Hi guys
I have problems hearing the bass line in many songs so I cant really play along and stuff. Some music styles are easy to follow but metal (especially black metal) is really bad. The bass sound is simply non existant since its toned down and completely drown by the guitars. Do you guys have any tips on how one make it sound louder?

I know how you feel. Many bands drown their bass right out. Why bother having a fucking bassist?
What I do is put on headphones (makes it more distinct) and turn the bass up. Bass boost also helps.
It sucks when you go to learn a song and there's complete parts that you can't hear the bass at all.

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if u have a sub, turn it up, treble down and u can normally hear it

Yeah i was gonna say get a pair of speakers with huge ass subwoofers.. or a bass boost..

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yes , I agree ! Often it helps to listen only one headphone (most the left one) because there ist bass better to hear than on the other headphone (right one). This only work if you use stereo !

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ya thats wat i do also.....lower the treble and increase the bass.......my treble is 1/2 of my bass

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Mmm thats the thing about metal, 80% of metal bands loose the bass in the mix of there songs.

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sucks eh.

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Usually turning the bass up and treble down is the key, but sometimes I try the opposite. It sounds stupid but it can work in some instances, especially if the guitars are heavily distorted and have mostly low end. When you turn up the treble you can sometimes distinguish the high end of the bass apart from what the guitars are playing.

I also heard that if you have a recording program that can double the speed of a file, you can record a song and use this feature. The standard sound recorder that comes with windows has this feature. It plays twice as fast, and consequently an ocatave higher, which might help you, so long as the part isn't too fast. I've never tried it though.

I've never tried this ether but I do know that some of the more advanced programs you can download (or buy) let you manipulated recordings in all sorts of ways, I think you can even get it to play an octave higher without affecting the tempo somehow. The drums and vocals would probably sound really weird an octave higher, heh.

This is also obvious but theory is very usefull. If you can identify the scale being used, it is usually easier to figure stuff out faster.

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If you've got access to studio mastering multiband compressor set the lowest band to croosover at about 75 Hz, lower for songs with detuned guitar parts, and seriously compress the lowest band, this should bring out the bass notes behind the kick drum and might help. If you're not a millionaire you can download free vst plugin multibands if you got a suitable host audio program. Personally I've found that when I listen to music on seriously sweet systems - from the cd player to the speakers, everything pops out from obscurity and is all much better defined. The other day I blasted 'justice for all' on my mate's mint car sterio with 2000 watt sub, it was like they were a four piece band for the first time. It wasnt just masses of bass, I could hear every plink on the bass! But when I went home, knowing what to listen for, I could hear it there aswell, so maybe it just ear training!

Yes, I'll go to my studio right now and fix my problem....



I usually make the guitars more treble if listening to music.

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lol.


subs do work great.

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Ok, here's what I do if I ever have troubles/can't hear the bass.
A.) Turn up the bass knob.
B.) use the "Equalizer" button (Classical, bass, metal, rock...yada yada)
C.) just crank it.

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If your playing it through windows media they have a EQ you can mess around with, which is what i think slayer dude ^ ment by Using the equalizer button and then explaining the genres, it does work.

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Yes, that is exactly what I just ment...

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Haha, ok i was just clarifying it

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