How to recover a weakly recorded DI bass

The great thing about modern studio recording is that you can recover bass recordings that are otherwise too weak in the mix.

To note: “Recover” in this context doesn’t mean “fix.” This will not cure off-notes, mistakes made by the player or anything like that. What it does mean is to salvage a recording so you don’t have to record the bass line all over again.

Working with frequencies and using a distortion effect as an option

A typical problem with recording bass is too much “boom” noise. This is a sound best described as a blare. Fortunately, a bass recording that blares too much can be made usable with EQ tweaks, as the video will show below.

When you’re really desperate, a distortion or overdrive effect will “flatten” out the overall sound.

What if you don’t want to use distortion but want more punch? Try a compressor instead of dist/OD in post-production and it just might be just the thing you’re looking for.

See video below for details.

Lastly, yes it is true there are differences between regular effects and ones specifically made for the bass guitar. Bass-specific effects are specifically designed for bass guitar frequencies and are easier to work with. You can use a cheap effect as shown in the video if you have no other choice, but it’s suggested to use bass-specific effects instead as you’ll have a much easier time working with them.

To those who don’t like to wait, the video below is 14 minutes long. Skip to 3:40 to get directly to where EQ editing starts if you like.