Need advice for recording my Upright bass

O

Oh! Henry

New member
So I tried recording the upright bass the other day and wasn't able to get it to sound good. I could do the DI thing but I'm trying to get some nice woody tones out of my upright bass and I'm getting way too much finger noise in the recording. I read through some of the threads and tried some of the techniques but it's not yielding the results I want or hear in my head!

So far I've tried the Heil PR40, GAP R1 active Ribbon mic, and SM57 at different distances from 1 to 3 feet in front of the bridge, and F hole. Too far gives me nicer tone but too much finger noise and room, too close makes it boomy and undefined. I'm playing an old 40's Kay

I have a AT4040 and some fatheads I haven't tried yet, but my feeling is that the AT4040 will be too sensitive and pick up too much room (which is not an ideal) Maybe the fathead will be ok? Any ideas or techniques I may be missing?

Could the room be causing issues I'm not aware of? I have the walls treated, and have some bass trapping happening but not in every corner of the room!

Thanks
 
Oh! Henry said:
So I tried recording the upright bass the other day and wasn't able to get it to sound good. I could do the DI thing but I'm trying to get some nice woody tones out of my upright bass and I'm getting way too much finger noise in the recording. I read through some of the threads and tried some of the techniques but it's not yielding the results I want or hear in my head!

So far I've tried the Heil PR40, GAP R1 active Ribbon mic, and SM57 at different distances from 1 to 3 feet in front of the bridge, and F hole. Too far gives me nicer tone but too much finger noise and room, too close makes it boomy and undefined. I'm playing an old 40's Kay

I have a AT4040 and some fatheads I haven't tried yet, but my feeling is that the AT4040 will be too sensitive and pick up too much room (which is not an ideal) Maybe the fathead will be ok? Any ideas or techniques I may be missing?

Could the room be causing issues I'm not aware of? I have the walls treated, and have some bass trapping happening but not in every corner of the room!

Thanks
Click to expand...

How many mics at once? Not an expert, but I would think of it like an acoustic guitar to some extent. I am sure others will have a good idea, but if you can, three mics and DI. 4 separate tracks at once. One on the fretboard, one at the hole, one for room, one for DI. If you haven't tried that, it would give you a lot more options to mix it get it just right when mixing.
 
Double bass would have to be one of the hardest things to record. A huge amount depends on the room, the quality of the bass including the strings on it, and the player.

I have tried many ways of recording double bass, one way that did get good results was to place a LDC out front (about a foot / 300mm) in line with the strings just above the bridge height, and using a second Mic, SDC in front height at about the top of the main body. I also record the pickup if it has one as sometimes you can add a little of this to bring out the tone (only if it's a good pickup).

I would try the AT4040 out front and the SM57 top of the body, don't forget to check the phase relationship between the mics.

As with the OP, I am always open to suggestions myself on double bass.

Cheers
Alan.
 
The room definitely will have an impact. You're talking about bass frequencies, which are the area that most of our rooms have most of their problems. Standing waves can be very strong, and even overcome close miking techniques to some extent.

I've never done it, but I've heard a lot of people talk about jamming an SM57 between the tailpiece and the body. Probably wrap it in foam or something...
 
Thanks for your replies, I'm liking the Idea of using multiple mics and DI, there's bound to be at least one that gives me something useable I'll give the AT4040 a try and the SM57 wrapped in foam. I have 8 in's to work with!!!

Like I said, my room is not the ideal place to be recording the upright, but I did have it set up close to a corner which was heavily trapped. Would it be best to distance it from the walls and corner? I've never had heard of this technique but I'm wondering if I can run the piezo through my amp and use the tone of the amp + acoustic tone to fill the room and hopefully drown out some finger noise??? Hmmm, I think I'll give it a try and check back in!
 
Oh! Henry said:
Thanks for your replies, I'm liking the Idea of using multiple mics and DI, there's bound to be at least one that gives me something useable I'll give the AT4040 a try and the SM57 wrapped in foam. I have 8 in's to work with!!!

Like I said, my room is not the ideal place to be recording the upright, but I did have it set up close to a corner which was heavily trapped. Would it be best to distance it from the walls and corner? I've never had heard of this technique but I'm wondering if I can run the piezo through my amp and use the tone of the amp + acoustic tone to fill the room and hopefully drown out some finger noise??? Hmmm, I think I'll give it a try and check back in!
Click to expand...

I would think the DI would reduce the finger noise (you may be removing something that is good, plus in the mix, it may be different), the close mic placement and the room mic placement could balance each other out.

One thing that might help is, middle room placement surrounded by room treatment close up to protect the playing area more than the room.

Just throwing ideas out. I can't say there is any science to back it up.
 
witzendoz said:
A huge amount depends on the room, the quality of the bass including the strings on it, and the player.
Click to expand...

Yes. It's difficult enough to record an excellent bass in a home sized space, and a mediocre plywood bass is even more problematic. If the room is small, the OP's best bet is to use two microphones, each close to the bass, with one to capture the slap and the other to pick up the fullness.

--Ethan
 
One person's meat is indeed another person's poison.
The real difficulty in answering your query is that no one is inside your head so it's impossible to know what you like and consider to be an acceptable double bass sound. Judging by your opening post, you seem to have a good understanding of what you're doing which actually complicates the issue further.
I think you're going to get excess finger noise no matter how you record, even DI, because it seems that is how whoever is playing the double bass you're recording plays.
So unless you try some extreme method like thin cotton or latex gloves on the fretting hand you or whoever plays may just have to modify the way you play while recording.
 
I agree that finger noise is going to be an issue, and actually I want some in the recording, just not so much. It's just that the bass sounds a certain way acoustically when played in my room (which I like), yet the recorded tone is sounding significantly different, which leads me to believe that mic placement (and lack of better recording space) is the first issue that needs to be resolved. I'm also looking into the possibility that another set of strings can yield better results, I feel like the tone may not be sitting well in the mix, but for now I'll experiment this weekend with some of the techniques that were suggested here.

thanks
 
I read quite a bit of Ethans' articles on room treatments and bass waves. I'm hoping I understood the science behind it properly, but would I be wrong in assuming that it would be best to play facing the wall so that the waves bouncing off the wall and back into the room will create a null in the bass frequencies behind me? Or is it best to face the long part of my room and let the treatments do their work?
 
I've been experimenting with this recently. The rooms I record in aren't treated but one of the ways I've recorded double bass is the simplest ~ just point an S M 5 8 at the double bass bridge from about 6 feet away, mounted about 5 feet high but pointing down. I also take off a lot of mid range going in {it's one of the few times on my DAW that I monkey about with EQ going in} because I find it really boomy or not so "woody". I do find that I get some finger noise that I don't like but I just change my fingering style to deal with it and it ceases to be a problem.
I had done a session with the double bass and my friend was later putting some drums on and as he listened to the piece, he said to me "is that a double bass ?" He knows me as a guitarist and bass guitarist. Initially, he thought it was a software double bass.
I was actually both pleased and pleasantly surprised !
 
well I experimented quite a bit yesterday, and the best and most usable tones came from the sm57 between the bridge legs aimed at the body for definition, and the AT4040 about 6 feet in front of the bridge aimed slightly at the bass side F hole for some nice low end. But I think the most important advice came from Ethan who suggested I get as far away from my walls as possible!!! I think that was why I was getting a muddy undefined tone.

Thanks for your help guys, I'll keep experimenting but at lest I'm much closer to the tone I was looking for. And as for string noise, I think first of all, the player (me) needs to do some serious woodsheding but also I may need to try some different strings.
 
Try a D112. That thing was designed for upright bass, although its used mostly on other instruments these days. I remember in college using that and got good results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top