Heavy Metal Production in the Bedroom

[Radius_Vector]

A lot of people have come up to me and asked me how I can get the almost-commercial sound on my Melakartha recordings. There are a lot of great musicians even on this board, who can record/mix better than me, but hey, there is still a lot of knowledge to be shared.

I’m going to share some simple ideas and concepts that can make your mix (and thereby song) a lot more appealing, and complete. When was the last time you wrote a great song in your head, but which turned out to sound like nails on a blackboard by the time you had finished recording it?

Bear in mind, this is a complete bedroom guide – If you’re the kind who came here looking for suggestions on tweaking that SSL hardware rack, or trying to reduce the noise floor on your mammoth 32-channel tube pre-amp powered mixer that sits on your desk, let me shoo you away before you get disgusted with our primal, budget mixing methods

Bedroom Tracking
A) What you’ll need -

• An interface between your instrument/mic and your computer – I’m not going to get into the details on this, there are tons of guides and comparisons on which interface to use. I personally use the Line6 GuitarPort which is an older version of the Pod X3 in the market right now and is discontinued. I’ve had good results with line6 and their products are highly recommended.
  (OR)
• A soundcard

• Software DAW – Cubase/ProTools/Logic/Adobe Audition/Ableton Live/Sonar, the list is endless. This is completely dependant on your preference. I really like Adobe Audition 3 for tracking so I will base the rest of this post on that, though the concepts are applicable across all the DAWs.

• Headphones/Speakers for monitoring – Highly recommended are the Sennheiser HD650 or, the cheaper Audio Technica ATH-M50

B) Setting up your DAW

• Metal has always been about precision, and heaviness. Tightly timed tracks = HEAVY! So I’m assuming that we want to be recording to a click track.
• For a bigger sound to your guitars, you MUST double track your guitars. If you’re a tight player, you are most certain to enjoy the sonic results from quad-tracking your guitars as well.
• Set your DAW to record at 24 bit audio, at 48 khZ. Warning: Ensure that your interface can do this before you buy it. Refer to this guide here for detailed comparisons of audio interfaces
• Set your signal levels on your interface (using the gain feature), or using the ‘Volume’ feature on the POD – to make sure that youre getting the hottest signal possible without clipping. Record a couple sample waveforms to check this, and see that there is not more than 6-8dB between the top (clip) areas and your highest signal level.
• Make sure your DAW inputs are set to the interface, and get tracking !
• Tip : If you’re using an amp modeller for your guitar like the line6 pod, make sure you go easy on the treble and presence knobs – somehow line6 has this tendency to add a horrific amount of those which end up making your tracks sound sterile. Bass is another tricky issue to deal with, but bass is generally more controllable during the mixing stage.
  

Hopefully I've not missed anything. The next post coming up in a couple of days – Bedroom Mixing!

Stay tuned, and leave a comment if you have any feedback, or any questions to be answered. Cheers!

 

[Wookieslayer]

Hey man thanks for posting this as i'm trying to record / get a good mix and tone with my pod xt.

When you say double track each guitar part, should I re-record each part twice or can I just copy / paste the track to have 2 copies of guitar 1 for example? Sorry for such a nub question =P

 

[grantcooper2]

Hey man thanks for posting this as i'm trying to record / get a good mix and tone with my pod xt.

When you say double track each guitar part, should I re-record each part twice or can I just copy / paste the track to have 2 copies of guitar 1 for example? Sorry for such a nub question =P

I know you were asking the OP, but I just thought I would chime in and help out as I just recently learned about this during the summer

You definitely don't want to just copy and paste your track, essentially what you are doing is just increasing the volume. If you are feeling lazy (like me sometimes) you can get away with this if you tweak the hell out of the second track in post (i.e. eq and FX) but that usually doesn't sound to good haha. The best thing to do is do multiple takes, it's the little differences and imperfections that get it sounding huge and thick...because the individual waves of the audio tracks are never the exact same on different takes. I have gotten the best results quad tracking with 2 different amps, 4 SLIGHTLY different tones...but it can be a bitch to do, as you have to play super tight (as previously mentioned).

hear is a completely un-edited quad tracked clip I did just as an example of what layering multiple can end up sounding like...
SoundClick artist: Grant Cooper (II) - page with MP3 music downloads

...whether you like the tone or not is subjective but you can hear how thick and beefy it gets with multiple tracks

the absolute best thing to do is record a D.I track, then run it back through your pod/amp/etc. and record multiple different tones and even combine them to create the ultimate tone(s) that you like the best

im starting to ramble...its late

 

[Wookieslayer]

Hmm yeah thats what I figured man. Thanks for the quick response. I guess I misunderstood what the OP meant by a thicker bigger sound-confusing it with volume

yeah I knew that using 2 diff tones or guitars def is good to have for 2 diff guitar parts so this is the same idea. Sweet I'll try to post some better recordings soon.

 

[Radius_Vector]

Hey man thanks for posting this as i'm trying to record / get a good mix and tone with my pod xt.

When you say double track each guitar part, should I re-record each part twice or can I just copy / paste the track to have 2 copies of guitar 1 for example? Sorry for such a nub question =P

This is definitely a good question, a lot of people make mistakes in this process.

Generally, when you track twice, it is hard, and almost impossible to have the exact sounding take both the times (unless you're a freaking monster player haha). Which means there are minor imperfections in the playing/timing, but hey guess what? These very imperfections and timing issues are exactly what make the guitar sound BIG and stereod. So, think of it - when you just use the same take and pan it left and right, there are NO imperfections, which actually nullifies the effect you are trying to go for in the first place - or worse, you could end up having phase cancellation issues.

However, there are some applications where I would use the same track and double it - especially when I really love a take that I just did, or if it's a very tight riff that's hard to reproduce twice, or if I'm just downright lazy

But here again, to create a stereo spread, I would push one of the takes 1-2ms further away from the original start location to give it that sense of stereo. This step is crucial. I'd also EQ/FX the two takes very differently, as grantcooper2 suggested.

Then again, nothing beats recording two takes twice, separately.

D.I'ing the guitar tracks and applying the guitar processing later is a trick used a lot, but I never tend to use this as I'm spoilt for options when I get to apply the processing later haha, this makes me very indecisive and makes the mix process excruciatingly long !

Hope this helps

Mixing Tutorial coming up soon!

 

[FourFour]

Yo, Singaporean! This is good stuff sia...

Wookie: If its the first time you're doing this kind of mixing thing. Try and keep things simple you know? Get a nice tone and just double track it. Pan it hard L and R.

Bass in the centre.

Drums spread it out to your liking.

Radius, hope you don't mind me chiming in.

 

[TreWatson]

yo, fourfour, i know it's the standard to hardpan guitars but that middle space always gets left when i do it. I'm very space/visually(audibly) conscious and pan 80/80.

just to give a different perspective, doesn't always have to be hardpanned, but it must be split far enough apart that they sound separated.

 

[Leec]

Great post. You're certainly justified in giving out production/mixing advice. Better than many people here; your mixing sounds first class. And the first track on your Sounclick page is the shizzle! I'm going to take a listen to the rest of your stuff now (and show a friend of mine who'll dig it).

 

[zeal0us]

Great post. You're certainly justified in giving out production/mixing advice. Better than many people here; your mixing sounds first class. And the first track on your Sounclick page is the shizzle! I'm going to take a listen to the rest of your stuff now (and show a friend of mine who'll dig it).

I second that. Survivor blew me away, and I can't wait to check out the rest of that stuff!

Radius_Vector, you said you're using GuitarPort. Are you plugging the guitar directly into it and using Gearbox/ Podfarm to attain this magnificent tone? I have a Toneport and the only decent tones I got out of it were by bypassing all software modeling and using pedals as I would for playing live. And even then, there's no comparison of the tone before and after going through this interface... it's just thinner and less dynamic afterward.

About your recommendation of headphones for monitoring- I use Sennheiser HD 555's for my every day listening... do these classes of headphones really substitute the need for studio monitors?

I can't thank you enough for the guide in progress; impatiently awaiting more top tier insight!

 

[tr0n]

I love the tunes, looking forward to the next little posts.

 

[Radius_Vector]

Thanks for the awesome feedback fellas!

Yo, Singaporean! This is good stuff sia...

Wookie: If its the first time you're doing this kind of mixing thing. Try and keep things simple you know? Get a nice tone and just double track it. Pan it hard L and R.

Bass in the centre.

Drums spread it out to your liking.

Radius, hope you don't mind me chiming in.

Of course I don't mind your chiming in, fourfour - Sharing is caring!

yo, fourfour, i know it's the standard to hardpan guitars but that middle space always gets left when i do it. I'm very space/visually(audibly) conscious and pan 80/80.

just to give a different perspective, doesn't always have to be hardpanned, but it must be split far enough apart that they sound separated.

This is interesting - Certainly, 'central' weight is lost when you hardpan your guitars, but generally when you mix your other stuff in nicely, you will not feel the absence of the center. I've never panned guitars below 90-90, as they begin to interfere with each other and creating mud - unless you want that effect. The best thing about mixing is that there are no rules

Great post. You're certainly justified in giving out production/mixing advice. Better than many people here; your mixing sounds first class. And the first track on your Sounclick page is the shizzle! I'm going to take a listen to the rest of your stuff now (and show a friend of mine who'll dig it).

Radius_Vector, you said you're using GuitarPort. Are you plugging the guitar directly into it and using Gearbox/ Podfarm to attain this magnificent tone? I have a Toneport and the only decent tones I got out of it were by bypassing all software modeling and using pedals as I would for playing live. And even then, there's no comparison of the tone before and after going through this interface... it's just thinner and less dynamic afterward.

About your recommendation of headphones for monitoring- I use Sennheiser HD 555's for my every day listening... do these classes of headphones really substitute the need for studio monitors?

Thanks for all the love fellas and thank you Leec for spreading the word
zeal0us, yes, the guitars are plugged directly into Gearbox and not DI'ed. About it being thinner and less dynamic, I definitely agree, and that's a little price you pay for the comfort of such a small and cheap recording device. However, you can make some pretty awesome presets using the GearBox that sound convincing. As I said earlier, try going easy on the treble and presence knobs. Also, use the Tubescreamer pedal model and it's gain after backing off the gain from the amp model, and see if you like the results

Mixing on headphones, now that's a pandora's box. Back in the day, if you told anyone that you were mixing on headphones, they'll ignore you like the plague. Nowadays, things have changed, and there are a lot of professionals using headphones - Here's an awesome article.

But, I will tell you that the best setup is definitely a combination of good headphones, and good speakers/monitors. I've never tried the HD555, so I can't tell you much about it. I use an Audio Technica ATHM50 (130USD) and it slays for stereo imaging and has crystal clear highs. I always A/B with my cheap 2.1 speakers so that I get the bass right. I wish I had a good set of monitors but I can't afford that right now, but I definitely look forward to picking those up soon

Mammoth post on drum mixing coming up tonight

 

[Fred]

Never heard your stuff before, but just had a listen and am definitely looking forward to the rest of this thread now!

 

[Radicz0r]

Awesome thread! Some questions though:

- How does one go about recording with the mix in mind, are there things you should keep in mind in promt to recording?
- What is the best setup for creating your mixdown? For example, write the drums in a sequence program, export, import them in your DAW, THEN record guitars, mixdown the guitars, then record bass? Or something different?
- Do you use standalone software to create for example, delay/echo? (such as the one that was to download for free a couple of days back)
- Have you heard about loser's exiter/limiter, and how do i go about using such a thing in my DAW?
- In all, what would you use to reduce static, clicks, glitching and optimization in tracks that you are unable to re-record?
- Whenever i create a mixdown, i notice that even though the mix sounds good to my ears, the end result as a whole sounds very sterile and small, compared to other mixes that sound huge and wide. Why does this happen, and how do i obtain such a sound?

Thanks for creating this thread, it's awesome!

 

[TreWatson]

thanks Radius for the feedback. I just usually find when I have guitars playing the same riff I'll let them mix to get a bit more of that blended feel to them, and it's usually mud free, and my harmonies usually are in a minor third so the harmony creates more of an overtine kinda situation than mud.

but I'll efinitely try hardpanning again just to see what i get.

also: when you master, do you ever apply reverb to the master track?

 

[zeal0us]

Radius_Vector is the man

I messed around a lot with Gearbox bearing your instructions in mind, and it sounds bucketloads better than before, but pales in comparison to your recorded tones... and is not quite close to my good old pedals' tone. There's enough questions floating around this thread that'll keep you busy, and with your upcoming post on mixing, I'll enjoy the ride for now

 

[Radius_Vector]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. About the questions, I'll answer them as soon as I get home.

EDIT - Managed to paste that post here! phew

This post is continued as part of the “Heavy Metal Production in your Bedroom” series. Last week, I covered tracking your instruments effectively in the bedroom. That post can be found here.

As you would have guessed, the drums are pretty much the single most important thing laying down the ‘punch‘ in the track. Sure, a lot of other factors contribute too, but with a weak drum sound, everything’s sitting on thin ice. So how do you get that monster drum sound? Let’s take it one step at a time. I personally use Superior Drummer 2.0 for my songs since it’s just easy (i’m lazy, I told you that), though I have mixed plenty of live drum sounds as well. Most of this post will definitely be biased towards sampled drums however, as they are what’s used in the bedroom context.

There are a few core components that are important across the drum bus and they are:

1) Gating
2) Compression

• Individual Compression
• Whole Bus Compression
• Sidechain Compression

3) Stereo Imaging and Room
——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–——–
With Superior Drummer, or any good drum machine for that matter, options and FX are so easy to implement and fool around with. Controlling the bleed is just a matter of riding a knob, but in the live drums scenario things are a lot more complicated than that. However, drum machines provide a great platform to learn and tweak some concepts. Other good drum machines are – Steven Slate Drums, Addictive Drums, and the gazillion expansions to Superior Drummer 2.0, etc.
I’m assuming that you guys know how to program in a basic drum beat using either the Piano Roll in Cubase, or any MIDI editor of your choice. If not I highly recommend you go to youtube and learn it – it’s not that hard, really

1) Gating
What is gating? Just like the real meaning of the word, a gate is something that opens and closes according to specific instructions that are provided by you. What is the use of gating in drum sounds, you ask? It is simply to reduce the bleed noise picked up by the microphones and to add ‘crispness’ to your sound. Bear in mind, bleed is not a bad thing at all – in fact, you want to become a good drum engineer? Start loving bleed and use it smartly.
Back to gating – for example, the microphones on the toms might have captured the snare and you need to get rid of those background snare noises from the mics. How do you remove it without affecting the sound of the toms? Gate it. One can go on endlessly about gating, right from introductory to advanced concepts, but I’ll leave that to you. There are good tutorials here, here and here.


For starters, try loading up a gate (most DAWs come with inbuilt vsts) on guitar tracks/drum tracks/vocal tracks – and fool around with the parameters and observe the results. The most important parameters on the gate are – Threshold, Attack, and Hold time. Threshold will affect how often the gate is called to action, attack determines how fast the gate affects the signal. Hold time is generally to prevent non-musical results from coming up from excessive gating – gates can behave like bitcrushers if overdone. Try changing it up.
Good gating and a clean signal is crucial before going to the next step, or else it will end up sounding like chaos after processing. However, gating is far less important when you’re dealing with sampled/programmed drums. Okay, now you have the MIDI drums programmed in and all good to go, and everything sounds good individually but the whole kit still sounds weak?! What is that magical component that gives the drums that WHOOPAH punch?
Answer – Compression.

2) Compression
If you asked me what was the single most concept that is crucial to getting mixes to sound good (assuming good tracking), I would say its compression. Although they are straightforward audio-processing units, they are the hardest to master. Even the pros handle compressors with care, although using it generously on their mixes. The holy grail of compression is to compress it as much as you can without audible differences in the signal, unless you have other reasons to do so.
What does a compressor do? As the name implies, it compresses the signal, based on a set of instructions you give it. Most important parameters – Threshold, Attack Time, Release Time, Ratio.The drums are very impulse-oriented instruments, in the sense that it is almost completely transient based. A compressor, on it’s best day will do so much as to tame those rapid transient peaks, while still maintaining the natural timbre of the instrument. That is what you should be aiming for.
Threshold – This determines how much of the original signal will be affected by the compressor. The lower the threshold, the more the compressor will be in action.
Attack – The time it takes for the compressor to kick in. For example, if you have a high attack time like 200ms on a kick drum say, then, most of the kick transient will go through uncompressed, but the tail of the kick will be compressed. If you have a very low attack time like 1ms, the whole transient will be compressed.
Release – The time it takes for the compressor to stop working after it started. If you have a fast release, compressor will release the signal back quickly, a slow release generally means the compressor is on for a longer time.
Ratio - Almost like the ‘Strength’ of a compressor, a high ratio like 10:1 means that the compressor compresses 10dB to 1dB. Pretty straightforward.
It’s harder to understand these concepts from just text, again, I’d suggest you fire up your DAW and a kick/snare track, and see how the different settings affect the drum sound. Now, on to the real deal !
Individual Compression - Try to keep the holy grail of compression rule here – “compress it as much as you can without audible differences in the signal, unless you have other reasons to do so.” Sure, kick and snare will need a lot more compression than the others, since you’re searching for that elusive punch. A good ratio for them would be 4:1 or 6:1, with an attack time of about 10ms and release of 70-100ms. Tweak the attack times until you get the right amount of punch, bite, thickness with the natural timbre of the instrument shining through (Don’t forget the holy grail of compression!)
Group Compression - This is very useful to tame the overheads and ambient mics from getting too loud and overpowering the mix. Recommended settings, Ratio 5:1, Attack 1ms, Release 100ms. Threshold to taste. A subtle compressor, maybe 2:1 applied across the whole drum bus has made it sit better in the mix for me, in previous sessions. This is completely one’s preference and not necessary sometimes. Remember, that if you have a compressor across the drum bus – it will work to fight against your faders, which means, if you boost your snare in the mixer, the compressor will act to bring the level of the snare down in relation to the others. Just be aware of this and you’ll be good to go.
SideChain Compression - Sidechain your kick to the bass guitar to give it a nice ‘pumping’ effect, and also to duck away the bass when the kick is dominant and vice versa. It lets you increase the bass guitar a bit more without getting the mix to become woofy and bassy. This is again a lengthy subject and I will not get into the details, there is a lot of good reading material on Sidechain compression here, here and here.

The key to master compression, as with all things mixing is – EXPERIMENT! Also, you would definitely want to EQ different parts of the kit to taste, try experimenting with the compressor before the EQ, or vice versa and observe the results. There are a lot of other plugins that do ‘Transient Shaping’ etc. but these are all pretty much derivatives of the compressor.

3) Stereo Imaging and Room
Stereo imaging – Pretty straightforward, make sure your drums are spread across the stereo spectrum to suit your song. You could either go with Hats on the left, Ride on the right, or the opposite setup based on what you like. Toms are a lot more tricky, make sure you pan it just nicely – too much panning could prove distracting and confusing for the listener. Try to picture a real drummer playing in front of you, how would you hear it? Try to recreate as much of that setup in your mix.

Drum Room
This is something that is a lot more personal, and harder to give ‘rules’, simply because there aren’t any. Do not confuse this with snare-room, that would be part of the stereo imaging process. Room is something that makes the drum track really come to life, and/or sit well in a mix.
Generally, I’m quite generous with reverb on the drum bus, on a slower track. For a mid-tempo yet hard hitting metal track, I like to have a pretty long reverb tail on the snare to give it that SMASH sound – the breakdown on Pantera’s Domination – now didn’t that just blow your head away when you heard it. On faster thrashy songs, I go easy on the snare reverb, but still add a suitable reverb across the entire drum track to make it sit better in the mix. Be careful not to wash out your drum sound – too much reverb, and bye bye punch!
Tip: When you add drum reverb, the overheads are rather accentuated since most reverbs amplify the highs. Make sure you cut the highs with an EQ on the reverb FX channel.

Other tips on Drum Mixing
1) I use a high-pass filter on my overheads and ambient mics around 500Hz, just to get rid of all the mud in that low region
2) If possible, try to use both Snare top and snare bottom tracks – you will have a lot more control on your snare sound
3) Kick – Another sneaky tip – Double the kick track – one carrying the super low end (40-60Hz), and the other carrying the mids and highs (HPF it around 500Hz) – This gives you control over both the punch of the low end, and the attack. – You can compress the hell out of the low end kick, but when you mix it in it wont be too audible

– Result? Awesome punch.
4) By splitting your kick into two tracks, you also open options for side chaining – Try and sidechain the low end of the kick to the bass guitar.
5) Find that your ride cymbal is barely heard? Don’t increase overheads as it could kill the delicate balance of the cymbals, increase Ambient mics instead.
6) Compressing your overheads is not a bad idea to tame down the rapid transients that could potentially kill your mix if left unattended.
PHEW! That was long, and I barely even covered everything.

Please post feedback/questions/ideas, and I’ll try my best to answer everything! Coming up soon – Mixing Electric and Bass Geetars!

- Sridhar

 

[Insane_Zerg]

^^WOW frickin long post. Thanks a lot for the advice, i'm going to try out some of the compression ideas on my EZ drummer

 

[grantcooper2]

awesome!!!! can't wait for the rest

 

[machinica_band]

Since I also play the drums (but guitar is my instrument of choice) I like to set it up like you were actually in the room with the drum set. If you are standing in front of the drum set the snare and the highhat are going to be slightly panned to the right, if I am using double bass I pan each bass drum slightly right and left. I tend to pan all of the cymbals slightly right/left depending on the set.

I am not sure if this is the standard recodring technique for using DFH or actually recording a real drum set but it makes the drums sound a lot better to my ears. Cuts down on a lot of post eq and stuff like that.

When I am recording bass I like to plug straight into my tone port. I found this Meshuggah Bass preset that sounds pretty badass. I have to use a little bit less gain on it to get a good thrashy tone.

For guitar though, I have spent the last 6 or so years playing with line 6 equipment. I had the very first POD Pro, The POD XT, and now the X3. I have the UX2 and the UX8 toneports and a Vetta Combo. Though all of these amps and di boxes sound amazing stand alone, I have never been able to get a decent sound when recording. I have a Rocktron Blackface Chameleon that I use for recording the gutiars and I have a console preamp preset for the UX if any body wants it.

All in all though I appreciate you guys explaining what you guys are doing to get a better recorded POD tone. Also, I am sorry for posting this here, but I am selling a bunch of this shit so PM me if you are interested.

 

[Radius_Vector]

- How does one go about recording with the mix in mind, are there things you should keep in mind in promt to recording?
- What is the best setup for creating your mixdown? For example, write the drums in a sequence program, export, import them in your DAW, THEN record guitars, mixdown the guitars, then record bass? Or something different?
- Do you use standalone software to create for example, delay/echo? (such as the one that was to download for free a couple of days back)
- Have you heard about loser's exiter/limiter, and how do i go about using such a thing in my DAW?
- In all, what would you use to reduce static, clicks, glitching and optimization in tracks that you are unable to re-record?
- Whenever i create a mixdown, i notice that even though the mix sounds good to my ears, the end result as a whole sounds very sterile and small, compared to other mixes that sound huge and wide. Why does this happen, and how do i obtain such a sound?

1) The main thing you want to keep in mind when tracking, is tightness, and also the treble and presence knobs in your POD modeller. If you're the kind who likes processing options later, make sure to save a D.I'ed track as well.
2) Personal preference, really I compose, program, and mix my drums within the same session file along with the guitars. Do it if you're computer can take it, you will be a lot more effective. Sometimes, when my guitars need a lot more work, I work on them in a separate session file.
3) No, I use some cool VST plugins for delay and that's about it.
4) I've never used this before, but it sounds like a VST plugin. Just download the vst and put it in your vst folder, like \steinberg\Cubase\VSTPlugins\ and fire it up inside your DAW
5) Good question - this is tricky. I avoid these things like the plague when tracking, but invariably clicks and stuff come in, in my final mix , especially if there is a large dynamic range. I use Adobe Audition 3 for purely wave editing stuff - it has some of the most powerful wave detection/processing utils I've ever used. You can also use the Waves plugs like Xnoise etc, they work pretty well.
6) There is no one stop solution for getting your mix to sound big. Make sure you do everything meticulously, as covered in the previous post. However, to help you troubleshoot, here are somethings that have to be tackled in order to get your mix to sound bigger:

- Are you panning your instruments well and using the entire stereo spectrum to your advantage?
- Any of your instruments sounding tinny/trebly? Retrack if possible, or reprocess.
- Are too many instruments occupying the same frequency range? Try EQ cuts if you can, or pan them out differently.
- Are you having phasing issues? (Swishing sounds in the mix/Sudden drops in volumes of certain instruments) - Check your mix in mono to troubleshoot this easier
- Is your bass well-tamed (compressed?) - If your bass is compressed, you can increase its level considerably as compared to a non-compressed bass and hence it adds that low-end to mixes making it sound bigger

Hope this helps!

also: when you master, do you ever apply reverb to the master track?

For sure! It all depends on the track. Sometimes, I do everything right from the start but still feel that the mix doesn't sit well together. The right amount of reverb can 'glue' your track down. You have to be careful with the low end when doing this, hence I usually put a HPF on my track before sending it out to the reverb bus.