Re-amping bass without an amp

Dags

Dags

New member
Hi all
For those of you who like to experiment with your recordings, give this a whirl....
Was fooling around with a really crappy sounding live performance DI bass recording & wondering how I could re-amp it at home to make it sound fuller (I don’t own a bass amp)
It needed to be compressed, EQd and be subjected to some actual speaker and air movement to improve the thin, toppy sound of the DI signal.
In the absence of a bass amp to use, I came up with the crazy idea of sending the track out of the DAW into a compressor/EQ unit then into a pair of headphones, hanging one earphone over the end of a dynamic mic and recording the very close mic signal back into the DAW via another compressor/EQ unit.
Surprisingly, it actually worked out pretty well.
(I took a picture of the headphone hanging over the end of the mic just for fun but I can’t upload photos to this forum)

Afterwards, I realised I have a keyboard amp somewhere that I could have used which would have been much better. Oh well.

Happy experimentation!
Dags
 
Interesting experiment, for sure!

Not sure what DAW you're using but the bass amp/cab sims/IRs in Logic are really good IMO. I send a very little bit to the room reverb/IR, usually, too.

If you're not getting a good DI'd signal I'd look at the matchup between your bass and preamp/interface. (What was it, exactly?)
 
Dags said:
hanging one earphone over the end of a dynamic mic and recording the very close mic signal back into the DAW via another compressor/EQ unit.
Surprisingly, it actually worked out pretty well.
Click to expand...

It a damn good thing you didn't try that with a condenser, and for the same reason you NEVER drape headphones over a vocal mic. The phantom power fries the drivers in the headphones.
 
Howdy Keith.

I use Logic V9 - I played around with the Bass amp plugins and Waves RBass and got much better mix results but the "re-amping" experiment was just that - an experiment to see whether, in a pinch, headphones could serve as a speaker for re-amping.

No idea what the bass/amp combination was. It was a multitrack recording of a band's live performance. The Direct Out, from memory, was from the back of the bass amp. Sounded huge in the venue with compression & EQ but the dry recorded DI signal is really wimpy.

Dags
 
:)
Maybe the desktop version will give me the option. There wasn’t an option to attach files using the phone web browser
 
Ah...found it


Hardly worth the effort LOL!
 

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jkuehlin said:
It a damn good thing you didn't try that with a condenser, and for the same reason you NEVER drape headphones over a vocal mic. The phantom power fries the drivers in the headphones.
Click to expand...

That ^ is completely misleading bollocks.

Yes, love a bit of experimentation me. NB. Headphones won't give a decent bass response unless sealed to the head. (think speaker chassis, no cabinet) One solution is a cardboard box (wine boxes are good and for two reasons!) about "head width" Punch a couple of ~50mm holes each side and loosely fill the box with absorbent, cotton wool, old socks di-da. NOT forgetting the microphone!

Also, if you are careful with levels you could re amp through a monitor or even a hi fi speaker but you MUST keep levels in check!

Dags, you can more easily "attach" things like photos, screenshots even short audio files (MP3 but not even 1 second of .wav for some reason?) Go "Advanced" then Manage Attachments. Shout if you get stuck.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Dags, you can more easily "attach" things like photos, screenshots even short audio files (MP3 but not even 1 second of .wav for some reason?) Go "Advanced" then Manage Attachments. Shout if you get stuck.

Dave.
Click to expand...

Cheers Dave - I found it yesterday by going to "full site" rather than the cut down mobile version :)
 
ecc83 said:
That ^ is completely misleading bollocks.
Click to expand...
Thank you and +1!!! Though on this side of the pond we'd describe it as excrement rather than testicles, they both come from the same animal. ;)

I'm not sure I agree with your cardboard box idea. Like, we have the term "boxy" for a reason.

Another way to get more bass response from the system would be to varispeed the playback up an octave or two, then slow it back down after recording. In fact this would also push the high end closer to the limits of the drivers much more like a typical bass speaker. Has the added benefit of taking less time to accomplish.
 
ashcat_lt said:
Thank you and +1!!! Though on this side of the pond we'd describe it as excrement rather than testicles, they both come from the same animal. ;)

I'm not sure I agree with your cardboard box idea. Like, we have the term "boxy" for a reason.

Another way to get more bass response from the system would be to varispeed the playback up an octave or two, then slow it back down after recording. In fact this would also push the high end closer to the limits of the drivers much more like a typical bass speaker. Has the added benefit of taking less time to accomplish.
Click to expand...

Thank you Ash' and No! Cardboard has high internal damping and did you miss the bit about the stuffing? The vast majority of speaker cones are effectively cardboard!

Dave.
 
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