Recording bass at home....

Best room to mic a bass is outside. Bass playing is honest labor.
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I can dig that. ;)

Why mic bass? Is it lack of DI, or really liking a certain amp sound?

I have decent results using little guitar amps (-30 watt) with line outs. Minus the crappy lil 6" or 8" inch speakers, they sound nice. Faux DI, available at pawn shops all over the universe. :cool:
 
Mic'd bass blended with DI bass is preferrable but not easy.
The best room is the deadest room - I record bass in a room that has carpet, heavy drapes, lots of overfull book shelves etc etc & still I could use bass traps in each corner & a cloud or two above.
Close and carefully mic'd is a beginning point but that'll depend on your amp, bass, strings, fingers/plectrum, FX etc etc.
Experiment!
I recently recorded bass through the preamp of my old 4 track cassette recorder then into my comp - worked pretty well too!.
 
I used to record my bass guitar (Precision) direct & dry, adjusting the Mic trim to keep it clean and less boomy.
Now, I record bass guitar through my Zoom G7 guitar processor ... clean with compression. And sometimes with a bit of distortion if I wanna rock out, depending on the song.
I have never found any Bass VST that did anything for me. I'm still open to finding one.

Seriously, in the mix, I mix the bass guitar a tad lower on purpose. Because when you bring up the volume, you don't want the bass to become too dominant. Especially, when so many people have sub-woofers today. My preference.
 
I go direct in my home studio, either straight into my Roland VS2000 or via my SansAmp Bass Driver DI or VT Bass pedal.

However, if I were to record an amp (guitar or bass) in my place, I'd try two things:

--I'd stick the amp in a coat closet, close mic it, and have a lot of coats and blankets hanging up in there and pillows and blankets on the top shelf. Then, if I need some 'room' sound, I'd add 'verb after the fact. Side benefit of this besides having control of the room sound is that it's not so loud for the neighbors :)

or (and this more likely for a guitar amp)

--I'd stick the amp in under the window, far end of the long bonus room over my garage. Then close mic and also set up another mic in the middle of the room. Pro of this is a potentially big sound. Con is the room mic will pick up noises outside the house, or in other parts of the house. Also, the amp will be louder.

But recording the amp in a closet would be my first and only real option if I were mic'ing up, then season to taste later.
 
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