Recording Bass

S

stainlessbrown

New member
I've always operated/been so influenced/lectured/taught that DI bass was best.

among the arguments was the length of a room to fully capture the low freq (32') and vibration artifacts, etc.

A friend has loaned me his SVR and a David Eden for a project. My room is small (max from amp 20')

Suggestions on micing? I have an assortment of dynamic and condensers (not top $ but decent)

Thanks

Stainless
Sacramento
 
How many tracks do you have available?

Run a di into a channel, record the strings on the bass(that's right, where the neck meets the body), and throw a mic or two on it.

Blend them and bounce them down to one track after you find the right blend.
 
Above me is correct and a well respected method.
An alternative is to set up 2 mic's on the best speaker cone. One condenser and one dynamic, both starting in the middle and pointing at the opposing halfway points between center and outside edge of cone. The distance back should be the point where most sound energy is. Find this by having someone play the amp and moving the back of your wrist in and out on the speaker untill you feel the hairs of your arm reacting the most. Sounds crazy but trust me, it works. If you choose to run a DI as well then try and get it through a tube preamp to add some bite.
 
Cool replies... (Subscribing to thread)...

P.S. Anyone here ever try miking the back of the amp?
 
I would think it would depend on the amp. Micing the back of an open backed bass amp would be kinda cool I think, but I wouldn't think a solid back amp would get anything usable.

Personally, I'm a fan of the mic (1 or 2 mics) the amp and line out to a preamp/DI and record 2 or 3 tracks and blend them together. If using 3 tracks I'll keep the DI track center, mic 1 hard left mic 2 hard right and maybe throw a small bit of delay and reverb on them (different settings on each)
 
something I like to do to get a full bass sound for bass driven music is to puit a 57 (surprise!) and a good kick drum mic close to the cabinet, Run Direct and add a condeser about 2-3 feet away, then rock the f*ck out.

another method, would be if you had 2 cabinets, put the cabinets at 90 degree angles facing eachother, put a 57 (holy crap!) up to each one, a kick mic in the middle, throw a canvas tarp over the whole thing making a tent and add a condenser about 7-12 inches from the tarp, so the cabinets are both facing the condenser. then run DI from the head and go nutz. this is the technique primus used to record 'pork soda' and 'anti-pop' if you want to know what it sounds like when mixed well.
 
what do you have available mic wise? i've been using a 4047 and a 421 and picking one.

i'm never in a good room and rarely prefer DI...though the sans amp DI has been kinda rocking for certain things.

Mike
 
stainlessbrown said:
...among the arguments was the length of a room to fully capture the low freq (32') and vibration artifacts, etc.

A friend has loaned me his SVR and a David Eden for a project. My room is small (max from amp 20')
Click to expand...
Would this be in the context of recording the room's effect? If you were close micing the cab it would it matter?
Wayne
(Sacramento too :D
 
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