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Recipe

A bass you can hear everywhere

The complete bass journey, from an unrecorded DI to a bass that has weight on your monitors and is audible on a phone: recording, mixing and mastering on a single page.

This recipe is the complete map of the electric bass, end to end. It doesn’t explain everything in depth (the linked guides do that): it tells you the order, what to nail at each stage and what not to chase yet. If the bass has you stuck, follow these steps and move forward.

The full journey
Recordinglock with the kick
Mixingshare and make audible
Masteringstay out of the way

Step 1 — Recording: lock with the drums

What you DO nail while recording

  • The right input: the iD44’s instrument (Hi-Z) input, mono track.
  • Level: peaks between −12 and −6 dBFS, set while playing the loudest part. Bass clips earlier than you think.
  • Locking with the kick: bass and kick have to sound like a single hit. It’s the only truly unfixable thing at this stage.
  • Even attack: every dB you even out by playing is compression you won’t need.
  • DI saved: the raw DI is the master of the instrument. Never print it with the amp sim.

What you DON'T decide yet

  • The tone (amp, drive, EQ): chosen in the mix, with the whole song playing.
  • The balance between layers: while recording you only let them exist, aligned.
  • Uneven notes and noise between phrases: fixed for free later.
🔴 Set this NOW· in recording

Level without clipping and locking with the kick are the only two things in bass recording that cannot be fixed later. Everything else stays open thanks to the DI.

Step 2 — Mixing: share, level, make audible

This is where the bass goes from “a low-frequency track” to an instrument that works. In order:

2.1 — Clean up down low

High-pass at 30–40 Hz. Below that there’s nothing audible, only energy that eats headroom and makes the limiter work. And the bass centered, in mono.

2.2 — Share with the kick (the most important part)

Pick one strategy and stick to it:

  • Kick low (50–80 Hz) / bass higher (80–150 Hz) → modern metal.
  • Bass low (50–90 Hz) / kick with its click at 3–5 kHz → more classic rock.

Find the frequency with the sweep technique, with kick and bass soloed, and correct with a wide bell of −2 to −4 dB. Never with narrow, deep cuts.

2.3 — Level it

Compressor with ratio 4:1, attack 10–30 ms (slow, to keep the pick “click”), release ~150 ms, threshold down to 3–6 dB of reduction on the loud notes. Before the compressor, clip gain for the two or three notes that jump.

2.4 — Make it audible (the step almost nobody takes)

High-pass at 150–300 Hz + saturation on the saturated layer (or on a parallel send). That generates the harmonics your ear uses to reconstruct the low note on speakers that have no low end. Bring that layer up with the song playing until you can follow the bass line on a phone.

2.5 — Integrate with the guitars

High-pass on the guitars (80–120 Hz) — it’s part of mixing the bass. If the bass doesn’t draw itself, a gentle cut on the guitars around 800 Hz – 1 kHz. And the mono check: the bass must not lose weight.

Step 3 — Mastering: keep the bass out of the way

Mastering works on the whole song, but it’s your bass that decides how loud it can get: low end is the first thing that triggers the limiter, and when the limiter pulls down, everything pulls down.

What you deliver

  • Main bus peaks around −6 dBFS and no limiter on the bus.
  • Bass clean down low (high-pass in place) and even note by note.
  • 24-bit WAV at 48 kHz.

Anti-perfectionism, summarized

If you have to choose, choose in this order

  1. Locking with the kick (recording). Unfixable.
  2. Level without clipping (recording). Unfixable.
  3. Frequency sharing with the kick (mixing). Conditions everything else.
  4. Saturation for audibility (mixing). Defines whether the bass exists outside the studio.
  5. Compression (mixing). Important, but tweakable whenever.
  6. Everything else: multiband, sidechain, rhythm bus, stereo width. Optional.

Quick route — bass from scratch

Quick path

  1. Bass into the iD44's instrument input, mono track, in tune.
  2. Gain with peaks between −12 and −6 dBFS, set on the loudest part.
  3. Build the kick (even a placeholder) and record the bass on top: a single hit with the kick.
  4. Duplicate the track: one clean layer, one saturated. Both to a BASS bus.
  5. Mixing: high-pass 30–40 Hz, bass centered and in mono.
  6. Share with the kick: sweep and a wide bell of −2 to −4 dB.
  7. Compressor: ratio 4:1, slow attack, 3–6 dB of reduction.
  8. Saturated layer: high-pass 150–300 Hz + saturation. Raise it until you hear the bass on a phone.
  9. High-pass on the guitars (80–120 Hz) and mono check.
  10. Deliver with peaks at −6 dBFS, no limiter on the bus, 24-bit/48 kHz WAV.

Expected result

Expected result

A bass that has weight on your monitors and is audible on a phone: glued to the kick, with even notes, shared in frequency so the kick hits, with harmonics of its own that make it audible on any speaker, and delivered with headroom so the master can lift the song without flattening it. If you got this far, the bass of your song is solved — and solved beats perfect.