I've heard many people track bass direct. Do you?
If you do, do you use any plugins?
Sometimes I track bass direct. I don't use plug ins, I just plug
straight into the input in my DAW. The sound that the Akai DPS12i brings forth after the bass has been DI'd is a lovely thick, creamy one. But I think different machines bring out different sounds. Whenever I used to DI on my Tascam 488 portastudio, the sound was never good. I used to have to DI from my amp to get good tones. Presently, if I go DI from my current amp, I get a very particular sound which is only good for certain songs. It's a very "woody" kind of tone.
I stick a mic in front of it.
I don't go for just one bass sound, I go for a variety, some with fingers, some with metal pick, thimble or plastic picks.
If I'm going to just mic the amp, I'll literally stick a mic in front of it, usually about a foot or so away. Where I point the mic {centrally, to the edge, at the top...} is determined by the whim of the moment. Sometimes, I'll have the mic on a stand pointing down towards the amp from maybe three or four feet.
On other occasions, I'll use a guitar amp, miked in the same way as those mentioned above.
I said that I don't use plug ins but on occasion, I will use the Behringer BD 121 which is their equivalent of
a sansamp. It's actually pretty good. Sometimes I'll mix it on fuzzy setting with other bass sounds.
One thing I hit on when I went digital and was looking to carry on the experimentation of my analog period was to record simultaneously from 3 sources. I have a Palmer splitter box so I plug the bass into it and feed one output to the amp and mic that. The other output goes straight into the DAW. On top of that, I run the line out of the amp into the DAW for some extra growl so there are 3 signals recorded then I bounce them to one track, blending and EQ~ing along the way.
All of that is with my regular 5 string bass. I also have a fretless
acoustic bass guitar. It really is below the bottom of the range. I bought it in the back of a shop that sells beds ! It used to have a ridiculously naff sound but I put smooth strings on it and with some manipulation of the very basic EQ on it, plugged into the guitar amp, with a little
chorus on, I can get a reasonable 'grim approximation' of a fretless bass. I tend to record it same way, with a mic in front of the amp. I rarely, if ever, go right up to the grill in any of the configurations I use.
As far as mikes go, I often use
the SM 58 on the bass amp. Partly because I have one, partly because they're meant to be "bass proximity" lovers. I also use the bass drum mics from my drum mic set {I have a set by Behringer and one by Superlux} sometimes. They all do the job.
I'm not asking what's best. I'm asking what you prefer and why.
It's all a bit random, educated guesses mixed in with a little familiarity and a little less knowledge. The kind of bass sound I'll go for is dependent on the type of song. I'm not going to use the fuzz of the BD121 blended with the guitar amp sound played with thimbles on a soft~ish, relatively quiet song, for instance.
