I found the right bass sound for my track, and it fits in fine, but in the final mix it's a bit too loose and 'boomy'. I need to tighten it up a bit and add some punch to it without making it louder.

What FX vst would do that neatly?

 

Well, if you absolutely have to use that bass sound - then you're going to have to try to EQ it to be less boomy. Typically, boomy/flabby/loose bass means its probably too loud in the mix and may have stereo issues. Get a good M/S EQ, START with taking all the SIDE info out, and start to add it back in slowly until the character comes back. Leave everything 70hz and below as mono. Remix this bass back into your track, but mix it in low. Then use EQ in the 70+hz range to get it back to a comfortable loudness in the mix (use a reference track). 70hz and up is the bass you hear, below that is the bass you feel, and low bass freq can often interfere with the higher-mid bass sounds to cause that not-tight bass sound. Also, you can Highpass your bass until it no longer sounds flabby - and then focus on ONLY the portion of the frequency that you removed with the highpass, as this changing any other parts will not be needed, and may destroy the character of the bass you have found that fits so well.

But honestly, sometimes none of that works, and you just have to try to recreate the lower end of that bass in a synth using a nice harmonically saturated sine and highpass the original (to keep its character). This may be painstaking, but will pay off.

In my expericance, there is no "FX" that will make this better, this is all about knowing what is making it "Flabby" and then fixing it, IMO.

Also, this is not to mention your bass having trouble sitting in your mix due to alot of other bass-frequency clutter, from kicks, to snare bottom end, to a synth that may have some un-needed low freq content, etc.. Without hearing a clip, nobody can tell you exactly.

 

Last edited: Aug 3, 2023

post a clip so people are not guessing. without one, FF pro-q3, pro-c2. channel eq-> saturation-> eq-> compression-> another eq . maybe a limiter.

saturate, reductive eq, compression, additive eq. whatever sidechain action you want to setup, with your kick drum or 1/4 note midi as external sidechain source.

you can use something like Adptr Sculpt, surreal machines Impact, Decap Knock, Swivel Click Boom, Cymatics Diablo, Transient Master, CTR M4 if you want to multi-band compress, and about a million other plugins you can use. Depending on what you already have going on. Check out some of the WA plugins like Fundamental Bass and Puncher. I thought they would be junk, but they are surprisingly decent.

 

Last edited: Aug 3, 2023

Boominess mostly sits in the 100 - 200Hz range. I'd use an MB compressor or a dyn EQ to tame it.
To make it more punchy I'd use a compressor (with some attack time).
But

would be most useful, ofc.

 

Thanks for your suggestionss, guys. Much appreciated.
I tried Fundamental Bass, but then I decided to go with a good EQ instead, and Fab Filter Pro Q3 did the job just fine.
I rolled off quite steeply below about 65Hz, peaked it at about 80 and lowered it a few db from about 120 and up.
Now it sounds just fine!
It's an analog bass in Spire.