Bass volume in styles

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi all.

I'm trying to get all my registration bass volumes to be roughly the same so that when playing a show, I don't end up having to do so many adjustments on the fly. When you're using a 15 inch sub, you can either have way too much bass or not enough.

Let's assume all my songs are in the same key and I'm using only the factory Genos styles. Let's also assume all my bass volumes in the mixer are set to 60. There is still such a huge variation in the volume of the bass. I would have thought that all things being equal, the volume should not vary that much. I know the bass voice selection is a variable, however, I notice the variation in volume mainly when the Mega Voices are used. Personally, I hate the Mega Voices and wish it was easy to just re-map them to SA2 voices. We all know that's a major problem because of how Mega Voices are played. I tried editing the individual note velocities using the Style Creator but I can't edit the factory styles unless I first delete the Bass part and re-record it. I'm starting to think the only way around this huge variation in volume is to re-record the bass lines and save them as user styles. I really don't want to do that! There's 250 songs!!

Any idea on how I can level the bass volumes out?

[jwyvern]

Hi Lee,
If it is simply a question of volume, setting the bass volume as you need in your setups, then re-saving your registrations should do it, unless I have missed something from your post.
If you need more than pure volume you could set a DSP with adjusted parameters on the basses to provide more presence before re-saving (to a registration or if preferred to a user style) .

John

[DrakeM]

I hate to tell you but what you are describing is just another reason I went to making custom song styles and saving them all to a USB stick.
The problem is solved and can easily be tweaked to get them correct.

But I would think you should be able to control the volume level with a Registration too.

I don't recommend deleting the Mega Bass runs, they are very well done, plus you'll  spend more time trying to correctly re-recording your own than simply adjusting the volume of the Mega Bass voice.

Regards
Drake

[RoyceM]

At the risk of writing about "apples vs oranges," my experience with my new S975 and Bose L1 Compact might fit somewhere into this discussion of control variables.

To tune things to my sound tastes and venues, I have gone into each of my song styles (I keep a copy of each style for each song so I can customize without affecting other songs) and change the bass instrument and volume to my liking.

Then I depend on my Master EQ preset choice (which I have adjusted and saved) bands 1 & 2 for adjusting overall bass sound for the venue I'm playing in. Sometimes I have to add a little or subtract a lot to get what I want.

Please forgive my ignorance about the Genos. My comments might be completely off base.

- Royce

[Bachus]

Maybe its useless information..
But Ketron has a setting for things like this..

[panos]

Hi Lee,
Sometimes I had to use the "style unlocker" from Jørgen Sørensen to edit locked parts of preset styles on my psr.

http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/stun/index.htm

I guess it will work for Genos too.
You can adjust each single note's velocity in the "edit tab"
(I don't know if in Genos is called with another name)
Of course you will have to save the changes to a new "user" style.

But editing the part's voices from the Mixing Console wouldn't make things easier by saving new user styles as you wish?
Editing all basses or voices  to lvl 60 I don't think that will make them sound equal at all as you said but you have to adjust them with your ear to sound equal.
Make some styles and then move from style to style to see if the styles sound equal as much as possible.
I wouldn't make all basses for all styles to sound "equal" though.
It depends on the song,the other parts of the style and the right & left hand voices.
If there is something from all of them that sounds more loud from the other parts it needs adjusting.

And all of these will sound differently depending on the room you are playing each time.
But there you have to adjust the master EQ just a little I guess as Royce suggested.

[Graham UK]

Bass voice in styles volumes vary depending on voice chosen.
Myself I never use any Style at their default values. I adjust every Style and give it the name of the tune that is suitable to play.
Save in Folder named Song styles which save in alphabetically order.

[Wim NL]

I use the quick record audio record level as reference.
I compare the audio output .
I set the monitor level to a position where i want to be the general (Bass) or style part  level and the monitor audio just peaks
So i modified all my style levels and save the style as user style.
The only thing is i have to start a new audio record for each style but the are easy to delete after all.

[Lee Batchelor]

Many thanks for the replies! It seems that my easiest route is to edit each registration and set the bass volume where it sounds right, and to just forget it's numerical volume in the mixer. What threw me was the assumption that I could just set them all to the same value. That is wrong! So much depends on the voice, key, and type of style.

Again, thanks for contributing your ideas!

- Lee

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Lee

I have always said that the bass on the Genos is way too heavy for lots of genre's.
On the Tyros 5 my bass settings for general music to sound good was about 38-40 on the volume slider.
On the Genos they are way up on styles and very dominent.
I have found that the Tyros was good for the quick go to scenario and the Genos has to be manipulated more to get the same results.
If that Style unlocker works for the Genos, that is the way to go.
Also if that works the Kick drums need sorting as well as the bass. I have to lower the kick drums -20 or more in some cases on volume with certain styles especially the modern ones.
I will have a go at that style unlocker myself.
It is horrible when you have recorded a song and then unhappy with the drum section.
It is best to sort the drum section out before as the song can be long winded to edit.
I have made that mistake and spent a lot of time lowering a kick. drives you nuts move , dink, move dink, move, dink etc!!




All the best
john

[panos]

Hi John,
the drum patterns(RHY1 & RHY2) of the preset styles have been always unlocked(at least to my psr).
That is a good thing because when I assembly style parts,a hit hat maybe doesn't fit to the rhythm or it is way too loud or when I have to delete some notes of the drum pattern to make the  ending as I want it to be.
I'm not good at recording complicated drum patterns like those in "fill ins" so this function helps a lot and it's not that difficult.

[Lee Batchelor]

Excellent points, John and Panos. So much depends on the style and the speakers we use.

Panos, you are correct. We can edit the Rhythm 1 and 2 parts, but I assume we'd still have to save them as a User style, which is fine by me. As an added note, I save my registrations with the Kick and Toms routed through the Sub 1 out. That signal goes to my mixer, whereby, I can control it with a slider.

I noticed that we can route the Bass line to the Aux 3 or 4 ports, but there's no way to control those volumes internally from the Genos...or is there? Otherwise, I would need to connect the Aux 3 (Bass) to a mixer channel in my SoundCraft, and then use the Monitor out patch to control the volume of the Bass.