Shape Your Tone with Creative EQ Tweaks

There are two primary ways to use EQ when mixing. Creative equalization is perfect for those times when you want to add a little attitude to a track or make it more stylistically appropriate than when it was recorded.

Beef Up Your Mixes with Big Bass Tracks

A huge-sounding bass track can take an otherwise thin, weak mix and transform it into a big, fat bully.

Dan Andriano On Punk Production

Since 1996, Alkaline Trio has practically lived on the road, garnering a rock-solid support base of fans. But that doesn’t mean the band has ignored the studio. This year, the Chicago-bred group released its seventh studio album, This Addiction, on its own imprint, Hearts and Skulls. Here, bassist Dan Andriano talks about the band’s songwriting method and production concept.

Bring On The Funk!

To create the perfect funk bass tone, you must have all of the necessary elements at hand—a funk playing style, good bass-miking technique, and a fat and funky approach to the mix. These elements all cascade together into one warm, mammoth funkosaurus bass sound that will bump speakers off their stands. Here’s how to get down with the low down. . . .

Favorite Studio Gear Of The Stars

These hip insights are excerpted from Bass Player’s Session Legends & Studio Gear supplement. For more recording tips, check it out on the newsstand, or go online at www.bassplayer.com.

Recording Rockabilly : Slap Bass

The Key to getting a good rockabilly bass track is making sure you get the best acoustic bass and slap tones, and mixing them to the desired thump-tastic effect. Unfortunately it ain’t that easy. Recording acoustic bass can make you want to rip your eardrums out with a plastic spoon. Hopefully, these fine tips can save you from ten hours or more of getting crappy sounds.

Tips From Session Legends

Bass: Using Octave Dividers

Octave dividers aren’t just for guitar players: They also rock for bass, whether you’re getting mega-low sounds from the lower strings, or playing high up on the neck for very cool 8-string bass effects. It’s easy to do octave division with amp sims and DAWs, but there are some definite tricks involved.

Bass Management: 4 Safeguards For Healthy Lows

Like a well-oiled horn section, bass players usually know exactly what to do to make a track magical. You can’t always trust guitarists or drummers to shred their egos and do the right thing—and vocalists are a whole ’nother encyclopedia of hurt—but bassists are solid senders, team players, and keepers of the deep groove.

Bass Management: 10 Tips For Bitchin' Bass Mixes

If there’s one instrument that messes with people’s minds while mixing, it’s bass. Often the sound is either too tubby, too thin, or interferes too much with other instruments . . . yet getting a bass to sit right in a mix is essential. So, here are ten tips on how to do just that.