advice for recording bass

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ripingitar

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Bass player in my band "Seven Deadly Sins" has a gallien kreuger amp....
Were in the process of layin down drums and will be recording Bass soon..
Last time due to the lack of a better option i plugged the bass straight in the board and it was just o.k... now he has G K it has an XLR output ..Is that the best option to record? direct out ..Or mic ? or both ? Or should i Just get a POD ?? thanks jEFF
 
Recording bass direct is often acceptable, especially if you have a good DI. If the amp has a line out (not a speaker out), you can record that. It may also be a good idea to mic the cab in addition to the direct signal. That way, you have the option to blend the signals together for a fuller sound.
 
I use an mxr bass d.i....works great....but it's also all I have. :)
 
The line outs on Gallien Kruger amps are really good, so that's probably your best option. I got one of the best bass tones I've ever recorded from the line out on a G-K.
 
COOL I THINK ILL TRY THAT ! I MAY TRY ADDING A MIC ALSO ..I can experiment with the 2 in the mix ..what mic would be best ?? I have a 57 ..
oktava mc012 condenser ..and a sennheiser condenser .not sure what model ?
 
None of those are really optimal, but I'd try the 57 first and see what you get.
 
i'd say use the XLR out, just cause it's there...if it sounds good, hooray, if not, then oh well - don't use it in the mix.

then find a couple of mics to throw on the cab, and blend them with the DI signal. the 1st place to start would be a dynamic mic with an extended low-range...a 57 might get you by, but you'd probably be better with some sort of kick or tom appropriate mic. i also know of some people who will put a SDC on a bass cab directly next to the dynamic mic in order to pick up more of the attack, while the dynamic mic gets the boom
 
Direct, modeler, line-out -- in order of preference.

Recording bass acoustically is so problematic in the home studio that few recommend it, and relatively few pros do it either in real studios unless they have a big budget and lots of time to screw around. Bass frequencies are just a nightmare to control in a recording environment.
 
I have a tech21 sansamp bass di, and I love it. I record direct with that, and then mic a cab with the parrallel outs sent to a cab. Or you can reverse that - color the tone with some drive on the sansamp send that signal to an amp, mic that up, and send a clean bass through the parrallel out to your board.
 
I've used the Direct out on my bass players amp. It works fine and you really don't even need a DI box in conjunction with it, although you should pry use one to be safe.

Akg d112 Shure Beta 52, Senn MD421 all work well for getting the miced cab sound. I nice blend of the 2 works well for me. Although becareful cause I just did this and got some bad what sounded like ground hum on the amp and it was super annoying through the guidence of another board they advised me to send the DI recorded track through the miced amp and use that as long as it doesn't hum.

Oh and the Direct out on that GK was really pretty quiet, but use the -10db pad on the amp cause it'll be super hot otherwise.
 
i tried a d112 and audix d6 on a bass cab a few months back, and the d6 smoked the hell out of the d112...so much so that it made me get the audix over the akg
 
ripingitar said:
Bass player in my band "Seven Deadly Sins" has a gallien kreuger amp....
Were in the process of layin down drums and will be recording Bass soon..
Last time due to the lack of a better option i plugged the bass straight in the board and it was just o.k... now he has G K it has an XLR output ..Is that the best option to record? direct out ..Or mic ? or both ? Or should i Just get a POD ?? thanks jEFF
Click to expand...

I would use the direct out...THEN use a Yamaha Subkick!
It works great on Bass Cabs.
Use them together in your mix. Sometimes the Direct will be best, sometimes a bit more Subkick!
The Subkick can really get that LOW, deep bass....when you want that...BEWARE! It can really overdrive things (board, monitors, etc.) be careful.
 

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Yeah, or instead of paying $250 bucks to yamaha you can make your own....
 
killmachine said:
Yeah, or instead of paying $250 bucks to yamaha you can make your own....
Click to expand...

Sure, that goes for alot of stuff....but the stand and hardware are almost worth that...VERY solid...

$250 is pretty cheap...can't buy much of ANYTHING decent for $250, nowadays! :(
 
shit, i could probably find someone with a crappy old snare and stand for free right now

and now that i think of it, i have a couple of 6.5" pioneer car speakers sitting in my closet

hmmmm....
 
stand and hardware do go along ways, but so does $250. If your using it on a kick drums simply run a string around it so it uses the fork of the toms, or you could even take a cymbol stand and hang it on that. If you look in the right places ( can't think of it offhand ) there's plenty of schematics and directions on how to build one.
 
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