bass mic

[grinder]

I've had two music stores try to sell me a sm-57 for micing a bass guitar cab.I was looking for a sm-52, but neither place had one.57s don't have a low enough freq. range for bass, do they?One store mentioned a shure pg-81 they have coming in.Would that be a good mic for my application?

 

[Rocket Boy]

ive had a 10x speaker miced with a 57 that sounded great. its cheap enough and can be used for lots of other things so maybe you should just go for it and see what it sounds like on your cab.

 

[grinder]

Was that a bass guitar speaker?

ive had a 10x speaker miced with a 57 that sounded great. its cheap enough and can be used for lots of other things so maybe you should just go for it and see what it sounds like on your cab.

 

[DJL]

I like the Sennheiser MD421 and sometimes the Rode NT3 on bass amps.

 

[darnold]

ive had good luck using my B3 on bass amp. Ive used it three times now and it has worked rather well. But i would really recommend that for live. Probably one of the better ones is MD421

Danny

 

[DJL]

I've never tried the B3 on a bass amp before... I'll have to barrow back one of the B3's I sold and give it a try someday. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Rocket Boy]

yeah. we use a 2x10 and a 1x15 cab's for bass. when we recorded with it, he miced the 10's with an sm57.

 

[grinder]

yeah. we use a 2x10 and a 1x15 cab's for bass. when we recorded with it, he miced the 10's with an sm57.

I'll try out the 57.I have one for guitars, it didn't really occur to me to try it on bass.I didn't think it would have a low enough frequency range.Anyone tried the shure pg-81?

 

[Rocket Boy]

40hz is pretty low. theres more to why people use large diaphram dynamics for bass instruments i just dont know. probably in the big microphone thread.

 

[chessrock]

the 57 does roll off a lot of the bass . . . usually starting around 200 hz.

It depends on the tpe of sound you're after. If you gotta' have those low lows, then you might want to go with something along the lines of a kick drum mic. I like to use a CAD M177 in those instances; it's linear all the way down to like 10 hz, which is rare, even for an expensive mic.

But what people usually use the 57 for is when combining a direct signal with an amped one. The direct track will give you plenty of the really low stuff, and it will usually handle that better than most amp/mic/room combinations that most of us have access to.

And for the mic'ed track, the extreme lows are usually rolled right off anyway. The idea is to have one track of the lows (direct) and another that's mostly low/mids (amp/mic), so you can sort of mix and balance the two to get the right combination instead of using EQ.

 

[Han]

My favorite bass amp mics, whether it's a 10", 15" or 18" speaker:
AKG D12E, C1000 (surprised?) C3000
Beyer M88, M201, M260
Sennheiser MD441 or 421
EV RE20
Neumann M149
MXL V69
SP B1

 

[jake-owa]

It's true Han, a C3000 will capture a bright or metallic bass sound very nicely. But my all time favorite is teh Senn MD421 at a foot or tow away from the speaker. It gets too muddy close up but with some airspace it is butter smooth.

 

[Innovations]

My gut reaction would be the beyer M88tg. Durable, good bass repsonse. The senn 421 with its five position bass switch is another.

 

[darnold]

Rocket Boy - The use of large dynamics on bass instruments probably has more to do with the fact that they are colored more than they pick up more bass. Not all large diaphragms will work because of their coloring but sometimes you can find one that works great.

DJL - when you try that out, let me know what you think. It can give you a pretty deep tone if thats what your looking for, but the one it worked best on was using it on a Jazz bass amp. Ive started to fall away from taking it DI. But that is probably because at the time i didnt have sufficient DIs to do a good job. The VTB-1 didnt work at all and i lost my Ampeg SVT Pro 3 with the 6x10" cab which i used to use for the direct out all the time with great results . But you could probably get best results using omni on the B3 while micing the bass amp because the proximity can really get in the way (which is kind of obvious).

Let me know what you think.

Danny

 

[DJL]

DJL - when you try that out, let me know what you think.

We tried it this afternoon... and IMO, the MD421 blew it away... but, thanks just the same.

 

[darnold]

Heh, yah theres no doubt in my mind the MD421 would have blown it away. At the time i didnt have access to an MD421. I should have mentioned it didnt do a bad job for the for the money that you pay for it, for the people who cant afford much else. But i definately do not expect it to stack up to other .

Danny

 

[DJL]

darnold, the B3 was pretty good... it just wasn't the sound we were looking for and I liked the MD421 better... but, we ended up using the U5 and going direct anyway.

 

[bgavin]

Consider an ATM25. They are optimized for kick drum and electric bass.

They are $139 shipped at Zzounds, and around $90 on eBay. I have acquired 3 of them from eBay, the last one this morning with a BIN at $45.