Managing resonances on bass

Sometimes you can’t just compress and fix a dynamically uneven bass part because the tone of the notes is uneven, not just the level.1 This is often because of the instrument’s tonal resonance. This happens on acoustic guitar too.

Once you’ve found the offending resonant frequency, you can notch it out with an EQ. For even more control, follow it with a multiband compressor working only about <100 Hz. Then you can control the overall dynamics more gently with full-band compression.1 Similar concepts are explored in Use a limiter on the low-end, Expand low end for clarity, and Use multiband compression to control low end.

Notes mentioning this note