Recording down tuned bass?

Talldog

Talldog

Pain in the ass
Hey all. I'm having a bitch of a time getting a good sound on bass for a metal band that uses an A flat tuning. It is an active yamaha bass. I have a passive DI box and an active DI box, an SWR amp and multiple mics (which I admit I haven't tried yet) and an Amek Tac board with Langley pres. Any Ideas?
 
So what have you tried? Like anything else, you gotta get a good sound to begin with. I've never tried recording a bass tuned that low, but I can't imagine the DI sound being any good. I'm guessing it probably sounds like a wet fart?
 
Wet fart is about right. Thanks for the analogy. Being a bassist myself I've usually had good luck with an active DI and a passive bass. I've tried both kinds of DI that I have. I have a pretty nice mic locker so I'll give that a shot next. The eqing is going to be funky since the guitars are down tuned and taking up sonic space that I would normally use for some bass frequencies.
 
Talldog said:
5 string.
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ok so you're only tuned down 1 1/2 steps? That's not too bad.

Since the gits are gonna be taking up bass space you'll want to go the other way with the bass somewhat and EQ it to get more of the mids and especially upper mids coming thru.
 
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If it's a 5 string and the tuning is A flat, hasn't it gone down 3 semitones ? I'm a bit shaky on that one !
 
grimtraveller said:
If it's a 5 string and the tuning is A flat, hasn't it gone down 3 semitones ? I'm a bit shaky on that one !
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no you're right ..... my bad ....... brain wasn't working yet!
But that's still not too bad as compared to tuning a 4 string down that far.
Holy crap ..... the gits are tuned down 7 semi-tones! :eek:
 
I wonder if its just the 5 string bass thats tuned to this A-flat..ie: the normal B string down 3 semi-tones. Perhaps the guitars are only down a half step making the open A position the A-flat.....
 
Depending on what roll the bass plays in the arrangement, there are a couple choices.


1. mic the amp and hope that it gives you some sort of distortion and/or compression that smooths everything out to give you a solid low end bed no matter what he is actually playing.

2. give the bass more midrange in the 300-800hz area to get it to growl through the sludgey guitars and give some definition to the part he is playing. Distortion is probably your friend here as well, again depending on what purpose the bass actually serves in the song.
 
Yeah. Its pretty low for guitars but it actually sounds good. Extra thick strings though. New battery in bass. Not sure about the strings. Just fyi, I'm all analog (Otari 16 track) so I don't have the eq flexibility of a program.
 
If you are going down 1 1/2 steps you need a very heavy gauge string on the bass. As a bass player and a recording engineer I hate extremely de-tuned bass you may as well play it on a keyboard. You would have thought that a low B is low enough for anything and even on cheap 5 string basses the B sounds like crap. You need to have a discussion with the bass player about set up and sound.

I can understand if the bass is a 4 string and you want to tune it to say a D tuning, but again it needs a heavier gauge string to keep the tension right or the string just flaps around. Just for the record I have one of my basses (Fretless) fitted with a hip shot D-tuner that can de tune the E string to a D in an instant, it is used when the guitar player is playing a Dobro tuned in D.

Alan.
 
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