How to mic acoustic bass?

[maxart414]

Help guys, my bass player is coming over tomorrow. He's got himself a pretty new upright acoustic and we want to play around with it. I've never recorded an acoustic bass before.

Need advice on equipment and mic placement / technique.

Mic pre options:

*Focusrite Red 6
*UA LA-610
* Grace 101
* Pres on a Mackie d8b

Mic options:

*CAD VSM tube mic
*BLUE Baby Bottle
*Sure SM7
*Sure SM-57
*Sure SM-58

Anyone with some experience with this - your thoughts are most appreciated!

-Maxart

 

[Han]

I hope this may be of any help to you, the third thread was started by me and helped me a lot.

 

[maxart414]

Thanks - and a question

Han - thanks for the link there.

One thing to add to my original post - we are a studio outfit, and the bass player has no problem playing in our isolation booth. A lot of the posts in those threads seem to be about getting the bass player live with the group. That's not our limitation....he will be playing in our iso booth - no problems with noise or bleed.

I see the SM7 come up a couple of times as a decent mic for acoustic bass. What do you think?

And also - of the mic-pres I posted previously, what would you recommend? When the player is using electric bass, it's about 50/50 between the Focusrite and the LA-610. What are your thoughts?

Thank you!

 

[Richard Monroe]

I've done double bass quite a bit with an AKG D112. People think of it as a "kick drum mic" but it was designed for double bass. Of your mics, the SM7 jumped out at me as the most probable mic of choice. If he's playing it with his fingers, rather than bowed, I just treat it as a big guitar. I place the mic where the neck meets the body and move it up and down until I get the sound I want. You can also angle the mic across the bridge, just like some people do with an acoustic guitar. I tend to steer clear of the F holes.-Richie

 

[maxart414]

Thanks Richie - I will take the first pass keeping it nice and simple with the SM7. If we keep with it I'll check into getting the AKG thing.

Do you have any recommendations on the mic pre to mate it with?

 

[Han]

In case you can record the upright in a booth or in an overdub, you don't have any problem. Keep enough distance, the upright is a very large violin and almost any decent LDC or SDC will do the job and so will the SM7. An old AKG D12(E) is a good upright mic as well.

The problems with recording upright is in a band in one room situation, it's one of the most difficult to record instruments. Even a grand piano is a lot easier to record under these cirumstances.

 

[Richard Monroe]

Thanks Richie - I will take the first pass keeping it nice and simple with the SM7. If we keep with it I'll check into getting the AKG thing.

Do you have any recommendations on the mic pre to mate it with?

Sure Maxart. As with every other recording ever done, the best one you can get your hands on! One thing's for sure- you won't need a bass cut (LOL). Oddly enough, though, a low pass filter can be useful if it's bowed, to reduce bow scratch. All joking aside, bass, whether electric, acoustic, standup, or a tuba, doesn't require a special preamp, just the best one you van afford, like any other recording. And just like an acoustic guitar, you can also record with a stereo pair of condensers, or you can blend the close mic with an ambient, or room mic, backed off a few feet. There is this difference, though- The wave lengths are very long, measured in feet. Where higher frequencies will be absorbed by soft stuff, or bounce off hard stuff and reflect, bass frequencies will often pass right through things that would absorb or reflect higher frequencies, and keep right on going. If the sound does reflect, though, such as from a brick wall or similar, the resulting phase distortion can be brutal. With one close mic, this should not be a problem, but if it sounds weird with one of the mics backed off, try reversing the phase on one of them. If that doesn't help, try moving the room mic around. And when you move it around, I don't mean a couple inches, more like a couple of feet. Best of luck-Richie

 

[89gtsleeper]

Here's my recomendation. However, before you try this I must say, if the bassist is not isolated from the rest of the instruments, this method is pretty much worthless unless you feel like mixing the entire song around the bass mics...

Anyway, take the 57 and wrap some foam, sponges, towels, around it. Also note, you should go ahead and have the cable plugged into the mic before you do this, as it will make the next step easier. Continuing... once you wrap it completely, only leaving the end of the mic uncovered, you should be able to wedge it vertically into the hole in the bridge of the bass so it faces up. This is a good mic to use because it won't pick up the sub low frequencies, and will pick up the string attack and wood of the body very well. Also, no matter how much the player moves around, you pick up a consistent signal so you won't have odd gaps in volume.

Then, use the baby bottle about two feet in front of the player. You may have to make a few adjustments in height for this mic to get the sound your looking for depending on the actual instrument itself and the style of music.

I would run the 57 through the 101 and the baby bottle through the Focsrite. Then, bus them to the 610! Also, on the 57, you might want to cut some of the lows out of it and let the condensor capture those.

 

[maxart414]

Thanks!

Thank you Han, Richie and 89GTSleeper....

I think as much as anything I just needed a little confidence in getting started and you guys have gave me that.

We ended up using the Baby Bottle, pointed directly on the neck about five inches above the f holes on the bass. Due to the fact the booth is relatively small we had huge bass build up. We had to really roll off the bass frequencies (using highpass filter on the Red 6 - which worked very well). We tried all sorts of combinations of mics and pres and this one was hands down the best. (Now, we didn't try any of 89GTSleeper's fancier tricks - which I might try next session since it sounds interesting). For a single mic we got plenty of low end and picked up enough of the high end finger noises and such to sound good.

On the desk we backed off the high end frequencies a bit.

By itself, this combination sounded a little thin. But when dropped into the rest of the mix (piano, drums, female vocals and acoustic guitar on a sort of film noir soundtrack thing) it sounded outstanding!

It took an hour and a half to dial in everything to sound nice.

The surprise of the day, though, turned out to be something else entirely. Our bass player has played for thirty years, and is quite polished. However, he's only picked up acoustic bass in the last six months, and so his technique is a bit of a work in progress. At his suggestion, he pointed at our little auto-tune unit and asked if we could try it on bass.

Wow! That little sucker really locked all the notes up. (Used in chromatic mode with a moderate speed setting). After several takes with the auto-tune on, he started getting much more confident that he was playing the right notes and then his timing got a lot better. A lot!

The bass player said the auto-tune was like training wheels - good to build confidence, but he wants to get good enough to play without it. In the meantime though - what a secret helper that's turned out to be. Used on *moderate* settings, it's a gem.

Thanks again guys for the tips - I'm going to try 89GTSleeper's suggestions on the next session (because that tip comes right from some very specific experience he's had obviously!).

I really appreciate this board guys!

Maxart

 

[darrin_h2000]

This is a situation where experimentation is a good idea...Ive seen them miced before...and the engineer used a SP B1...it seemed to be a pretty good choice...he was going through an SSL preamp.

 

[Han]

Here's my recomendation. However, before you try this I must say, if the bassist is not isolated from the rest of the instruments, this method is pretty much worthless unless you feel like mixing the entire song around the bass mics...

Anyway, take the 57 and wrap some foam, sponges, towels, around it. Also note, you should go ahead and have the cable plugged into the mic before you do this, as it will make the next step easier. Continuing... once you wrap it completely, only leaving the end of the mic uncovered, you should be able to wedge it vertically into the hole in the bridge of the bass so it faces up. This is a good mic to use because it won't pick up the sub low frequencies, and will pick up the string attack and wood of the body very well. Also, no matter how much the player moves around, you pick up a consistent signal so you won't have odd gaps in volume.

Then, use the baby bottle about two feet in front of the player. You may have to make a few adjustments in height for this mic to get the sound your looking for depending on the actual instrument itself and the style of music.

I would run the 57 through the 101 and the baby bottle through the Focsrite. Then, bus them to the 610! Also, on the 57, you might want to cut some of the lows out of it and let the condensor capture those.

It's not my intention to spoil any fun, but the 57 in the bridge must be the worst bass sound I have ever heard. Nothing wrong with the 57, but in this application it's really bad. But don't worry, the Sennheiser MD441 sounds very bad as well in this application.

I did quite some research, which you can find here.

 

[gecko zzed]

I've mentioned in earlier threads about miking upright bass that I got some surprising results in miking the bass with, of all things, a Behringer C2.

I had tried a number of mikes, none of which were making me glow with satisfaction. In desperation I threw a C2 on the bass . . . and really liked what I heard.

I know that the C2 is not in your arsenal of mikes . . . but . . . sometimes a budget mike does just fine!

Here is a 60 second, 1 meg sample:

http://www.box.net/shared/uim1h825c4

The performers are:
Matthew Ives - kit
Hamish Stevenson - double bass
Alex Howroyd - Sax
Lachlan Court - keys

The track is "Something in Five", written by Matthew.

 

[darrin_h2000]

In this situation when it is sitting in the mix you should distance mic this with a LDC...and it should be close miced with a SDC at the bridge and a LDC from a few feet away if it is a a solo instrument.

 

[89gtsleeper]

Yes, by itself the 57 sounds like crap, but can give a good balance when used with the condensor.

 

[89gtsleeper]

Thank you Han, Richie and 89GTSleeper....
We tried all sorts of combinations of mics and pres and this one was hands down the best.

Good job. I mean that sincerely. You've already done more than 95% of the home recordists out there that are starting out. Starting with a better sound will only help you get a better sound in the end, and make your job a hell of a lot easier.

By itself, this combination sounded a little thin. But when dropped into the rest of the mix (piano, drums, female vocals and acoustic guitar on a sort of film noir soundtrack thing) it sounded outstanding!

And that's all that matters. Good that you understand that. Would love to hear the mix.