out of habit, either UAD LA2A or Fuse Audio Labs LA4.

I prefer to use a single pickup for my tones. I can’t get Jazz Bass tones happening when I dial it in myself, but can enjoy others doing it.

 

[Rocco Crocco]

For recording rock bass, I really only liked using the SVT 4 Pro, mixed with a direct track. I haven’t done much recording over the last few years so I don’t have any presets. @pipelineaudio what signal chains were you trying to dial in?

 

[luckymethod]

I've applied signal chains that worked in the real world in the passed, watched a few thousand piles of videos on the subject, and tried a lot of the presets out there, even bought old farty mcgeee rick beatos presets, but still croaking on this....

On the other hand, for really heavy modern metal, I never had anywhere near close to this easy of a time, but really struggling with the regular stuff here.

Anyone have decent rock presets that fit in a mix, not the muddy tone knob rolled off low stuff?

Share some recordings and presets otherwise it's impossible to help just going off a description.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Dunno if this will help, but maybe:

I just followed along here, and honestly, with an ok bass track, its nearly impossible to NOT get an awesome bass tone from the Helix

 

[pipelineaudio]

Share some recordings and presets otherwise it's impossible to help just going off a description.

It turns out it was just a matter of me learning the same lesson I somehow have to relearn every three years....its just easier to have a decent recording in the first place...I was trying to make really crappy bass parts sound ok

 

[PatF]

You could try an audio to midi converter and then run a midi bass plugin. Maybe blend it with the original.

 

[HotRats]

Definitely outside my purview

You don't need to tell the band that tracking sucks if you don't feel to, in this case.

You can tell them that the recorded sounds dictate the direction the mix can take. If thee are expectations about how the song should sound you can point out what is helping and what is not, what is possible and what not.

At least that's what I do.