Yes, I know, I could start writing about how cool your bass can sound if you follow my suggestions and stuff but you know what? I won’t. For the simple reason that everyone likes different sounds and everyone has a kind of taste, so, it’s simply impossible for me to tell you how to sound exactly you would like. But I can say something with a certain amount of safety: everyone learns and I still do (and I will…) above anyone.
That being said, some years ago I got a sort of “angry” comment on my post “Finalizing bass in the mix“. Thinking about it, I can relate to that guy (maybe not in the behaviour but in his “good intention” at least). That bass I processed didn’t sound so good listening to it right now (a bit too “farty” and not aggressive at all…), I feel a little bit ashamed for it, but as I said, everyone learns and must be committed to keep on learing. So what can I do for you? At least I can address you to someone which I think is a good source of information about this. To learn more and build your own sound.
There are mainly 3 guys that I found extremely helpful when it comes to bass tones for metal: Ermin Hamidanovic, Kristian Kohle and Ola Englund (yes, I know, he’s a guitar player, but just trust me).
Let’s start with Ermin: in the following video he talks mainly about Darkglass Ultra plugin by NeuralDSP but honestly, his concepts can be applied to any other distortion pedal for metal (even free ones):
Then we have Kristian, which I discovered way too late (my bad). In his video he’ll guide you through the process of getting a brutal bass tone using Mammoth plugin by Aurora DSP (which is on sale right now, so you should really check it out):
And last but not least, Ola. He’s approach to bass tones is the simplest one, I’m not going to anticipate anything, just press play an in a matter of few seconds he will blow you away (minute 8:39):
Could it be simpler? I don’t think so.
