If you have too much low-end in your mix, it can start to sound muddy and unclear. However, if you have too little low-end on your mix, it could begin to appear thin and lifeless.
One way to get your low-end right is by learning how to EQ bass guitar. While every mix is different, there are a few consistencies that you can take with you every time you face your bass with the need to EQ.
Also, at the end of this article, you'll find a free Bass EQ Cheat Sheet that you can right click to download!
Bass Guitar Eq Cheat Sheet
Note: this article may contain affiliate links, which mean that I receive a commission for any purchases you make, at no added cost to you.
The thing about EQing bass is that every single bass guitar recording is different in one way or another. Bass comes in different forms. Someone may have recorded a bass guitar going into an amp with a microphone, which is much different from getting a DI bass guitar recording.
Both of those types of recordings are very different from a stand-up bass recording, which may have been tracked in an open room with a microphone.
Mixing Bass And Kick For Low End Balance
The EQ settings can also depend on how the player played the bass. For example, you’ll get much warmer and rounder low-end if the player plays closer to the neck relative to the bridge.
EQing bass is almost as complex as EQing vocals, as there are so many different variables to consider. Plus, because bass often holds down the low-end in a mix, getting the EQ right is necessary for strong, foundational support.
Low-end can get out of control very easily, and a single note can have a world’s more low-end information than the next. It’s up to you to know what sound you’re going for and ALWAYS EQ in context.
Guitar/bass Graphic Eq
Many amateur mixing engineers think they need a subwoofer to EQ bass. The truth is, if you don’t have the proper acoustic treatment in your room, such as bass traps, then having a subwoofer can do more harm than good.
Your next best bet is to use a high-end pair of studio headphones with wide frequency response. If your headphones can’t replicate the low-end with clarity, you won’t be able to make the correct mixing decisions.
Low-end frequencies are often too long to stretch out in small home studios, which is why it’s essential to treat your room or use a good pair of headphones if you want to make sure your bass fits well in your mix fully.
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Using metering tools is one of the best ways to see where you’re low frequencies are sitting if you aren’t working in a properly treated studio environment.
With a frequency analyzer, for example, you can see where the fundamentals of your bass lie so that you can make cuts around the fundamentals without disturbing them or make boosts to accentuate the fundamentals.
You can also use leveling tools like VU meters to get your levels right. For example, if you’re not sure whether your bass is too soft or loud in relation to your kick, you can solo each and see where they peak on the VU meter.
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When itcomes toEQing bass, you get get the job done with stock EQs. However, there are some benefits to have a high quality EQ on the Bass, such as the FabFilter Pro-Q3, because it allows you to do more powerful things, like use dynamic EQ to control resonances. Read our full review of the FabFilter Pro-Q3 here.
FabFilter Pro-Q3 is one of the best digital EQs on the market today. Beyond the fact that the interface is super clean and user-friendly, it is one of the most transparent and flexible EQs around. One feature we love about the FabFilter Pro-Q3 is the spectrum analyzer, which can give you a visual of your bass guitar’s frequencies in real-time.
You can also compare the spectrum analyzer graphs of two instruments in real-time. For example, you can play your track and see how your bass guitar and kick are reacting to one another. FabFilter will give you a clear indication if there is any masking going on.
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The TubeTech EQ is an emulation of the famous Pultec EQ, which provides some of the most musical processing in the world of analog gear. The neat thing about this Pultec-style EQ is that there are separate boost and attenuation knobs for a single band, allowing you to create unique settings by using both of them together.
For example, you could set your low knob to 60Hz and boost it by 5dB. However, you might notice that it is muddy after boosting, in which case you use the attenuation knob to attenuate that mud.
Because the boosts and attenuate knob have slightly different frequency curves, you'll often find that a simultaneous boost and cut creates a very musical, warm low end boost. It’s a unique trick that you have to try for yourself to understand.
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We recommend starting your bass EQ journey with a parametric EQ. You can use a parametric EQ to make surgical cuts and get into the nitty-gritty before you start making broad-stroke decisions. Parametric-style digital EQs, such as the FabFilter Pro-Q3, are the best tools for this job.
When it comes to accentuating the good parts of your mix, you might choose to go with an analog-style EQ instead, such as the TubeTech EQ. Analog-style EQs are great for imparting character on a track and often sound much more musical when it comes to boosting frequencies you like.
People often neglect the high-pass filter when it comes to mixing low-end instruments, which is often a huge mistake. The beauty of a high-pass filter is that it rolls off the unnecessary sub-portion of the bass, which usually takes up headroom in a mix without providing anything of service.
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Gently rolling off the sub-bass between 40 Hz and 50 Hz can make a MASSIVE difference in your mix, getting rid of all of the muddy and inarticulate frequencies that make it difficult to distinguish. Plus, most speakers aren’t made to produce sub-bass below 20Hz, so there’s really no reason to keep it in there.
Mud is a seemingly vague term used by many mixing engineers. In our eyes, it means any part of the frequency range that makes a mix unintelligible. When it comes to bass guitars, the mud usually lives between 200Hz and 300Hz. You may even find that it is one single note that causes the sound to be muddy.
While it’s not uncommon to cut in this range when EQing bass guitar, do so with caution. So many amateur engineers cut way too much of the frequency content out of this range and end up removing a lot of the life from their mix.
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Generally a narrow cut on the lower end of 200 hz is more than enough to clean up the bass, if it's muddy.
The FabFilter Pro-Q3's dynamic EQ function reallyexcels at cleaning up this type of mud, because it allows you to lower the muddy frequency only when it's too strong. Ifyou're confused about using dynamic EQ, here are3 Powerful Ways to Use Dynamic EQ
If you have a really dense mix and you find that your bass guitar isn’t cutting through, you might consider boosting the upper mid-range between 800Hz and 1kHz to help it cut through. This part of the frequency range is where the attack and grind of the bass lives. If you’re using distortion on your bass, this frequency range can help it cut through.
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When boosting in this range, it is best to use wide and gentle boosts. You want to boost just enough so that it cuts through the mix without cluttering the mid-range frequency instruments up, such as your vocals or guitars.
You can also boost between 2kHz and 5kHz if you want to get a bit more pick or finger noise from your bass guitar. Sometimes, a player won’t play with the necessary attack or aggression that a song needs. Instead of using something like a transient shaper to bring out the attack of the bass, you could simply boost the upper mid-range using a wide Q value to bring out the attack in the most musical way possible.
You can often get rid of some of the high-end on your bass depending on the sound. You won’t hear a ton of useful information above 5 kHz, and most of what you actually want to hear with your bass lie somewhere between 60 Hz and 1 kHz.
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This is why when it comes to dealing with the high-end on bass, you can typically use a gentle low-pass filter to get rid of any harmonic content above 5kHz.
In doing so, you can help it get out of the way of high-mid-range instruments and get rid of any noise that might be clogging up the high-end.
It’s often a good idea to get rid of your sub-bass if your kick is the dominant low-end entity in the mix, as it is hard to have two low end sound sources. Of course, you can use sidechain compression if you
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