Recording Website

You're a big Yes fan, I see.
The bass doesn't seem especially unruly.  It could be a little brighter/louder for this type of music but not much.  What I notice is that the mid-lows on the bass drum and snare could use a *little* taming as they can mask the bass, along with maybe a little more presence on the snare (6KHz?).  Aside from that, I think you're doing is OK.  Something doesn't feel right about the keys (especially later in "Wholegrain", lots of unnatural top end) but keys run direct almost never sit right IMO.  The overall mixes are pretty good though and I think some leveling & broad, but subtle EQ in mastering will really help bring this project to life.

Dino, I don't think I've ever boosted 50Hz on a bass and often cut that range when a DI is involved.  I do that because the fundamental of the bass drum usually lives around there and boosting it on the bass often takes up too much energy.

Listen to how prominent the bass is here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJM0QJFco_c  There isn't a ton of deep bass, but that Ric 1999 jumps out of the speakers at you.

Assuming your control room is adequately treated from an acoustics point of view, there are a few pointers:

1. When using mic'ed and DI'ed bass tracks you should delay the DI signal so it gets in phase with the mic signal. This happens because sound has to travel a small distance between the amp cone to reach the mic.

2. Bass guitar is usually inconsistent as various notes on the first two octaves are played and this is something best handled by EQ. Try to keep the second octave sounding about as strong as the first. Often this means cutting a few dBs @100Hz with a Q of 1 octave (=1.4) while slightly boosting 50Hz. Actual frequencies vary a bit but not much. This processing usually negates the need to use of a compressor on the bass.

In the recent Challenge where we mastered Spades Alone, I used a lower compression ratio, "auto" release and only a mild amount of Gain Reduction.  These are not my usual settings, but I wanted to try them.  The master sounded "OK" with this compression and I used it.

But when I compared my mastering to the other submissions, you could hear that pumping muddying everything up.  Silent Bob got around the pumping by using very little gain reduction ("There's a very light compressor, soft knee, 2:1 to help things sit a little better.  The gain reduction meter barely ever lights, but bypassing it takes away the punch.").

Personally I feel if you are going to use a compressor you should have gain reduction.

I went back to my file I had saved during the mastering and redid the compression step - leaving everything else processed the same way.  What I did with the compressor was EQ the sidechain according to Fletcher Munson.  The ears at normal listening levels (70-80 dBSPL) are much less sensitive to the bass and more sensitive to the upper midrange.

Here's what I Did, figure 1 is the EQ I used in the sidechain - approximate compensation for 70 dBSPL listening.



I set up the compressor with the same ratio, the same release as I originally used and adjusted the threshold to get the same gain reduction (about 3.5 dB).



For my loudness limiter (Wavelab's "Loudness Normalizer" I used the exact same settings as before.  There is a compensation for Fletcher munsion that you can put into the sidechain - to my ears 33% compensation is roughly equivalent to 75dBSPL.



The result is posted below, both the image of the waveforms for a few bars as well as a wav file.  It sounds a lot clearer and the image is quite different.  You'll first hear my submission and then the "clearer" compression.

Audio:  http://www.projects.masteringwebsite.com/Session11/compexample/comparecomp.wav



My personal opinion is that all of the a anomalies you normally run into with compression have to do with the compressor not "hearing" what the ear hears.

bob

These competitions are a great idea guys, I wish I had enough time to join in, they could be a great learning tool. I'll try to at least listen and vote on this one.

I'm not a fan either, but it works OK on this song.  I don't really like the single mic on top either, but mix of maybe 80% top mic and 20% bottom mic seems to work beautifully.  I keep wanting to try a mic pointed at the shell from maybe 10-20CM. The first time I heard of that technique was from the guy who said he put an SM57 right behind the other and inverted one to cancel bleed.  That seems like it would be a fine balance to maintain and I usually don't have time to experiment like that.  I guess just a normal 57 on the shell worked fine for Van Halen, but I'd be afraid of getting too much bleed from the hat etc.