electric bass recording techniques

jimmys69 said:
I myself have had not such good results recording bass with a 15" speaker alone. Worst attempt ever was dual micing of an 18" and 15" biamped live rig someone brought in. That got thrown away and went with the direct signal alone.
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Yeah...I've had better results with a 15" for guitar than for a bass. :D
Live gigs are one thing...so maybe some cab combination that involves 15" and/or 18" speakers might be great for moving some air and getting that low end rumble to project through the room....but it may also end up like low end mush for recording.

For awhile I was keen on getting one of the holy grail bass amps for recording....the Ampegf B-15. One, because it just looks really cool, and two, becuase it's been used on countless recordings of the '60s/'70s, where they went for that fat-n-fluffy kind of bass, like on a lot of Motown records.
THen when I experimented with going DI for bass, and found the combination of the right DI and then also adding the flat-wounds to my long-scale bass....I just had no need for messing with cabs/mics for bass, as I do enough of that already for guitars, Hammond organ, pianos..etc. It's also nice that when I track bass, I don't need to wear headphones, and I can just listen to it right off the studio monitors, which lets dial it in quick-n-easy.
Also, as I already mentoined....the Waves Renaissance Bass plug is really adding the icing on the cake, as I can then take those DI tracks and dial in like 20 bass flavors real simple.

Nothing wrong with miking a bass cab....I've done that too, though often it was a combination of miked cab + DI track which provided the right tones and ability to dial them in so the bass sat well in the mix.
 
I have a Marshall Superbass MkII that runs into an ETONE 200w 15" (or possibly bigger - it seems HUGE).
It sounds great for guitar except it won't push into break up.
It's the model Murder one is based on.
I've recorded with the amp settings as per Lemmy's as well.
It works BUT needs to be brutally loud to get the whole of the sound happening.
That's more than rather loud if I may understate.
I can't do that often - nor do I want Lemmy's bass chords on anything but an occasional basis.
For me, as a matter of preference it's:
practise/rehearse until I can play the lines fairly consistently
my passive Vantage
into a Behringer BDI21 with BLEND cranked to max,
spilt the signal to AI &
amp which is mic'd with whatever I think works best that day &
into the AI.
Record both to separate tracks and
blend to achieve best available sonic option for the mix.

IF you decide to EQ the bottom end do it lightly, (unless there's always a REAL problem with the sound your bass delivers I suppose), bass is bottom end with some top end for definition or more top end for proggy, (Rickenbacker tone), stuff.
My fondest memories from seeing bands up close was the thud in the chest from kick drum and bass. I like to try for that.

If you can record what you need rather than tweak - you'll be a happier camper, (campier happer?).
Greg L records exactly what he needs and it fits into his mixes automatically.
I record almost what I need but sometimes do the little Mowtown thing to help it a little - but that's fairly subtle.
 
I used to plug the bass straight in compress heavily then EQ to taste. I got a lot of nice comments on the growl. Now I do the same thing except use the Ampeg VST plug from IK Media.

Straight into the interface>Ampeg plug> Fairchild plug> 1176 plug for the slammaroo> EQ to taste.

Nary an amp has been violated.
 
Greg_L said:
Yup a bunch of 10s sounds way better than one or a few 15s.
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I always mike one of the 10s on my cab, but I love the sound of the 2x10 + 1x18 in a room. I've almost always bi-amped this kind of setup live (with a few more speakers), but now that I'm just punting around I like the Peavey 1820s nice mellow sound and my Yamaha B100 runs alone without bi-amp, without all the Crowns, without all the extra 18s and 10s (sniff). Still get that nice growly, thumpy, kick you in the chest warm & fuzzy, but just don't get as much of it...I just keep telling myself, it's the sound that counts, not the volume. Maybe someday I'll believe that :)
 
Back to the OP - "plugging straight into soundcard" - is this an audio interface or the computer's OEM soundcard?

Also wondering about your miking and mixing techniques if you get a muddy sound when miking the bass amp.
 
I'm surprissed I've got som many replys! Thansk Every one :D
sorry for not writing anything here yet, even though I started the thread. I was out on the country side at my "summer house"/cottage where I couldn't use the internet over the weekend.

a couple of weeks ago I actually recorded bass in a studio with an engeneer. This event made some questions for me which is why I actually started this thread. If I'm correct he split my bass sound, DI one connection to the audio interface and send the other one to a miked up fender guitar amp, so that the mixer could blend the two sounds as he liked. Is it common to use a guitar amp to record bass? I've also heard a couple years ago that playing bass through a guitar amp could damage the amp, anyone know anything about that?

rayc said:
If you can record what you need rather than tweak - you'll be a happier camper, (campier happer?).
Greg L records exactly what he needs and it fits into his mixes automatically.
I record almost what I need but sometimes do the little Mowtown thing to help it a little - but that's fairly subtle.
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That's a really good way of seeing it. Thanks for tha wisdom :)

Guitargodgt said:
I prefer 10" drivers for bass almost 95% of the time.
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many here seems to be prefering 10" speakers over the larger för recording, is that because it gets too muddy and rumbly with a larger speaker?

mjbphotos said:
Back to the OP - "plugging straight into soundcard" - is this an audio interface or the computer's OEM soundcard?

Also wondering about your miking and mixing techniques if you get a muddy sound when miking the bass amp.
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I meant the external audio interface, sorry about the confusion.

I haven't experienced much problems with recording bass. I'm still pretty new with recording music so maybe later when I get better I might think the bass tracks are horrible, but right now I'm pretty satisfied. I should also add that my main instrument is Guitar, the bass is probably third on the list.
I've never tried to mic the bass amp because I don't really own the right equpiment to be able to get a sucessful result. I suppose the best for my current situation is to get the waves renaicansse bass plug in that some of the people here have been talking about.
 
captenfalco said:
Is it common to use a guitar amp to record bass? I've also heard that playing bass through a guitar amp could damage the amp, anyone know anything about that?
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I don't know if it's particularly common but I sometimes do this with a 15 watt Line 6 amp and I've managed to get sounds I like. I've never damaged a guitar amp this way. I have a crummy acoustic bass guitar as well and with flatwound strings and judicious use of the on board crappy EQ, going through the Line 6 with a touch of flange gets me a passable approximation of a fretless bass. It doesn't sound anywhere near as good through my bass amp. My 5 string Wesley sounds good via either.
Personally, I like the miked bass sound, the direct bass sound, the combination of mic and DI, the combination of mic, line out and DI, the bass out of a bass amp, the bass out of a guitar amp, the bass through the Behringer BDI21, the combination of DI and Behringer BDI21, the compressor on, no compression at all, miked with a '58, miked with a superlux bass drum mic, with fingers or with picks............the point being that there are a number of good bass tones {maybe not as many as a guitar but not far off either} and they can be achieved in a number of different ways. Like Jimmy pointed out earlier, it depends on so many variables. I like a variety of bass sounds as opposed to just one.
 
captenfalco said:
Is it common to use a guitar amp to record bass? I've also heard a couple years ago that playing bass through a guitar amp could damage the amp, anyone know anything about that?
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The amp doesn't care. A (tube) guitar amp will probably break up and overdrive more than you'd want for a bass sound, but the amp itself doesn't really know the difference. The speakers sure do though. Guitar speakers can quickly self-destruct if you run amplified bass frequencies through them.
 
I've managed to get a decent bass sound with a beat up, no name hand me down. I've also managed to get horrible sounds with a decent bass, amp and mic, and everything in between. Depending on your gear, different things can work, but it would help most if we could hear exactly what kinds of bass tones you're managing to record, because correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you mentioned anything more specific than 'I don't like the sound I'm getting, what works best between these 3 approaches'.
 
The issue of bas through a guitar amp is, as is the case with much to do with guitar amps, down to POWER!

If you have say a 30W amp with a 50/60 watt speaker in it, a V30 perhaps and you want to make about as much noise as other acoustic instruments such as guitar, piano, violin..Even drums if played in a genteel, "jazz" fashion with brushes, you will probably do no harm.
But as Greg said, if you push it, it will start to sound bad, especially on very low notes because the speaker is starting to protest but also the less than "hi fi" output transformer. "Clean and loud always demands more power. LOW loud and clean demands even more and REALLY low, loud and clean gets you into kW territory!

The same argument holds for "mismatching" speakers on a valve amp. 4R tap and 16R speaker is wrong but not much of a problem at sane, bedroom levels but gig it with a 50/100 watter and you will likely lose a valve or two and quite possibly the OP traff!

I wonder how many rich kids got grounded for a year for putting a Precision thru their Old Man's B&Ws?!! ( An LP would not wreck the woofers mind but would smoke dem tweeters a treat!)

Dave.
 
calimoose said:
I've managed to get a decent bass sound with a beat up, no name hand me down. I've also managed to get horrible sounds with a decent bass, amp and mic, and everything in between. Depending on your gear, different things can work, but it would help most if we could hear exactly what kinds of bass tones you're managing to record, because correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you mentioned anything more specific than 'I don't like the sound I'm getting, what works best between these 3 approaches'.
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I don't think I've mentioned anything about that i don't like the bass sounds that I get. My goal with this thread was more to learn other successful ways of recording bass. Honestly I'm embarresed to say that I somethimes just use the Logic pro 9 bass presets and that's what I want to get away from so that i can expand and get better at mixing and recording.
 
captenfalco said:
I don't think I've mentioned anything about that i don't like the bass sounds that I get. My goal with this thread was more to learn other successful ways of recording bass. Honestly I'm embarresed to say that I somethimes just use the Logic pro 9 bass presets and that's what I want to get away from so that i can expand and get better at mixing and recording.
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You're doing the right thing, I would work on honing your recording skills before learning more about mixing, just like you're doing, by working on getting as good a sound of possible for each individual track before working on getting them to all sit together nicely in the mix. Don't be embarrassed about using presets if you're still starting out. They give a good idea of what setups provide which sound, but more importantly, they offer an opportunity to readjust presets and see how each specific tweak affects your sound.

I'm not by any means a professional audio engineer nor am I the most experienced hobbyist, but at the very least I can get the bass sound that I want. So regarding which method I prefer, I usually go direct into my interface and (when necessary) add an amp simulator like Amplitube. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll browse through different presets that I know, then modify them if I need to. One feature I like to mess with are the different miking options on amplitube (you can simulate miking the cab with 1 or 2 mics, switch up how close/far/left/right they are, pick specifically which mike to use, etc). Then you can always add eq, compression, etc to taste. But with a decent enough interface and sufficiently powerful computer, honestly you can still get a great sound with a shitty bass, so I would try and experiment more with this approach if I were you, as others like miking up a cab will require you to have more gear, and likely, higher quality gear.
 
calimoose said:
honestly you can still get a great sound with a shitty bass, so I would try and experiment more with this approach if I were you, as others like miking up a cab will require you to have more gear, and likely, higher quality gear.
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Not necessarily. A bass, an amp and a mic really is sufficient. Anything beyond that is experimental {which of course can be progressive}. There are, as the thread has shown, plenty of ways to record bass and ultimately, preference rules but sometimes the simplest, most basic way is the most effective.
 
grimtraveller said:
Not necessarily. A bass, an amp and a mic really is sufficient. Anything beyond that is experimental {which of course can be progressive}. There are, as the thread has shown, plenty of ways to record bass and ultimately, preference rules but sometimes the simplest, most basic way is the most effective.
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I never said a bass, amp and mic is insufficient. What I said is the quality of sound is more dependent on quality equipment (among other things ie mic placement). Does that mean it's impossible to mic up a shitty bass, bargain mic and garage sale amp and still get a good sound? Of course not. Just that, from my experience, it's often easier to get a decent sound out of a shitty bass DI than miked up.

Regardless, captenfalco, as you know, there are several different techniques for recording bass, and everyone has their own preference. If you're not liking the DI sound you get with your gear, doesn't hurt to try miking up, or sending your amp's signal directly through your interface to your DAW. Above all, just keep experimenting and you will eventually find ways to record the bass tone that you're after. good luck
 
The big problem with trying to record bass in a typical in-or-under-treated home recording room is that the meat of the bass guitar is right in the frequency range where these rooms have the least consistent response. All those standing waves and room modes and bass holes cause a couple of problems when trying to track a bass.

Most important in my mind is the fact that you can't really be sure what the hell you've even recorded. Sit at the mix position and it's boomy until he plays that A which you can't hear at all, and then bottom falls out when he slides up the neck...

This is made worse if you're actually recording the amp with a microphone because you're not actually recording the amp, you're recording the room, and all those standing waves and room modes are going to fuck with you here too! The best you can do is move the amp and mic around until you find where it sounds best (or least worst, and yes this might involve moving furniture) through the studio monitors...but...

The right answer is to make sure that your room handles bass decently. Usually means all the bass traps you can afford. Doesn't matter if you're going DI or acoustic capture, it will be the best thing you could possibly do for your recorded bass tones.

I record my electric basses the same as my guitar - a buffered pedal (currently using my Boss DigiDelay in bypass) into the line input of my interface and then into PodFarm. I bought their bass pack, but I keep going back to the Rock Classic (SVT) which came with the basic package. I used to compress the crap out of all my bass guitars and struggle for consistency, but I haven't needed that lately. I think that is a function both of better accuracy in my monitoring and dynamic discipline that I seemed to have learned somewhere along the way.
 
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