DIing a BASS?

F

FullSailer

New member
Hey guys, another question. Ive heard that it is a pretty standard practice to DI the bass guitar. When I DI the bass into my audio interface, it sounds pretty noisy. Im assuming this is the DI on my amp that is making the noise because nothing else sounds noisy. I get a much better sound when I mic the bass with a condenser.....is this common done? I just figured the condenser would be better than a dynamic because it can pick up the bass frequencies much better than a dynamic. Help please
thanx, Eric
 
you need one of them HiZ things.....you know a matchbox. Its for DI-ing. Fuck its late. Someone else will use the right words.
 
recording bass tracks through a mic is not uncommon.
It doesn't necessarily needs to be a condenser but if it works for you then it's fine.
When you want to record direct, it's common to do
bass -> DI box -> preamp -> audio interface.
 
Sailer

In my (limited) experience the DI output from many amps is pretty ropey and noisy. I've found that on the Marshall and the Laney our guitarist uses. A proper DI box / amp emulator whatever will probably give you a better signal. Of course it may not give you the sound you want! - but this also applies to using the amp's DI because you're losing the colouring the speaker gives it.

I've been reading a bit about this and many people use both a DI'd input to capture a crisp attack and a mic'd speaker to give the depth and colour.

Christiaan I thought the DI box would incorporate a preamp?
 
OOOO I get it now.

My friend that is gods gift to my local recording scene, says that the best thing for a bass is DI to anything. I found this out when I plugged into my bands PA system....wow, sounds so good. But if you are recording, he says DI. no mic, no amp. Just the board.

freak
 
Yeah bassfreak, that's one argument. I think you can replicate the amp but perhaps not the speaker. Our practice set up has two vox, the drum machine and my bass (through a DI) all into the mixer and then a 200w PA. Guitarist just runs through his own amp. (Thanks to the previous owners, our living room is soundproofed - what a result!) There's also a Fostex VF80 hanging off the mixer - any parts we want to record I send to that, switching over to headphones if we're taping mic's. Some of our songs need two guitars so one of them will be recorded and played back through the Fostex, but we're trying to write mor estuff that just needs one guitar.

Back to the point, it seems much easier to get the bass to sit comfortably in the sound like that, rather than with a separate amp. With a subwoofer also plugged into the mixer the kick drum off the machine and my bass make the floor vibrate in a thoroughly satisfactory way.

But come the spring we'll be ready to start gigging, and I'm wondering if I'll need an amp for that.
 
garry

wow that would be cool to have a soundproof room....i bet your ears ring after you guys are done jamming lol :)

do you guys use a PA system for live playing? if you do id sugest using that for your amp.....unless you have a nice big bass rig....then by all means use the rumbly box

freak
 
bass di and soundman/engineer troubles

I've been playing out and recording quite a while and I can say with confidence that many "Gods gift to the scene" sound technicians know little about getting a good sound out of a bass guitar.

I always run through the board (DI) off of the guitar (not the amp) even the best amps often have outputs that are too hot to be usable.

I also always mix this signal with a microphone on the speaker cabinet. Tell the soundman or engineer at the beginning "I need a DI box and a mic on the... (whatever speaker sounds the best).
Experiment with getting the lows out of one channel and the highs and mids out of the other. Genreally, quality active pickups will give you great low end and the speaker can fill in mids and string sound or you can do it the opposite and get lows from the speaker and use the highs and mids off the direct signal.
 
DI works fine with the bassist in my band since he uses a Demeter preamp and some other rackmount boxes, but we prefer micing an ampeg 8x10. The cab produces a sound that cannot be easily duplicated and we like the tone a lot more than that of the DI.
 
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