I need some advise for my bass tracks

[RetroMan]

I was wondering if I could call on the fellow home recording engineers here for some advice about recording the bass guitar and I'm looking for the best possible sound from my options of setup.
*whisper* I'm a little bias about the bass sound (being a fanatical bass player myself!)

I'm using a BEHRINGER EURORACK 8 track desk (for pre-amping, adding effects, compression) and then into Cakewalk on my PC.

what I want to do is record two simultaneous tracks with the first track being my bass signal going direct into the desk via a DI (for solid definition) and for the second track, mic up my Cabinet (for depth, body and ambience) and blend both tracks together in the mix.

I was wondering, on the direct input track, is it really necessary to go into a DI box and then the desk? am I able to go straight into the desk, bi-passing the box completely or will this be noisy due to the absence of ground lift?

The equipment I'll be using is a Ltd Edition Musicman Stingray bass and an Ampeg SVT Classic 8X10 stack.

Some more advice I would like is what would be the best mic to use on my cab out of the mics I have:

Shure SM58 & SM57
Shure BETA58
Sennheiser MD441-U

Thanks for your help, all advise is greatly accepted as I'm a total newbe to recording and It's a cert that I'll be spending a lot of time here gaining information from others

 

[chessrock]

Yea, you can go direct in to your board.

As for the mics, I'd probably go with the Senheiser, but try 'em all out and see what you like best.

 

[RetroMan]

Yea, you can go direct in to your board

That's great news because the sound that my Stingray dishes out by going direct into the desk just blows me away
I heard Mike Inez (Alice In Chains/Ozzy) talking about his Spector basses and how they allow him to go straight into the desk, so I knew it could be done, I guess it not a common practice though.

 

[Shailat]

Yea, you can go direct in to your board.

Thats true but not in all cases.
It can be better to go direct to line input to eliminate the extra nosie induced by the DI (unless its part of yor sound like an active DI etc...) however not all basses produce a strong signal.
A lot of the stock pickups tend to be weak and sometimes going into a +4dBm mixer line input, will not produce sufficent sound.

Its all a trial and test zone.

 

[christiaan]

I have a MX602A and a bass with active pickups and used to plug it in directly. Later I understood it was common to plug a DI in between for better impedance matching blah blah so I got one (A Behringer DI-100). The character of the sound is basically the same but the big advantage is that I don't have to crack up the gain on the mixer. Less noise, especially the noise induced by nearby the computer screen and tv seems to be less.

 

[darwin]

Are you going to be tracking the bass while you are tracking other instruments? If so, do you have good isolation between those instruments?

 

[RetroMan]

Are you going to be tracking the bass while you are tracking other instruments? If so, do you have good isolation between those instruments?

I'm recording in stages - I've got the drum tracks and rhythm tracks all down, so I'm going to be doing the bass next using the 2 track method I mentioned before. There aren't any other instruments being recorded while I do this.

Christiaan said
Later I understood it was common to plug a DI in between for better impedance matching blah blah so I got one (A Behringer DI-100).

Christiaan, did you record a simultaneous track with your amp miked or where you happy with just recording direct?

I think I'll try a DI as well and compare it I guess it's just what Shailat said "a trial and test zone' . That's part of the whole fun of home recording I think

 

[christiaan]

Christiaan, did you record a simultaneous track with your amp miked or where you happy with just recording direct?

I do it all direct. Since I blew up my Trace Elliot during a soundcheck I don't even have a proper (working) amp in the house. I don't miss it though. Going direct does it for me, especially since I bought a Meek pre. The Behringer is now solely used for monitoring but I do plug my bass in it every now and then, just for practicing. Then it is convenient to have the volume control of the cdplayer and the bass on one little board.

 

[RetroMan]

Going direct does it for me, especially since I bought a Meek pre. The Behringer is now solely used for monitoring but I do plug my bass in it every now and then, just for practicing. Then it is convenient to have the volume control of the cdplayer and the bass on one little board.

I might see what it sounds like just going direct then - my MusicMan can cut a mean sound using the onboard eq so I'll try that first, besides it's going to save me setting up my amp & cab

I also use my Behringer for practicing, it's a great little unit for that, and I can safely say that my neighbors would totally agree with me there! ha ha