Bass Fix with the Pawn Shop Comp

I could write post after post on how to get bass sounds, but let’s start here, with a quick discussion of speakers and overtones.

The low E on a bass is at 41Hz. A typical bass part might get up to the B on the D string—123Hz. Let’s get fancy! The part covers two octaves, all the way up to the E on the 9th fret of the D string - 165Hz!

An NS-10 speaker, everyone’s favorite studio monitor (not mine), starts dropping off significantly below 100Hz. Modern small speakers, like IK Multimedia iLoud Mini Monitors, are much better these days; they can get down to 45Hz.

Please note that none of these numbers means that the speaker just cuts off abruptly at 45Hz. Instead, there’s a large drop in energy below 45Hz. How much of a drop-off? 3dB? 6dB? 10dB? It depends on how speaker manufacturers measure things. I’ll have to write an extended article on lying for you all.

The point is that the fundamental (the loudest frequency of the note that gives the note its pitch) of a note on a bass typically lives down below 150Hz, and speakers, especially small speakers, can’t get down there. Cheap speakers can’t get down there, either.

But, thanks to physics and biology, the fundamental isn’t the only part of a sound that gives our ear a sense of the pitch of it. All instruments generate a bunch of additional frequencies that are less powerful than the fundamental. These are called overtones or harmonics. If our ear can’t hear the fundamental, but it can hear the harmonics, our brain extrapolates the pitch and we “hear” it, not in our ear but in our head.

In the studio, we can add EQ and boost the harmonics above the fundamental, and that will give us a bit more presence to the bass sound. Still... doesn’t really work all that well, especially on small speakers, and lots of mids tend to make it sound thin and annoying.

(By the way, this small speaker issue also affects kick drums or low synth parts. Luckily, the fix works for bass as well as kick, or anything down there.)

The idea is to generate MORE harmonics from the fundamental. Technically said: we generate overtones that are mathematically related to the fundamental but higher in frequency range. These harmonics will make the bass “bigger” on a small speaker. Bigger on a big speaker too.

How does one do that, you ask?

Harmonic distortion. We put something on the bass (or the kick), deliberately get some distortion, and voilà! We have more harmonics to play with. Technically said: we use saturation.

The Pawn Shop Comp is a go-to for this. Here’s what you do:

1) Copy your bass track. Label the original BASS, the copy BASS FIX. Put an iteration of the Pawn Shop Comp on each.

2) Compress BASS for a big fat sound. We prefer a medium attack for punch and a medium-fast release for some low-end bloom, but play with it. Start the ratio at 4:1 but it’s ok to go higher or lower. If the playing is pretty consistent, ratio can be on the lower side. If the playing is erratic, feel free to go way up. It can almost be a little doofy and too much. Watch that meter! Musical looking = musical sounding.​

3) Compress BASS FIX to get a bit of "click" on the track: medium attack, medium release. 8:1 or higher. Higher ratios tend to be clickier. Don’t be surprised if the compressor settings for the two channels are similar—they are, after all, the same thing.​

4) Still on BASS FIX, flip around to the back of the Pawn Shop Comp. Dial up the PREAMP to get some distortion. Crank up BIAS a bit to make the effect more pronounced. Try out different tubes and transformers. You’re looking to get a rich, bright sound. It should sound a little buzzy when you hear it by itself. That buzz is harmonic distortion, and that's what will make that bass sound like something on a small speaker. Don’t let it get too buzzy. It shouldn’t sound like it’s going through a fuzzbox. Also, play around with the EQ back there! Here are some settings I used.​

5) Start out with the channel labeled BASS and bring it up in your mix. Bring up BASS FIX until the overall bass sound has more clarity and presence. Switch your monitor speakers between bigs and smalls and tweak the settings and the levels until you can hear the bass on the small speakers.

Quick small speaker trick: I switch over to my Mac Mini’s internal speaker, which sounds awful. Laptop speakers also have no bottom end, so they’re good to use as a small speaker.

I did a quick screen grab of the frequency response of the BASS channel—just compression, and the BASS FIX, which has compression and saturation. BASS FIX is on the bottom. You’ll see there is more going on from about 300Hz up—denser. That’s the saturation.

​Some notes:

No, the bass on the small speakers won’t sound like the bass on the big speakers. This isn’t a miracle. You’re looking to get the bass to do the same JOB on the small speaker that it does on the big speaker. So, if the bass is carrying a lot of the song, like this, then it should do that same thing on either speaker.

Some of you might be thinking, “I’ll add a high-pass filter to that BASS FIX track, because we don’t need all that extra bottom end, we really need the higher stuff!” Awesome! You’re thinking correctly, but... if you roll off the lows BEFORE saturation happens, the fundamentals won’t be there for the saturation to dig into and make them sexy overtones. So, by all means roll off the lows, but AFTER the saturation, so after the PSC, not before.

If you’re in a roll-off filter mood, you can low-pass the BASS channel: try like 24dB/Octave at maybe 200Hz. This gets rid of all the high stuff. The resulting sound should be like you’re smothering a bass amp with a pillow. Then, high-pass the BASS FIX channel: 24dB/octave at 200Hz. Experiment! I’m guessing at these settings. I will write another whole thing on fixing bass, and another, and another... there are so many ways to fix low-end issues.