Session bassist Keith Rosier, the author of Jump 'n' Blues Bass, has some tips for EQ'ing the bass. "The frequencies that work for the low-end would be anywhere from 40 to 100 hertz. If your bass isn't sounding deep enough, I would sparingly raise those maybe three db.

"If your bass is just not cutting through, surprisingly, the best frequencies for that are from 250 to 700 hertz. That's the midrange; the human ear hears midrange easier than other frequencies. So if your bass is just not popping out, just scroll through a parametric EQ from 200 to 700 with your boost maybe at plus-three or plus-six dbs, until you find the frequency that really makes the bass pop out, and then when you do, back it down to plus-three or so."

Rosier says that if the bass you've recorded is an electric, "If it isn't bright enough, that means you either need to put new strings on your bass, or you need to boost around three, four or five k. Sparingly--because if you boost a lot of high-end on bass, you'll start getting in the way of the guitar and the vocal".

Craig Anderton adds, "The important thing to a lot of my music is the kick drum rather than the bass, so I don't want them to argue in the same frequency range. I'll often add a fairly narrow midrange EQ peak to bring out "snap" or pick noise. Usually the EQ in Sonar's Producer Edition is more than sufficient. I do use the Steinberg Quadrafuzz plug-in sometimes to add some 'edge'; of course that brings out the highs without EQ due to the added harmonics."

"But as to specific settings", Anderton says, "it's impossible to generalize...every song is different. It's like assuming that the same dress would look good on all women."