Members Hotblack Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Discuss your experiences with recording bass. What have you tried?What has worked for you?What gave you mixed results?Any pleasant surprises?What would you like to try next time? Include information such as equipment used, facility and preparation strategies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members greenshag Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Originally posted by Hotblack Discuss your experiences with recording bass. What have you tried?What has worked for you?What gave you mixed results?Any pleasant surprises?What would you like to try next time?Include information such as equipment used, facility and preparation strategies. What have you tried? I have tried just about everything that I can with the tools that I have...this includes different micing techniques, DI approaches, and different pre's, different mics...What has worked for you? Best results have been a mix of a DI into an ART tube pre, then either a MXL 993 or a Rode NT1 into an ART tube pre. This allows me to capture the "live" mid-range growl along with the cleaner DI signal, which gets me great lows with excellent mid-range punch.What gave you mixed results? Shure SM57's for micing, just too mid-rangey for my tastes...Any pleasant surprises? Using an Avalon pre a buddy of mine owns, that thing is {censored}ing sweet! Also, micing the port on my old svt410hlf, I actually put the mic in the port, got a great dub styled boom out of that!What would you like to try next time? Different mics and different pre's, but alas that means money, which I am sorely short of right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hotblack Posted September 28, 2005 Author Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Once, an engineer put the bass inside a closet with a microphone and had me crank up the volume. He mixed that with a direct signal from the amplifier. Then end result was interesting. On some songs, we were able to use more of the microphone signal which was noisy and dirty. On other's, we used more of the direct signal. My tone at the time was absolute crap, so the entire recording was much like my tone: mids. No highs. No lows. Mids. God that sucked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members greenshag Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Originally posted by Hotblack Once, an engineer put the bass inside a closet with a microphone and had me crank up the volume. He mixed that with a direct signal from the amplifier.Then end result was interesting. On some songs, we were able to use more of the microphone signal which was noisy and dirty. On other's, we used more of the direct signal. My tone at the time was absolute crap, so the entire recording was much like my tone: mids. No highs. No lows. Mids. God that sucked. I have done something similiar with a guitar amp.....I built a little enclosure made out of drywall that went around my guitar amp...I put two mics in the enclosure, one in front of the speaker, and the other behind the amp...when recording some feedback parts, it gave the most insane feedback mixed with humungous reverb from the enclosure....it also had a very "pulse"ness to the sound due to the volume swells.... I also once cut off the top of a pepsi can to put over the top of a condensor mic, then placed the mic with pepsi can directly in front of the speaker cab, actually touching the grill, everytime a very low note would hit, it would rattle the pepsi can slightly, giving the sound recorded a slight metallic "zing" to it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flatcat Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 I think this depends on the music you're doing. I have a fretless Fender Jazz Special that I put EMGs in, and that thing records GREAT. I've been on records you never heard with that bass where it was direct, no EQ, no compression and sounded terrific. If I'm going to a real studio, I'll bring a couple of different basses to see what the engineer or producer likes. I have a setup in my house, and normally I just use whatever's to hand, 99% of the time it's my ancient FrankenBass on the P pickup. For my own stuff, I'm lazy, so usually I use a Johnson J-Station direct into the board. I'll usually apply compression, but not a lot, mainly to control peaks. If I went to level the bass out heavy, I'll compress it heavy during the mix. Sometimes I'll copy the bass track to another track so I'll have two - makes it easier to push the bass without chewing up headroom on the channels. Pleasant surprise: I have an inexpensive Jay Turser 'Beatle' bass, a knock-off of a Hofner that I bought for $200 because I play in a Beatle cover band. That bass records GREAT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members greenshag Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 I do all compression, limiting, eq'ing, effects as either an insert, or the whole wave.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Reverend179 Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Three signals, DI, 57 on the horn, Audix D6 or AKG D12E on the cone. Compress the DI to tape, and run it underneath the two other signals. I'll also consider running the DI through an amp simulator like Guitar Rig to give it a little bit of bite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nosamiam Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 What would you like to try next time? Reamping!!!!!! A Great New Creative Tool Designed to Simpify Re-amping Re-amping is one of those producer's tricks for bringing new sounds and textures to already recorded tracks. Up until now, there has been no dedicated device to aid the producer or creative guitarist. The Radial X-Amp is an active re-amping device that presents the engineer / producer with a new and innovative creative tool that allows a pre-recorded track from a line level device to drive two guitar amplifiers or effect pedals simultaneously. This opens the door to explore new musical sounds and spur on the creative process. Radial X-Amp at a Glance: Active re-amping device. 100% Class-A signal path. Two outputs to drive two amps. Input level overload LED indicator. Isolated output eliminates ground loops. Variable output level control. With the X-Amp, you could for instance take a pre-recorded guitar track, and send it through a second distortion pedal and amplifier and then slightly delay the track to add a thick doubling effect. You could also use the X-Amp from a voice track to a distortion pedal to ad some grit to a performance. Another popular use would be to go back and fix a track should an error or glitch somehow appear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ARES Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 sterling -> SWR 350x w/ DI -> board sounded great, next time i want to record with my tobias. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Melville Posted September 28, 2005 Members Share Posted September 28, 2005 Most of my experience has been teaching myself to record with my very modest home setup. I like to record both a straight DI track and then a DI off of my head, I think that's gotten me the best recorded tone so far. I've mic'ed my cab a few times, and I think if I had a better mic for bass I'd do that more often. I think that has the beginnings of great recorded tone (as long as you EQ it for the mix, not solo sound), but I tried this with a SM57 and it just didn't have the right vibe in the sound, if that makes sense. Recording an overdriven track to mix under a clean track didn't do much for me. I read that tip somewhere and thought I'd give it a go, I don't think I'll do that very often though. A pleasant surprise has been that sometimes all you need is a bass and a DI for pure goodness. In the future I'm going to try doubling the bass with another instrument, like guitar or piano. I've heard that doing this will help the bass cut through the mix more. And it doesn't hurt to try something, even if you just find out it doesn't quite work for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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